Bomb blasts in Yemen city of Aden

14 September 2011 Last updated at 23:34 GMT At least two bomb blasts have hit security buildings in Yemen's southern city of Aden, officials say.

One young boy was killed in an ensuing gun battle, security sources and witnesses said.

No security personnel are reported to have been hurt. Yemen has been plagued by unrest for months, including clashes in the south between security forces and Islamist militants.

But the port city of Aden has remained generally calm.

Security officials said the blasts failed to penetrate the perimeter walls of the two buildings, which stand about 400m apart.

The Yemeni army recently announced it had recaptured the capital of the southern province of Abyan, where Islamic militants linked to al-Qaeda have mounted an uprising.

President Ali Abdullah Saleh is clinging to power in the face of months of protests against his 30-year rule.

He is currently in Saudi Arabia being treated for wounds suffered in an attack on his palace compound in June.

A recent UN report said Yemen risked sliding into civil war unless political unrest was resolved swiftly.

The UN Human Rights Council said security forces had responded with excessive force against peaceful demonstrations.

It said hundreds of Yemenis had been killed and thousands injured since anti-government protests began in January.

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Yemen PM returns from Riyadh after attack on Saleh (Reuters)

SANAA (Reuters) – Yemen's prime minister became the first senior politician injured in a June assassination attempt on President Ali Abdullah Saleh to return home from Saudi Arabia, a government official said on Tuesday.

The official told Reuters Prime Minister Ali Mohamed Megawar arrived in the capital Sanaa on Tuesday evening and was greeted at the airport by hundreds of government officials and supporters.

Megawar had been receiving medical treatment in Riyadh, along with a number of other presidential aides and Saleh himself, who has repeatedly said he will return to the impoverished Arabian Peninsula state.

Yemen has been paralyzed by months of protests against Saleh's 33-year authoritarian rule.

As violence persisted, the death toll has risen in the south with Islamist militants regularly launching attacks on soldiers, security officials and tribesmen fighting alongside the army.

Four soldiers were killed and some 40 wounded on Tuesday when militants attacked troops stationed south of Zinjibar, the capital of Abyan province, where militants, emboldened by months of upheaval, have taken control of three towns since March.

A security official said two militants were also killed in clashes that broke out on Tuesday and continued into the evening.

Separately, two tribesmen were killed by militants in the coastal town of Shaqra, which they seized last week.

Some tribesmen have sided with the Yemeni army to try to flush militants out of Abyan, setting up checkpoints along roads and last month launching an offensive that has so far failed to recapture much lost ground.

Yemeni warplanes on Monday night killed 5 militants in an airstrike on a checkpoint they had occupied in the al-Arqub area of Abyan, a security official said.

Tribesmen said they saw militants load dead bodies into a car and speed off toward Shaqra.

Residents of Lawdar, another Abyan town, said a suspected suicide bomber driving a motorcycle laden with explosives blew himself up by accident at dawn on Tuesday on the outskirts of the city before reaching his target.

The United States and Saudi Arabia fear that upheaval in Yemen is giving militants, who the government says belong to al Qaeda, more room to launch attacks on the region and beyond.

Opponents of Saleh accuse him of exaggerating the threat of al Qaeda and even encouraging militants in order to illustrate the dangers of Yemen without him and pressure Riyadh and Washington into backing him.

(Reporting by Mohamed Sudam and Mohammed Mukhashaf; Writing by Isabel Coles and Jason Benham; Editing by Maria Golovnina)

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UK citizen killed in Yemen car bombing

The incident took place in AdenThe victim's name has not been releasedBritain has advised against travel to Yemen

(CNN) -- A British citizen who worked for a Yemeni company has been killed by a car bomb in the volatile country, the British Foreign Office and a Yemeni senior security official said Wednesday.

The explosion went off in the Aden province town of Mualla when the man turned on his vehicle, and the blast could be heard more than a mile away, the security official said.

The official said a bomb was hidden under the vehicle and he believes that al Qaeda was behind the attack.

"The way the attack took place only proves that al Qaeda has been watching his moves days prior to the attack," the official said. Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula has a strong presence in Yemen.

The Foreign Office says it is providing assistance to the victim's next of kin. However, authorities are not releasing the victim's name at the family's request.

Yemen has been wracked by anti-government protests and insurgent violence. The Foreign Office advised British citizens not to travel to Yemen, and urged all British nationals there to "maintain a heightened level of vigilance and keep a low profile at all times."

"We believe that terrorists continue to threaten further attacks including in Sanaa, Aden and other urban areas."

Journalist Hakim Almasmari and CNN's Antonia Mortensen contributed to this report

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