ADEN/SANAA, June 11, (Agencies): Yemen said its army killed 21 al-Qaeda members on Saturday in a southern province where the main city has been seized by Islamist militants during the chaos of the country’s bloody political crisis.
Nine Yemeni soldiers were also killed in the fighting in Abyan province, whose capital Zinjibar fell to the militants last month, triggering fighting that sent many of its population fleeing.
President Ali Abdullah Saleh’s opponents have accused him of handing over Zinjibar to Islamists to reinforce his threat that the end of his three-decade rule, as demanded by protesters, would amount to ceding the region to al-Qaeda militants.
The leader has not appeared in public since an attack on his palace eight days ago which left him with injuries that forced him to undergo surgery in Saudi Arabia, although Yemen’s ambassador to Britain said on Saturday he was recovering and in a “stable condition”.
“He’s in his wing in the hospital, no longer in intensive care. He’s conscious and talking,” Ambassador Abdulla Ali al-Radhi told Reuters.
Saleh has withstood nearly six months of protests and multiple diplomatic attempts to ease him out — all but paralysing Yemen and threatening even greater violence.
Saleh is in a stable condition and recovering from injuries suffered in an attack on his palace, the country’s ambassador in London said on Saturday.
“He’s in stable condition and recovering,” Abdulla Ali al-Radhi, Yemen’s ambassador to Britain, told Reuters. “He’s in his wing in the hospital, no longer in intensive care. He’s conscious and talking.”
Medical sources in Saudi Arabia, where Saleh underwent surgery after suffering burns and shrapnel injuries in the attack eight days ago, and Yemeni officials said on Saturday two other officials wounded along with Saleh had been taken for more surgery.
The condition of Prime Minister Ali Mohammed Megawar and another cabinet member, they said, was “serious”.

Syria
Harrowing eyewitness accounts mounted on Saturday after Syrian forces backed by helicopter gunships killed at least 25 protesters, prompting the US to toughen its stance on President Bashar al-Assad.
As the turmoil neared the three-month mark, the international outcry grew over Assad’s use of deadly force against his own people, with protests planned in more than a dozen world cities including Montreal, New York and Paris.
An estimated 3,000 mourners on Saturday filed through the coastal city of Latakia for the funeral of one of at least nine protesters shot dead by security forces the day before, activists said.
The mourners chanted slogans praising the “martyrs,” an activist who was present said.
Around the country, 25 people were killed on Friday, including three in the Qabun district of Damascus, after protesters took to the streets after the main weekly Muslim prayers, activists said.
Fridays have become a rallying point in the revolt against Assad’s regime, whose backlash on pro-democracy protests that erupted in mid-March has killed more than 1,200 civilians, rights groups say.
The death toll mounted as detailed accounts emerged from some of the thousands of refugees who fled to Turkey from bloodshed in the northwestern town of Jisr al-Shughur.
Rami Abdel Rahman, head of the London-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, reported that helicopters flying over the town of Maaret al-Numan, near Jisr al-Shughur, had fired on a police station which protesters had seized.
State television reported that “armed terrorists” had opened fire there, killing and wounding members of the police and security forces.
Syrian troops used tanks to attack a village in the north of the country, the BBC reported on Saturday, citing a witness who had fled across the border to Turkey from a neighbouring village.
The use of tanks would mark a further escalation in the violence used by Syrian troops to quell protests against President Bashar al-Assad, and follows reports on Friday from activists that helicopter gunships had been used to disperse crowds for the first time.
The BBC’s witness said he came from a hillside village 4 km from the northern town of Jisr al-Shughour, and that at around 6 a.m. on Friday he saw 40 tanks enter a village lower down the valley, surrounded by soldiers holding guns.
People were killed, and soldiers burnt crops of wheat and ripped up olive groves afterwards, the witness said.
After the attack he said he left his village with his family and moved to the Turkish border.
Thousands of Syrians have escaped to Turkey in recent days to avoid the crackdown on protests. Syrian authorities have said 120 troops were killed in Jisr al-Shughour earlier this week.
Syrian soldiers and police officers who deserted rather than fire on protesters in a restive northern city remained behind to fight against an expected all-out government assault, a resident said. Troops loyal to the regime came under sniper fire Saturday as they approached.
Tanks and thousands of forces sealed the roads leading to the mostly deserted town of Jisr al-Shughour in response to what the government claims were attacks by “armed groups” that killed more than 120 officers and security personnel last week. Refugees reaching Turkey said the chaos erupted as government forces and police mutinied and joined the local population.
More than 4,000 Syrians have fled to Turkey to escape a crackdown on protests against President Bashar al-Assad and thousands more are sheltering near the border, officials and activists said on Saturday.
Fearing revenge from security forces for clashes in which authorities said 120 troops were killed this week, the refugees streamed out of the northern town of Jisr al-Shughour ahead of a military operation launched by the army there on Friday.
A senior Turkish diplomat said 4,300 Syrians had crossed the border and that Turkey was prepared for a further influx, though he declined to predict how many might come.
“Turkey welcomed a great many number of guests in the past in their times of most dire need. We can do that again,” Foreign Ministry Deputy Undersecretary Halit Cevik was quoted as saying by state-run Anatolian news agency.

