ADEN // Armed men shot dead around 20 Yemeni soldiers in the south-eastern province of Abyan on Saturday.
At least ten others – including soldiers and their drivers – were still being held after being ambushed earlier in the day by the suspected Al Qaeda fighters.
The soldiers were passing through Abyan on their way to Al Mahra province from Aden, a journalist in Abyan's Zinjubar district told The National.
The soldiers, who were travelling in three civilian busses, were stopped by the fighters and forced to drive to a valley in Abyan’s Ahwar district where around 20 of the men were killed, the journalist said.
Al Qaeda in Abyan denied killing the soldiers, however, instead accusing a local tribal leader of carrying out the massacre.
“The residents of Abyan know that corrupt Sheikh Ali Aqeela has killed the soldiers,” said a statement released by the militants. “We tried to enter Ahwar two months ago to chase this sheikh and his gang,”
The journalist said it was possible that the killings had been carried out by individual Al Qaeda members, rather than ordered by those in command.
A similar massacre took place in 2014, when Al Qaeda fighters killed 14 soldiers in Hadramout province.
Yemen has been at war since September 2014, when Iran-backed Houthi rebels and allied renegade soldiers drove the government out of the capital, Sanaa, before advancing south.
Last summer, forces loyal to the internationally recognised government of Abdrabu Mansur Hadi — backed by a Saudi-led military coalition — pushed the Houthis out of five southern provinces.
But militants from Yemen’s Al Qaeda branch and local ISIL affiliates have taken advantage of the chaos to expand their reach in southern Yemen.
As well as having a presence in Abyan, Al Qaeda also controls Mukalla, a south-eastern city with the country’s third largest port, along with parts of Aden and Lahj province.
Saturday's killings came just hours before a truce was set to go into effect across Yemen at midnight local time (1am UAE). As The National went to print on Saturday, however, the Houthis had still not confirmed they would be taking part, and many Yemenis were pessimistic that their situation would improve.
Fareed Al Homaid, a journalist in Taez in Yemen’s south-west, which has suffered some of the worst of the fighting, said the residents are crying out for an end to the suffering caused by large parts of the city being under siege from the Houthis.
“Stopping the fighting is not enough for the residents of Taez city, we are waiting for the siege [on the city] to be broken to get basic commodities and medicines,” said Mr Al Homaid.
“If the siege is not broken, I do not think the war will stop.”
foreign.desk@thenational.ae
* With additional reporting by Agence France-Presse