Qaida Fighters Agree to Pull Out of Yemen's Rada

Al-Qaida fighters agreed on Tuesday to withdraw from the central Yemeni city of Rada, which they seized a week ago, a military source said.

"Tribal mediation carried out by Sheikh Hashed Fadhl al-Qawsi succeeded, after three days of talks, to convince the armed al-Qaida men to leave Rada," a senior official told Agence France Presse.

"Members of al-Qaida began evacuating public buildings that they had occupied" after having taken the town on January 16, the source said.

"They are leaving the location without resistance" he added without specifying what the militants had received in return.

Al-Qaida militants swept into Rada last week and overran it within hours, marking a significant advance by the extremists towards the capital.

The takeover of Rada, 130 kilometers southeast of Sanaa, was the latest in a series of towns and cities -- until now deeper in the south and east -- to fall as al-Qaida takes advantage of a central government weakened by months of protests.

Sources in the town had said more than 1,000 al-Qaida gunmen invaded Rada, which is within striking distance of a strategic highway connecting Sanaa with the south and southwest.

Al-Qaida-linked militants already control a string of towns in Abyan, Shabwa and Marib provinces, but Rada is the closest they have come to the capital.

The strong jihadist presence in Yemen made President Ali Abdullah Saleh a key ally in Washington's "war on terror" before the Arab spring uprisings sparked a wave of protests against his regime that he countered with deadly violence.