Yemen’s army yesterday raided Al Qaeda positions in the southern province of Abyan, killing eight militants as battles between Islamists and civilians killed another two, local sources said.

“The Yemeni air force carried out four raids on Al Qaeda positions” on the outskirts of Loder killing eight militants in Al Ain, on the town’s southern entrance, said one armed civilian.

The air strike hit an army tank seized by the militants, who were trying to bring in from the provincial capital Zinjibar. The army also fired artillery rounds Al Qaeda positions outside Loder, said a local source on condition of anonymity.

A source from the Al Qaeda-held town of Jaar, where the bodies of dead militants are usually taken, confirmed the toll and said the victims included three Egyptians, two Afghans and a Somali, a source said.

The fighting spread to neighbouring Mudia, where armed men attacked a vehicle outside the town carrying Al Qaeda militants from nearby Shabwa province to Loder, local sources said.

“The militants traded machinegun fire” with the armed civilians, who have formed “popular resistance committees,” leaving one dead on each side, they said.

The latest deaths bring the toll from the Mudia and Loder battles alone to at least 185 people killed in four days.

Separately, the army killed four militants – among them an Indonesian and a Tunisian – in shelling their hideouts in Zinjibar, a source in the adjacent town of Jaar said.