ADEN: Al Qaeda militants have seized hospitals in southern Yemen to treat wounded comrades following air strikes that killed scores of gunmen in two days, medics said yesterday.
An intensive aerial campaign by US drones and Yemeni jet fighters on Al Qaeda bases in the rugged mountains of nearby Abyan province killed some 70 militants over the weekend.
On Sunday, militants stormed the hospital of Azzan, in Shabwa province, as well as two smaller medical centres in nearby districts, the sources said.
They counted experienced doctors among their number, who tended the wounded.
“They forced us out of the centres along with other members of staff and brought in their wounded,” a doctor at a medical centre in the town of Al Saeed said.
After the raids, militants arrived with casualties in pick-up trucks, accompanied by “several doctors, including Arabs and foreigners,” he said.
AFP
