Sanaa, 15 July (AKI) - An early morning airstrike in southern Yemen on Thursday killed dozens of alleged Al-Qaeda militants, according to Yemeni newspaper Akhbar al-Youm.

The dawn raid in Abyan province was conducted by an American unmanned aircraft which fired missiles at a police station occupied by insurgents, according to the report, citing an unnamed source.

Fighting between government forces and A-Qaeda linked militants has uprooted 70,000 people who have taken shelter in schools and abandoned houses, according to a recent report by Human Rights Watch.

Yemen is battling Al-Qaeda, Islamist and separatist insurgencies while anti-government protests have applied further pressure to the embattled government.

Meanwhile, president Ali Abdullah Saleh is in Saudi Arabia recovering from burns he suffered last month in a bomb attack on the presidential palace in Sanaa.