Al-Qaida agrees to withdraw from 2 southern Yemeni towns

Militants of the Yemen-based al-Qaida offshoot agreed Thursday to withdraw from two strategic southern Yemeni towns without armed confrontations after a tribal-led mediation, a government official told Xinhua.

"Commanders of the al-Qaida agreed to a full withdrawal from the key towns of Jaar and Zinjibar in Abyan province after successful mediation efforts by some powerful tribal leaders," the Yemeni government official said on condition of anonymity.

Hundreds of Yemeni soldiers, newly trained by the Saudi-led coalition, were preparing to launch an anti-terror offensive to flush out al-Qaida militants from the two coastal towns.

"The al-Qaida militants began to pull out of Zinjibar peacefully and handed over three government compounds to the tribal mediators," the government source said.

A local tribal chief said that "driving al-Qaida from Jaar and Zinjibar by military force will cause huge destruction to the infrastructure. The al-Qaida withdrawal was the only solution."

"Terms of the tribal-led mediation allowed the al-Qaida militants to bring with them all the weapons and military vehicles out of Zinjibar and Jaar, " the tribal source said.

Last December, scores of the al-Qaida gunmen took full control of the two towns, about 45 km from Aden, Yemen's temporary capital.

Yemen, an impoverished Arab country, has been gripped by one of the most active regional al-Qaida insurgencies in the Middle East.

The AQAP, also known as Ansar al-Sharia, emerged in January 2009. It had claimed responsibility for a number of attacks on Yemen's army and government institutions.

It took advantage of the current security vacuum and the ongoing civil war to expand its influence in Yemen's southern regions.

The fragile security situation in Yemen has deteriorated since March 2015, when a war broke out between the Shiite Houthi group, supported by former President Ali Abdullash Saleh, and the government backed by a Saudi-led Arab coalition.

More than 6,000 people have been killed in ground battles and airstrikes since then, half of them civilians. Endit