3 foreign al-Qaida leaders killed in SE Yemen

Three foreign al-Qaida leaders have been killed during fighting with the government forces in Yemen's southeastern province of Shabwa, a defense ministry official said on Wednesday.

"The army forces confirmed today the deaths of three al-Qaida senior leaders from Algeria, Pakistan, and Saudi Arabia in Shabwa province," the official said.

"Abu Ayob al-Jazayri, a local (Algerian) leader of al-Qaida, who planned attacks against Yemeni armed forces, was directly involved in the ongoing fighting and found dead in Dheka valley in Shabwa," the official said, adding that the rest two killed, Nakhii from Pakistan and Abu Dojana from Saudi Arabia, also commanded al-Qaida fighters in the war against the government forces in Shabwa province.

Earlier on Sunday the official Saba News Agency reported that " most of those killed in the fighting with the armed forces in Shabwa and Abyan provinces were Saudis, Afghans, Somalis, Chechens and other nationalities."

The Yemeni government has waged a wide-scale assault on al- Qaida strongholds in the country's southern territories since last week, killing scores of militants. Members of the Al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) in Yemen have vowed to hit back.

The AQAP, known locally as Ansar al-Sharia, emerged in January 2009. It is considered the most strategic threat to the Yemeni government and neighboring oil-rich Saudi Arabia. Endi