At least 16 prisoners are at large after tunnelling under a wall in the jail in Aden, officials say
At least 16 prisoners, including members of al-Qaida, have escaped from a prison in the southern Yemeni city of Aden, officials say.
A security official in the south of the country, where Islamist fighters have seized chunks of an entire province, said detainees fled by digging a tunnel leading beyond the prison's walls. Sixteen were at large, another local official said.
It was the second major jailbreak involving al-Qaida members since June, when dozens escaped from a jail in another city, Mukalla.
Nearly a year of protests demanding the deposition of the Yemeni president, Ali Abdullah Saleh, punctuated by bouts of fighting between his forces and tribesmen and military units who oppose him, have seen Islamists gain power in the south.
Deteriorating security in the area, where parts of the Abyan province are under the control of Islamist fighters, have fanned fears in Saudi Arabia and Washington – which long backed Saleh in his campaign against al-Qaida – that the Yemeni branch of the group may gain a foothold near key oil shipping routes.
Al-Qaida members, including one convicted over a 2002 attack on the French-flagged oil tanker Limburg off Yemen, escaped from a jail in the capital Sana'a in 2006, helping to revive the group in the country after Saudi security forces weakened it.
Saleh's foes have accused him of deliberately letting Islamists in the south grow stronger to reinforce his argument that his rule alone can prevent the country sliding into chaos that would empower al-Qaida, whose Yemeni wing has planned abortive attacks on US and other targets.