Militant ambush in Yemen kills 6 soldiers

Gunmen suspected of belonging to al-Qaeda in the Arabian Pensinsula killed six soldiers in the southern Yemeni province of Abyan on Sunday, a military official said.

"Gunmen belonging to al-Qaeda ambushed an army vehicle" on a main road outside Mahfad, shooting dead all of the soldiers on board, the official said.

The assailants then took the soldiers' weapons and fled, the official added.

Militants from al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) were also blamed for an attack late Friday at the opposite end of the country, in which security officials were killed on both sides of the Yemeni-Saudi border.

According to the Saudi Ministry of Interior, six assailants attacked the Wadia border post on Saudi Arabia’s southern border with Yemen.

Two fleeing suspects then sought refuge in a Saudi Arabian police intelligence building in the southern town of Sharurah. Early Saturday, they blew themselves up following fierce fighting with security forces who had surrounded the building, according to Saudi state media reports.

The latest attacks comes on the back of a large-scale ground offensive launched by the Yemeni army in late April, which aims to combat “terrorists” in the neighbouring southern provinces of Shabwa and Abyan.

A previous sweep in 2012 failed to root out militants from smaller towns and villages in the two provinces.

According to an AFP tally compiled from official and other sources, 374 personnel from the Yemeni army have been killed during the latest campaign in Shabwa and Abyan.