Yemeni troops backed by aircraft killed 13 suspected Al-Qaeda militants as they pressed a ground offensive in the south, the defense ministry said on Thursday.

Yemeni troops backed by aircraft killed 13 suspected Al-Qaeda militants as they pressed a ground offensive in the south, the defense ministry said on Thursday.

At least 10 people, including six militants, died in an ambush by Al-Qaeda suspects on an army convoy in the central province of Baida, the ministry said, updating an earlier toll.

Three soldiers were also killed Thursday when Al-Qaeda suspects ambushed their convoy in the central province of Baida, a government official there said.

The assault that began overnight focused on the Shabwa province towns of Maifaa and Azzan, the ministry's 26sep.net news website said.

Three vehicles were destroyed and six suspected militants travelling in them killed, it added.

Residents of the two towns said fierce fighting was continuing on Thursday.
The army launched a major offensive on Tuesday aimed at clearing the extremists from their remaining strongholds in villages and smaller towns in Shabwa and neighboring Abyan province.

The operation began with a setback for the army when a convoy fell into an Al-Qaeda ambush in which 15 soldiers were killed and 15 more taken prisoner, three of whom were later executed.

So far, a total of 21 soldiers and 21 suspected militants have been reported killed in the ground offensive, which followed intense US and Yemeni air strikes last week.

Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula -- a merger of the network's Yemeni and Saudi branches -- has been subjected to an intensifying drone war this year.

The extremists took advantage of a 2011 uprising that forced veteran strongman Ali Abdullah Saleh from power to seize large swathes of southern and eastern Yemen.

The army recaptured several major towns in 2012 but has struggled to reassert control in rural areas, despite backing from militia recruited among  the local tribes.