SANAA, Yemen - Yemeni troops backed by armed tribesmen routed al-Qaeda on Tuesday from two southern strongholds that the terror network had held for more than a year.
It was the most significant victory so far in a monthlong offensive against a local franchise that has tried time and again to bomb U.S.-bound planes.
The military campaign, orchestrated by U.S. military advisers and bankrolled by neighboring Saudi Arabia, has left al-Qaeda's dangerous Yemen branch on the run. The group remained in control of only a handful of towns, with hundreds of its members scattered in the mountains, valleys, and vast desert of the Arab world's most impoverished country.
