ADEN  – Fresh violence in south Yemen on Thursday killed 30 people, of whom 25 were Qaeda fighters, including five in an air strike by the Yemeni air force, officials said. The air raid struck the eastern outskirts of Jaar, a town in Abyan province that is controlled by Qaeda, and also wounded militants, said a local official. Two other Qaeda fighters were killed in fighting with militiamen belonging to the Popular Resistance Committees, who are fighting alongside the army, in the village of Batis, north of Jaar, the official said. The clashes erupted when the militants attempted to return to the village which they had controlled until they were chased out by the army last week.And five more jihadists were killed in an ambush near Batis, the official added.The ambush by pro-army militiamen was led by a former Qaeda militant, Abdullah al-Sayed, who defected last year in protest at the presence of “foreigners” in the ranks of the Islamists group.After the ambush, fierce fighting erupted between militants and the militiamen when the jihadists launched an evening assault on Batis, using shells and machine-guns, causing more deaths, sources said.“In all, 20 Qaeda militants were killed in Thursday’s military operations around Batis,” the deputy governor of Abyan, Ahmed Ghaleb al-Raghawi, told AFP.