Yemeni jihadists seize hospitals following drone strikes

Al-Qaeda extremists have seized control of hospitals in southern Yemen to treat comrades wounded in a wave of drone strikes last weekend, according to media reports. 

The joint US-Yemen missions reportedly killed up to 70 people, including key members of al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP).

Following the assault, groups of armed men and wounded reportedly stormed the Azzan hospital and two nearby medical centres in the Shabwa province.

“They forced us out of the centres along with other members of staff and brought in their wounded,” a doctor at a medical centre in the town of Al Saeed told AFP.

After the raids, militants arrived with casualties in pick-up trucks, accompanied by “several doctors, including Arabs and foreigners”, he said.

AQAP remains active in southern and eastern Yemen, despite successive military operations against it.

The UN envoy to Yemen Jamal Benomar told reporters on Thursday that al-Qaeda "remains a very real and lethal threat" in Yemen.

The embattled government is currently facing down threats on multiple fronts, with a separatist movement also snapping at its heels. There was fresh hope of a deal on Thursday, however, as a new initiative was announced which might see rebels’ “disarmament, demobilization and reintegration".

Benomar now said Yemen's political transition "has moved to the next stage" and that a draft constitution will be finalised in coming months.

The Shiite Houthis led a six-year insurgency in the north that officially ended in 2010, but a recent escalation in fighting with ultraconservative Sunni tribesmen turned several northern cities into warzones.

But protests still threaten to rock the country, with mass rallies planned for Sunday. According to activists, the Million-Strong Rally for Southern Identity will be held in the oil-rich eastern province of Hadramawt, in an attempt to unify southern opposition against the capital, Sanaa.

The annual rally, now in its third year, is designed to commemorate the outbreak of hostilities that broke out in 1994 and resulted in the six-year insurgency.