DTN News - YEMEN DEFENSE NEWS: Yemeni Air force Bombs al-Qaida-Held City....NSI News Source Info # 2019(NSI News Source Info) SANAA/TAIZ, Yemen - May 30, 2011: The Yemeni air force bombed an al-Qaida-held southern city on Monday while residents in another city said soldiers had opened fire on a demonstration and run protesters over with bulldozers, killing at least 15.
There were flashpoints across civil-war-threatened Yemen including six soldiers being killed in what appeared to be an ambush near Zinjibar, a coastal city taken over a few days ago by Islamist and al-Qaida militants.
Residents there said jet fighters later strafed militants with bombs but also hit buildings in the town of about 20,000. At least 13 have been killed in the bombing and artillery shelling, residents said.
"The city is devastated. All of its residents have left. Even the dogs, animals and donkeys have abandoned it," said an opposition member in the city who asked to be named as Ali.
Global powers are worried Yemen, near financial collapse and home to al-Qaida militants, could turn into a failed state sitting along a vital sea lane for global oil supplies and adjacent to Saudi Arabia, the world's biggest oil exporter.
Opposition leaders have accused Saleh of allowing the city of Zinjibar, on the Gulf of Aden, to fall to al-Qaida and Islamist militants in order to raise alarm in the region that would in turn translate into support for the president.
