Clashes between the Yemeni army and Al-Qaeda in the country’s restive south killed at least 30 soldiers and 12 militants

Clashes between the Yemeni army and Al-Qaeda in the country's restive south killed at least 30 soldiers and 12 militants on Sunday, medics and officials said.
  
"So far 30 soldiers have been killed and the toll is expected to rise as some bodies have not been transferred to hospital yet," a military official said on condition of anonymity. He said that "many more soldiers were wounded" in the clashes south of Zinjibar, Abyan's provincial capital where the army has been battling militants since May.

Military officials said Sunday's clashes erupted after Al-Qaeda linked militants tried to overrun an army post in Kud, sparking a firefight.

A local official in Jaar, said 12 Al-Qaeda militants died in the firefight. Thirty soldiers, 10 of them wounded, were captured, he added. An official in Kud, meanwhile, told AFP that Al-Qaeda gunmen had taken away the bodies of three of the soldiers killed.
  
The militants also seized heavy weapons before pulling back to Zinjibar, an army source said, accusing some army leaders who had served under former president Ali Abdullah Saleh of "collaborating" with Al-Qaeda.