Yemen’s army shelled Al-Qaeda hideouts in the southern city of Zinjibar killing six militants,

Yemen's army shelled Al-Qaeda hideouts in the southern city of Zinjibar killing six militants, a local official told AFP on Monday.

The official said that "a Somali group leader named Abu Bilal" was among those killed in the late Sunday assault.

According to AFP, witnesses and security services said that "dozens" of Somalians have been seen fighting in the ranks of Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, the local branch of the al-Qaeda network.

On February 23, the commander of the African Union forces in Mogadishu,  Ugandan Major General Fred Mugisha, said that large numbers of Somalia's Al-Qaeda allied Shebab fighters -- close to collapse -- are fleeing the war-torn country for Yemen.

The extremists in Yemen, who go under the name Partisans of Sharia (Islamic law), have been locked in battles with the army in Abyan's provincial capital Zinjibar since May 2011, when they overran the city.

The Partisans of Sharia have exploited a central government weakened by a year of anti-regime protests to strengthen their position, launching deadly attacks against security forces especially in the lawless south and southeast.

State news agency Saba reported that US State Department counterterrorism coordinator Daniel Benjamin met with Yemeni Interior Minister Abdelqader Qahtan in the capital Sanaa on Sunday.

They discussed "means of strengthening and developing cooperation and security coordination between Yemen and the United States especially in terms of combating terrorism," Saba reported.

On Sunday, the militants killed seven policemen in an attack on a checkpoint in the southeast while clashes between the army and the extremists a day earlier left 40 dead from both sides.

Last month, 185 soldiers were killed in a massive assault by Al-Qaeda militants on an army camp near Zinjibar