Sana'a: The Yemeni army stormed the town of Al Hawta early on Friday after reports that about 100 Al Qaida fighters were hiding there, military and tribal sources said.

Sources, however, said that most of the terrorist group managed to escape.

With the army launching combing operations in the town, more than 15,000 residents were asked to leave their homes and told not to return for now.

"They told us this morning that the town is not secure yet. We have to wait," Abu Ahmad, one of the people displaced to the Azzan area, said.

Azzan is about nine kilometres from Al Hawta. Sources said the terrorists escaped in the western direction of Al Rawdha although the army claimed the town was surrounded.

Before storming the town, the army killed at least four Al Qaida fighters and arrested five others in an attack on a position outside the town in the southern province of Shabwa.

Dozens of soldiers were killed and injured in the operation, sources said.

Offensive

They added that the army started an all-out offensive in Al Hawta on Thursday afternoon after most of the population fled to neighbouring areas to escape the fighting.

"Almost everyone has left now, and the army has started its attack on the Al Qaida fighters," Ahmad, who was displaced from Al Hawta with 30 members of his family and his brother's family to the area of Azzan, said.

"Al Qaida [fighters] tried to prevent us and beat us to make us stay with them to use us as human shields, but we all refused and got out, but now we need help," Ahmad said over the phone from Azzan.

"We received assistance for 200 families, but there are about 3,000 displaced families so we need much more assistance," he added.

The Al Qaida fighters have rifles and RPGs and snipers, he said.

Meanwhile, tribal leader Abdul Bari Al Mehdhar said on Thursday that he and all the people of Al Hawta condemned Al Qaida's terrorist actions.

Negotiations

"We tried to negotiate with them but they refused and chose violence," said Al Mehdhar, the brother of Abdullah Al Mehdhar, the alleged Al Qaida leader in Al Hawta who was killed last January in a security operation.

The government loyalist Al Mehdhar said there are only eight Al Qaida fighters from Al Hawta while all the others are from outside the town.

He claimed the leader of the group is called Abdul Aziz Al Mua'allem.

About 100 militants are fighting the army.