ADEN, Yemen, Nov. 15 (Xinhua) -- Yemeni government forces carried out anti-terror military operations and cleared al-Qaida militants out of a village in southeastern Shabwa province on Wednesday, a government official told Xinhua.
The government source based in Shabwa said that the UAE-backed troops launched raids, patrols, cordon and search operations and succeeded in clearing remnants of al-Qaida terrorists in the Houta village of Shabwa province.
"One of the patrol teams of the newly-recruited troops in Shabwa carried out a clearance operation in areas surrounding Houta village in which they captured key al-Qaida terrorists hiding in a farm," the source said.
The UAE-backed troops also recovered explosives and terrorist brochures in a building used by the fleeing militants, the source added.
During the previous months, several areas in Shabwa were retaken from the al-Qaida militants during military operations launched by Yemeni troops and financed by the UAE forces operating in Yemen.
The southern and eastern Yemeni provinces of Yemen have increasingly been targeted by al-Qaida militants and dozens of soldiers were killed in suicide attacks and drive-by shootings earlier this year.
Militants of the Yemen-based al-Qaida branch and the Islamic State group (IS) are more active in the country's southern part and Yemeni armed forces supported by the United Arab Emirates (UAE) started waging large offensives against some hideouts there.
The al-Qaida and Islamic State-linked terrorists took advantage of the security vacuum and ongoing civil war to expand their influence and seize more territories in Yemen.
Security in Yemen has further deteriorated since March 2015, when war broke out between the Shiite Houthi group, supported by former President Ali Abdullah Saleh, and government forces backed by a Saudi-led Arab coalition.
UN statistics showed that over 10,000 people, most of them civilians, have been killed since the coalition intervened in the Yemeni civil war which also displaced around three million people.
The impoverished Arab country is also suffering the world's largest cholera epidemic since April, with about 5,000 cases reported every day.
