A US drone strike aiming for an al-Qa'ida leader has killed five militants as part of a Yemeni offensive against the Islamist group, Yemeni officials said today.

A suicide bomber drove into a school in northern Yemen's al-Jawf province where members of a Shi'ite Muslim rebel group had gathered for Friday prayers and killed 12 people, the defence ministry said.

Yemen says its troops have killed 35 al-Qa'ida militants in an attack on a hideout in the country's south, part of a wider offensive.

US cyber-experts hacked al-Qa'ida propaganda online in Yemen, changing ads that bragged about killing Americans into ones that showed the death toll of the terror group's attacks against Yemenis, Hillary Clinton said.

At least 96 soldiers have been killed in a huge suicide bomb blast during a rehearsal for a military parade in Yemen, Interior Ministry officials said.

Clashes between government troops and al-Qa'ida fighters left 19 people dead in southern Yemen on Wednesday, military officials said.

A US drone strike has killed six suspected al-Qa'ida militants, Yemeni military officials said tonight.

The undercover agent who foiled an an Al-Qa'ida plot to destroy an airliner by posing as a potential suicide bomber is British, it was reported in the US last night.

An undercover agent who foiled an al-Qa'ida plot to blow up a airliner with an underwear bomb is a British national, it was reported tonight.

The CIA has its sights on Ibrahim al-Asiri, maker of the underpants bomb. By Rupert Cornwell

A bomber from the al-Qa'ida affiliate in Yemen sent to blow up a US-bound airliner last month was actually a double agent who infiltrated the group and volunteered for the suicide mission, US media reported yesterday.

Ibrahim Hassan al-Asiri, the Yemen-based terrorist schemer who specialises in exploding underwear, is at the top of the CIA's hit list

A senior al-Qai'da leader has been killed in an airstrike by a US drone.

Al-Qa'ida militants have staged a surprise attack on a Yemeni army base in the south, killing 20 soldiers and capturing 25 just hours after a US drone strike killed a senior figure in the terror network wanted in connection with the 2000 bombing of the USS Cole in Yemen.