ADEN Five Al-Qaeda members were killed in clashes with the army in south Yemen, the defence ministrys news website said on Saturday, bringing to 19 the toll from the previous day's fighting.

Three Al-Qaeda militants were also wounded in Friday's clashes between the army and gunmen in the city of Loder, southern Abyan province, said the report carried by the 26Sep.net news website.

The latest deaths add to an earlier toll of 11 soldiers and three civilians killed on Friday.

The defence ministry said it had managed to identify one of the slain Al-Qaeda fighters as Adham Shibani, adding that the wounded militants were currently being interrogated.

The security forces were tracking “other terrorists” who took part in Friday's fighting, the ministry said. The militants who managed to flee were named as Ahmed Mohammed Abdu Daradish, Abdel Rauf Abdullah Mohammed Nassib and Jalal Saleh Mohammed Saidi.

The interior ministry had said on Friday that 11 soldiers were killed “in an ambush set up by Al-Qaeda terrorists and outlaws cooperating with them.”

Eight of the soldiers were killed when a rocket-propelled grenade hit their armoured vehicle, according to Loder's regional security chief Yahya al-Barkani.

Three civilians were killed - and another four wounded - when soldiers bombarded buildings near Loder market from where the military was being targeted, medical sources said.

South Yemen, and the Abyan province in particular, is feared to have become a base for Al-Qaeda militants to regroup, under the network's local franchise Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP). - AFP