ADEN, Yemen, Oct. 3 (Xinhua) -- At least five government troops were killed and four others were seriously injured Monday during battles with al-Qaida militants in Yemen's southern troubled province of Abyan, an army officer and medics said.
The local army officer told Xinhua on condition of anonymity that fierce fighting took place between dozens of al-Qaida militants and units of the army forces in and around Bagdar area east of Zinjibar city, the provincial capital of Abyan province, killing five soldiers and injuring four of others.
A local medic at the Bashuib military hospital in Aden province, where the casualties had been taken to, confirmed the to Xinhua the toll.
Abyan, some 480 km south of the capital Sanaa, has been the scene of daily fierce fighting after hundreds of militants from the al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) captured Zinjibar and at least three other towns in May.
Yemeni military forces took back the control of Zinjibar only last month, but heavy clashes are still rocking the region.
For more than three months, government troops have been fighting AQAP militants who were apparently taking advantage of the country's nearly nine months of political turmoil to expand their military operations and control in the lawless southern and eastern parts of the country.
Meanwhile, the country has seen sporadic violence after Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh returned from Saudi Arabia, where he was recuperating from serious wounds inflected in an explosion in his presidential mansion early June.
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