Yemen: Al-Qaeda 'providing free electricity and gas'

Sanaa, 2 May (AKI) - Al-Qaeda has started offering free electricity and gas to villagers in Yemen's restive south, according to Saudi daily 'al-Sharq al-Awsat'.

Al-Qaeda has gained control of swathes of the southern provinces of Abyen, Lahaj an Shabwa, and is reportedly offering essential services the central government is failing to provide.

In the town of Jaar, militants are said to be offering water and have abolished all taxes imposed by Sanaa.

Militants aboard armoured vehicles have reportedly surrounded Azzan, in Shabwa, where Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula's (AQAP) late regional commander Anwar al-Awlaki's son was killed in a drone strike in October 2011.

Largely unopposed, the militants have filled a power vacuum left by more than a year of unrest in the impoverished state and huge demonstrations against longtime ruler Ali Abdullah Saleh that eventually led to his resignation in February and elections.

AQAP was formed in January 2009 by a merger between two regional offshoots of the international Islamist militant network in Yemen and Saudi Arabia.

The US president's counter-terrorism adviser has called it "the most active operational franchise" of Al-Qaeda beyond Pakistan and Afghanistan.