The Yemeni troops killed 12 al-Qaida militants and injured eight others in battles in southern flashpoint province of Abyan late on Sunday, local medical sources told Xinhua.
"The hospital received Sunday night 12 bodies of al-Qaida fighters and eight injured militants, three of whom are in critical conditions," a doctor at the Abyan's Jaar-based Razi Hospital told Xinhua by phone.
Earlier, a provincial military official told Xinhua that four soldiers were killed and two others were wounded in the ongoing fierce fighting against al-Qaida militants in Abyan's coastal area of Dovis.
Separately, local residents said the pro-government popular committees, which were formed to protect the residents' properties, captured a suspect identified as "Mohammed Bajlah" and said he is in charge of providing food supplies to the terrorist group.
They said the suspect were stopped late Sunday at a checkpoint in a highway linking Abyan's cities of Loudar and Moudia and was handed over to the security authorities in the neighboring province of al-Bayda.
Abyan, some 480 km south of the capital Sanaa, has almost been overrun by the al-Qaida militants since the group seized the province's capital city of Zinjibar late in May along with other towns, including Jaar, Moudia and large parts of Dovis.