"So far 30 soldiers have been killed and the toll is expected to rise as some bodies have not been transferred to hospital yet," a military official said on condition of anonymity.
He said that "many more soldiers were wounded" in the clashes south of Zinjibar, Abyan`s provincial capital where the army has been battling Islamists since May.
A medic at a military hospital in the southern port city of Aden confirmed the death toll.
Military officials said Sunday`s clashes erupted after Al-Qaeda linked militants tried to overrun an army post in Kud, sparking a firefight.
A local official in Jaar, a nearby extremist stronghold, said 12 Al-Qaeda militants died in the firefight. Thirty soldiers, 10 of them wounded, were captured, he added.
An official in Kud, meanwhile, told AFP that Al-Qaeda gunmen had taken away the bodies of three of the soldiers killed.
The militants also seized heavy weapons before pulling back to Zinjibar, an army source said, accusing some army leaders who had served under former president Ali Abdullah Saleh of "collaborating" with Al-Qaeda.
It was the latest in a spate of attacks against security forces since President Abdrabuh Mansur Hadi took over from Saleh and was sworn in on February 25 under a Gulf-brokered transition accord.
Zinjibar has fallen mostly under the control of Al-Qaeda militants since May at a time that protests were raging across the country against Saleh`s 33-year rule. (*)
Editor: Kunto Wibisono
Copyright © ANTARA 2012