Bahrain
Thousands of Bahrainis attended a rally for political reform on Saturday in the Gulf Arab state that crushed a pro-democracy protest movement in March.
Bahrain, where the Sunni Al-Khalifa family rules over a majority Shiite population, has accused activists of being sectarian and backed by Shiite power Iran. The opposition deny both charges.
Bahrain brought in Saudi and United Arab Emirates troops in March and introduced martial law, which ended last week, to help end the protests.
“Some try to manipulate our demands, to make them Shiite demands. This is not true. We are not calling for an Iran, but to build up our political reforms together, Shiite and Sunni, which will benefit all Bahrainis,” said Sheikh Ali Salman, head of the opposition group which organised the event.
“We will continue peacefully and we will continue our peaceful demonstratrations,” he said, as the crowd responded shouting “peaceful, peaceful!”
The protest was announced in advance but did not receive government permission, opposition supporters said. It was held in the Shiite district of Saar, west of the capital.
Police did not stop up to 10,000 people who came to the rally, many in cars, said a Reuters witness. Helicopters buzzed overhead.
Bahrain appointed its parliament speaker to lead a national dialogue after a crackdown on democracy protests, the state news agency said, but the opposition said the crown prince should lead the reform process.
Khalifa al-Dhahrani, speaker of the Council of Representatives, said he hoped to bring “all parties concerned with matters of the state” into the dialogue.
He said the talks would “accelerate the pace of reform towards further development in various fields that will meet the expectations of all citizens,” Bahrain News Agency cited him as saying on Saturday.
Bahrain’s Sunni rulers crushed weeks of protests demanding democratic reforms in March, saying the demonstrations, led mostly by the kingdom’s Shiite majority, had a sectarian agenda and were aided by Shiite power Iran. The opposition deny this.
But leading Shiite Muslim opposition group Wefaq objected to the appointment.
“The real dialogue that needs to take place must be between the king or the crown prince and the opposition because what we are discussing is a pivotal issue of difference between the ruling family and the people,” said Khalil al-Marzooq, a Wefaq leader.
A government report says the US approved $200 million in military sales from American companies to Bahrain in 2010, months before the pivotal Persian Gulf ally began a harsh crackdown on protesters.
The yearly State Department report provides totals of US-authorized arms sale agreements between US defense companies and foreign governments. The latest tally showed a $112 million rise in licensed defense sales to Bahrain, home to the US Navy’s 5th Fleet, between the 2009 and 2010 budget years.
The US had green-lighted $88 million in military exports to Bahrain in 2009.
Much involved aircraft and military electronics, but the US also licensed $760,000 in exports of rifles, shotguns and assault weapons in 2010. Since mid-February, the kingdom has confronted demonstrators with cordons of armed military and police firing live ammunition. At least 31 people have died and hundreds more injured in the clashes.

Libya
Turkey said it has offered Muammar Gaddafi guarantees to leave Libya but has yet to receive a reply, as rebels on Saturday accused his forces of shelling a UNESCO world heritage site.
Fresh Nato-led strikes send up plumes of smoke on a daily basis in Tripoli, but US Defence Secretary Robert Gates warned that the air war on the strongman’s forces could be in peril because of military shortcomings.
On Saturday, two blasts shook Tripoli in the afternoon, witnesses said, in apparent air strikes targeting the Salaheddin and Ain Zara districts. Residents said several waves of blasts also rocked the city on Friday.
In a military update on Friday’s strikes, the British defence ministry said its fighters had destroyed four tanks “hidden in an orchard” near the town of Al-Aziziyah, southwest of Tripoli.
Tornado and Typhoon jets also bombed a military base at Al-Mayah on the western outskirts of the capital, it said.
Nato said a tank and a rocket launcher were also targeted on Friday near the rebel-held city of Misrata.
The rebels said pro-Gaddafi forces were shelling the western city of Ghadames, close to the borders with Tunisia and Algeria, which boasts a UNESCO World Heritage site and is famous for its Roman-era ruins.
“The people of Ghadames appeal to UNESCO and international organisations to protect the ancient city,” rebels said in a statement.
Rebels also reported clashes on Friday and Saturday at Kekla and Bir al-Ghanem in the mountainous Jebel Nafussa region where there has been weeks of fighting.
They also said pro-Gaddafi forces had tried to enter the town of Yafran in the same area, and that there had been “fierce clashes.”
At Mitiga military airport outside Tripoli, meanwhile, the regime said it staged a ceremony marking the 41st anniversary of the closure of a US air base in the country.
Libyan government forces have pounded the outskirts of the rebel-held city of Misrata, killing at least 22 people, a hospital physician said.
The doctor at Hikma Hospital, who would only give his first name, Ayman, said Muammar Gaddafi’s forces used tanks, artillery and incendiary rockets on Friday in the bombardment of Dafniya, about 18 miles (30 kms) west of Misrata. He said at least 61 people were wounded in the attacks which began about 10 am local time.
Gaddafi forces had renewed their shelling near Misrata on Wednesday. The city is one of the few footholds rebels have in western Libya and controls the country’s largest port.
The doctor said residents had reported no sign of Nato aircraft in the Misrata region. There also were no reports Nato strikes in Tripoli, the capital. Nato had been pounding Tripoli and environs in recent days, stepping up backing for the four-month-old rebel uprising that seeks to oust Gaddafi from power after four decades.
Rebels have taken control of swaths of eastern Libya, although fighting has since come to a stalemate even with Nato support. Misrata remained one of the most important rebel footholds in the Gaddafi controlled west.
Government forces are surrounding Misrata on all sides but the north, where the city has access to the Mediterranean Sea for supplies and food through Libya’s major port. Rebels have beaten back several government attempts to retake the city.
The Gaddafi forces are pushing back on rebel forces trying to break out of Misrata to the west toward Tripoli, where Gaddafi is increasingly cornered under Nato bombardment in the capital.v