+4:3 AL-QAIDA STRONGHOLD RETAKEN BY ARMY

(14 Jun 2012) Airstrikes and clashes intensified in southern Yemen on Wednesday as army troops followed major victories with more pressure on al-Qaida militants holding small towns, according to tribal and military officials. At least 17 al-Qaida militants were killed in the latest phase of Yemen's offensive, military officials said. The attacks came a day after Yemeni forces regained control of two major al-Qaida strongholds, Jaar and Zinjibar, which were in the hands of the militants for more than a year. A month-long Yemeni government push in the south, aided by US military advisers and bankrolled by neighbouring Saudi Arabia, succeeded in driving the militants from two towns. Images from within Zinjibar on Wednesday show a bleak landscape littered with debris with a heavy military presence on show. Armed men stood amongst the rubble with assault rifles shouldered. Yemeni military vehicles now guard the local government offices that had been used by militants as a command post. The US considers al-Qaida's Yemen branch to be the terror network's most dangerous offshoot. The group took advantage of a security vacuum last year during a popular uprising against Yemen's longtime leader, Ali Abdullah Saleh, to seize swaths of territory in the strategic south. That raised fears it could use the area as a foothold to launch more attacks on US targets. Yemen's al-Qaida offshoot, known as the al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula, has been blamed for directing a string of unsuccessful bomb plots on US soil from its hideouts. After Tuesday's military defeat, al-Qaida remains in control of a handful of towns, and hundreds of its members are scattered in the mountains, valleys and vast desert of the Arab world's most impoverished country. The success capped weeks of fighting after Yemen's new president, Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi, pledged to uproot al-Qaida from the south with help from the United States as part of renewed cooperation following the resignation of Saleh earlier this year. With the capture of Jaar and Zinjibar, a senior officer said Yemen's new leadership now has to deal with another front in its war against al-Qaida: sleeper cells that could suddenly attack anywhere. Brigadier General Mohammed al-Sawmali said Tuesday's successes ended al-Qaida's hopes to establish Islamic rule in the south, but not its presence in the country. Find out more about AP Archive: http://www.aparchive.com/HowWeWork Twitter:   / ap_archive   Facebook:   / aparchives   ​​ Instagram:   / apnews   You can license this story through AP Archive: http://www.aparchive.com/metadata/you...