Talks that looked set to secure the release of Abdullah Al-Khalidi, the Saudi deputy consul kidnapped in Yemen, broke off when the air force hit members of the militant group suspected of holding him, said a tribal leader involved in the negotiations. Al-Khalidi was seized outside his residence here on March 28. A suspected Al-Qaeda militant claimed responsibility and threatened to kill Al-Khalidi unless a ransom was paid and militants were freed from Saudi prisons. Early on Monday tribal elder Sheikh Tareq Al-Fadli said he expected Khalidi to be freed “within the coming hours”, but later, just as he was about to be handed over, Yemen's air force bombarded several sites in the southern Abyan province and the captors stopped answering telephone calls. “We are having difficulty contacting the militants because of the intensifying air strikes on their sites,” said Fadli, a tribal head in Abyan. Residents and local officials said at least 15 people were killed in the air strikes which targeted a car and two suspected hideouts near the town of Lawdar. Residents saw militants carrying their dead comrades toward the village of Umm Ayn, where they buried them. A tribal source had said the Saudi diplomat was being held in the militant-held town of Jaar, some 100 km from Lawdar. A French aid worker with the International Committee of the Red Cross, who was seized by armed men on Saturday while on his way from north Yemen to the eastern port of Hudaida, had also been taken to Jaar, the source said. Meanwhile, Yemeni government troops fought their way into the center of an Al-Qaeda-held city in the country's lawless south after a fierce, six-hour battle that ended early Tuesday, military officials said. The soldiers, backed by artillery and tanks, launched the push into Zinjibar, the provincial capital of Abyan, under the cover of darkness, the officials said. By the time they made it to the heart of Zinjibar, dozens were killed and wounded on both sides in the battle, the officials said though they had no exact figures.
