SANA'A : A Yemeni army colonel and a local official are accusing the weak central government of allowing Al-Qaeda-linked militants to exploit the country's turmoil and overrun entire swaths of land in the volatile south. They say the aim is to show the West what Yemen would look like if wounded President Ali Abdullah Saleh were to relinquish power as opposition protesters have demanded for months. Col. Mohammed Al-Samwali, Saturday accused the Defense Ministry of intentionally hesitating to send reinforcements and supplies to his unit, which is battling Al-Qaeda-linked Ansar Al-Sharia group that seized the Abyan provincial capital, Zinjibar. Abyan official Abdel-Majed al-Salahi claimed the government plans to let “at least five southern cities fall into the hands of extremists.” Meanwhile, 50 Yemeni troops have been posted as missing after clashes with Islamist militants around the southern city of Zinjibar, a commander said on Saturday, accusing top brass of abandoning them to Al-Qaeda. “We have lost all trace of 50 soldiers after an attack by Al-Qaeda elements enabled them to recapture control of the Al-Wahda stadium” outside Zinjibar, the commander serving with the 25th Mechanized Brigade told reporters on condition of anonymity. He was unable to specify whether the troops had been killed, captured or deserted in the battle for the stadium which the army had recaptured from the militants only Friday. The commander accused the defense ministry of abandoning the brigade's soldiers to their fate in the face of repeated attacks by the militants who seized much of Zinjibar in late May. “Senior ministry officials have stood idly by while all this has been going on. But we are not going to surrender to the Al-Qaeda militants, we are going to fight to the last cartridge case,” he said.
