Suspected Al-Qaeda militants killed 18 Yemeni soldiers in separate ambushes today as the army launched a ground offensive against their remaining strongholds in the south, medical and security sources said.
Twelve militants were also killed when the ambush in Shabwa province sparked a firefight, tribal sources said.
Ten soldiers were also wounded and 15 captured, medics and an officer said.
The ground offensive, which was launched just hours before the opening of a donors' conference in London, seeks to capitalise on Al-Qaeda losses in a blistering US-backed air offensive last week in which nearly 60 suspected militants were killed.
Commanders are seeking to expel the jihadists from a series of smaller towns and hill districts in Abyan and Shabwa provinces where they retained a presence after a 2012 offensive in which the army recaptured the major towns.
Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula -- a merger of the network's Yemeni and Saudi branches -- is regarded by Washington as its most dangerous franchise and has been subjected to an intensifying drone war this year.
The jihadists took advantage of a 2011 uprising that forced veteran president Ali Abdullah Saleh from power to seize large swathes of the south and east, from which the army has struggled to evict them, despite backing from militia recruited among the local tribes.
Militants ambushed the army convoy near Al-Saeed, one of several towns in Shabwa province where troops backed by militiamen advanced overnight, an officer said.
Armed with machineguns and rocket-propelled grenades, they seized a troop carrier and captured 15 soldiers inside, and also destroyed three other vehicles, he added.
The army sent "massive" reinforcements to the area, another officer said.
Hours later, militants in Abyan province ambushed a seven-vehicle convoy advancing towards Wadi Daiqa, where Al-Qaeda suspects were positioned, an officer there said.
