Abu Bakr Al-Qirbi said Wednesday that “terrorists in the country” seek to shut such institutions. Most of the school’s 90 students are children of French nationals working in Yemen. The school runs kindergarten to high school classes.

It shut its doors last week after Paris asked families of French people working in Yemen to leave the country due to security concerns and mounting attacks by Al-Qaeda. The embassies of the United States, Britain, Australia and South Korea have issued similar warnings.

Yemeni troops are fighting a guerrilla war against Al-Qaeda in southern towns in which they are struggling to come to terms with the hit-and-run tactics of the enemy, a commander said on Tuesday.

“We are engaged in what amounts to a guerrilla war with Al-Qaeda in the streets and neighborhoods,” the deputy head of security in the Abyan province town of Mudia, Col. Mohammed Al-Khodr, said.

“So far we have not managed to win the battle and are facing difficulties as most of the fighters are drawn from among the towns’ residents,” Khodr said.

“Al-Qaeda militants have been using hit-and-run tactics and infiltrating neighborhoods of the towns (of Mudia and Loder) from the surrounding mountains to carry out attacks on military posts,” he added.

Tuesday afternoon, fighter jets fired four missiles on Thououba, a near Mudia, witnesses said.

A security official confirmed the raid, with authorities saying alleged Al-Qaeda leader Abdul Monem Al-Fahtani is hiding there.

This is the third raid in the past three days against villages located in the same region.