Sana'a, Yemen  - At least 29 African migrants drowned after smugglers forced passengers of a crowded boat overboard at gunpoint in deep waters, the Doctors Without Borders organisation said on Wednesday.

The international agency said its teams in the southern Yemeni province of Abyan found 29 bodies after the accident on Tuesday on the beach at Wadi al-Barak, about 30 kilometres east of Ahwar town.

Ten more people died during the trip, the humanitarian group said in a statement.

Sana'a, Yemen - More than 1,700 African refuge-seekers have arrived on Yemeni coasts as a new season of people-smuggling gathers steam across the Gulf of Aden, the UN refugee agency reported Tuesday.

"With the onset of calmer weather, smuggling from the Horn of Africa to the Gulf of Aden resumed in August, when 59 boats brought more than 1,700 desperate people to the coasts of Yemen," the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHRC) said in a statement.

It said the figure was three times higher than the number of arrivals in August 2007, when 633 people landed in 10 boats.

The new wave of smuggling resumed earlier this year, as trafficking regularly resumes in September after summer storms subside, the UN agency said.

Sana'a, Yemen  - Yemeni police have arrested a leading figure of the Islamic Jihad movement in the southern province of Abyan amid a clampdown on militant groups, security sources said on Saturday.

Khaled Abdulnabi was captured outside his house in the city of Ja'ar in Abyan late on Friday after police followed a suspicious car into Abdulnabi's house, the sources said.

A gun battle broke out between police forces and armed followers of Abdulnabi in streets of Ja'ar after the arrest and lasted for several hours, witnesses said.

Sana'a, Yemen  - Three policemen were wounded in a gun battle with suspected Islamic militants in southern Yemen late Friday, local officials said.

The fighting took place in Ja'ar city, southern Abyan province, where Jihadist fighters have a strong presence. Officials said the militants were believed to be members of a group affiliated to al- Qaeda.

Ja'ar is 600 kilometres south of the capital Sana'a, and is close to the Hatat mountains where armed Islamic groups often take shelter.

Sana'a - A powerful explosion rattled a mosque in north-western Yemen on Friday, killing a worshipper and injuring five others, witnesses said.

Sana'a, Yemen - Yemeni authorities have arrested 30 suspected members of the al-Qaeda terrorist network believed to have been plotting attacks in neighbouring Saudi Arabia, official sources said T