HUNDREDS OF ISLAMIC militants solidified their control over a town in southern Yemen on Sunday after seizing tanks in clashes with fleeing soldiers according to military officials.

Opponents of the country’s embattled president, Ali Abdullah Saleh, accused him of allowing the militants to freely seize Zinjibar in a bid to stoke Western fears that Al Qaeda would take over the country if he responded to demands by demonstrators to step down.

Three months of mass street protests calling for Saleh’s ouster have posed an unprecedented threat to his 33-year rule.

The takeover of Zinjibar, a small town of more than 20,000 people near the shores of the Gulf of Aden, was the latest turn in a crisis that has imperiled the stability of an impoverished and volatile corner of the Arabian peninsula.

Hundreds of militants stormed the town, which is the capital of Abyan province, on Friday and seized a number of banks and government offices.

Military officials said the militants extended their control starting late Saturday night, capturing six army tanks and several armored cars after the governor, the security chief and the commander of a local army brigade fled.

Other army units clashed with the militants outside the city, and medical officials said six civilians were killed in the crossfire. It was unclear if any soldiers or militants were killed.

The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorised to speak to the media.

In the capital, Sanaa, Major General Abdullah Ali Elewa, a spokesmen for army units that have defected to the opposition, said Saleh sought to spread fear “that Yemen without him will become another Somalia.”

Elewa called on army units to fight militant groups in the Abyan province and elsewhere.

Saleh, who is under tremendous pressure by the United States, Europe and the rulers of neighboring Gulf Arab nations to heed demands to step down, has warned repeatedly that without him, the Yemen-based Al Qaeda branch would take control of the country.

His political opponents and experts on Yemeni affairs have discounted those fears, though the estimated 300 fighters of al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula could exploit the growing turmoil to operate more freely in remote parts of the country.

It is not clear if the militants who seized Zinjibar were linked to the Al Qaeda group. Yemen is home to numerous Islamic extremist groups.

Islamist militants also took over the nearby town of Jaar at the end of March, and there were similar accusations then that the government — which has cooperated with the US in battling Al Qaeda militants — purposely stood aside.

Saleh has clung to power despite daily protests, a wave of defections by army officers and political and tribal allies, and international condemnation of his crackdown.

Saleh has refused to sign a US-backed proposal by Yemen’s powerful Gulf Arab neighbors to step down in exchange for immunity from prosecution.

And the US, which once considered Saleh a necessary ally in fighting Yemen’s active Al Qaeda branch, has turned its back on the ruler, calling for him to transfer power peacefully.

With diplomatic efforts stalled, the political crisis gave way to serious street battles last week between Saleh’s forces and armed men loyal to one of the country’s most powerful tribal leaders, who has turned against the president.

The clashes killed 124 people and raised fears of a civil war before the two sides reached a cease-fire agreement over the weekend.

- AP