Bombing raids on Bayda and Jaar include targeting of militant base south of capital
At least 45 militants linked to al-Qaida, including a number of tribal leaders, have been killed by air strikes in south Yemen.
Twenty-five militants were killed in Bayda, about 166 miles south-east of the capital, Sana'a, on Friday, while 20 died at a base in the restive southern town of Jaar, residents told Reuters on Saturday.
Jaar, the second-largest town in Abyan province, was seized by militants last March as protests against the former president, Ali Abdullah Saleh, gripped the country.
Residents of Bayda said fighter planes had raided the western outskirts of the town where Ansar al-Sharia (Partisans of Islamic Law) militants – who have been fighting Yemen's security forces since mid-2011 – were based. "Flames and smoke could be seen rising from the area," one Bayda resident said.
Ansar al-Sharia is inspired by al-Qaida, but the precise nature of its ties to the global network are unclear. The Yemeni government claims they are one and the same.
Al-Arabiya television reported that Friday's raid in Bayda was believed to have been carried out by US planes.
In a separate incident, a local security official said two al-Qaida militants were killed on Friday as they tried to set off a bomb at a security checkpoint at an entry point to the town of Mudiyah, in Abyan.
Working with the Yemeni authorities, the US has repeatedly used drones to attack militants from al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula.
The UN refugee agency, UNHCR, warned that Yemen was facing a new wave of internal displacement as tens of thousands of civilians flee tribal clashes in the north and fighting between the government and militants in the south.
It said that, in the past two weeks alone, 1,800 people had been displaced by the latest escalation in fighting between government troops and militants in the Abyan governorate.