ADEN: Yemen said 37 Al-Qaeda militants were killed in the southern province of Shabwa on Sunday as the army intensified an offensive to root out foreign and local fighters holed up in some of the country’s most impenetrable areas.

The report by state news agency Saba came shortly after a military source told Reuters a suicide bomber killed six soldiers by their outpost in Shabwa, one of two provinces where the army has been fighting Al-Qaeda and its allies.

The source, speaking from the battlefront, also told Reuters that 20 soldiers were wounded in the bombing.

Saba quoted a military source as saying that most of the militants killed in Sunday’s fighting were Saudis, Afghans, Somalis and Chechens and other nationalities.

The source also said the army destroyed a number of vehicles and weapons belonging to the militants.

President Abdu Rabbo Mansour Hadi said in a speech last week that 70 percent of Al-Qaeda fighters in Yemen were foreigners, although AQAP later denied this.

Late on Saturday, suspected militants in Shabwa threw hand grenades at a central bank building, wounding two soldiers, a local official said.

AQAP and its local ally, Ansar Al-Sharia, have been waging an insurgency in southern Yemen.