Forty Al-Qaida fighters freed in mass breakout

In a carefully organised operation, militants attacked their guards yesterday and seized their weapons just as bands of heavily armed attackers descended on the prison in Mukalla on the Arabian Sea.

The escaped prisoners included militants convicted on terror charges or held in protective custody pending trial.

The last major jail breakout by al-Qaida in Yemen was in 2006, when 23 escaped in Sanaa, among them Qassim al-Raimi, who has become the dominant figure in al-Qaida’s most active franchise.

The branch has been linked to several attacks on US targets, including the plot to bomb a Detroit-bound airliner in December 2009. The group also put bombs into US-addressed parcels that made it onto cargo flights.

Yemen’s political crisis began when demonstrators inspired by successful uprisings in Egypt and Tunisia took to the streets in early February. The largely peaceful movement gave way to heavy street fighting when tribal militias took up arms in late May.

Yemen’s President Ali Abdullah Saleh was badly wounded in an attack earlier this month and is being treated in Saudi Arabia.