SANAA, Yemen (AP) — Authorities foiled plots by al-Qaida to take over key cities in southern Yemen and attack strategic ports and gas facilities, a government spokesman said Wednesday amid a heightened alert that has seen Western embassies evacuated and a new suspected U.S. drone strike that killed seven alleged militants from the terrorist group.

Al-Qaida planned to target the cities of Mukalla and Bawzeer, then send militants disguised as Yemeni troops to attack two strategic oil ports in the impoverished country on the Arabian Peninsula, government spokesman Rageh Badi said.

Other al-Qaida militants would also try to sabotage pipelines to "create panic among Yemeni army and Yemeni security services," Badi told The Associated Press, adding that authorities managed to foil the plots in the past 48 hours.

Details of the plot were first reported by the BBC.

His remarks came hours after Washington apparently stepped up its drone strikes in Yemen in the covert fight against militants from al-Qaida's branch, which is considered the most active of the terrorist network.

US, British embassies evacuate Yemen staffPlay video."

Security officials and residents said early Wednesday that a suspected U.S. drone strike killed seven suspected al-Qaida militants in southern Yemen, the fifth such attack in the country in less than two weeks.

Yemen has emerged as the focus of a feared attack that has led the U.S. to shut down temporarily 19 diplomatic posts in the Middle East and Africa. American and British workers from embassies in Yemen's capital of Sanaa also have been evacuated.

Washington has been backing a campaign by Yemen's military to uproot al-Qaida militants and their radical allies who had taken over a string of southern cities and towns. The militants have largely been driven into the mountains and countryside, and Yemeni intelligence officials say the current threat may be retaliation for that offensive.

A U.S. intelligence official and a Mideast diplomat told the AP that the closures were triggered by the interception of a secret message between al-Qaida chief Ayman al-Zawahri and Nasser al-Wahishi, the leader of the Yemen-based al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula, about plans for a major attack.

The drone strike killed the militants in Shabwa province, setting two vehicles on fire, security officials said. All the officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the matter with the media.

View gallery."

A policeman stands guard at the entrance of Sanaa International Airport, Yemen, Wednesday, Aug. 7, 2 …

Residents of the Markha region of Shabwa province said they saw several bodies in two burning cars. The residents spoke on condition of anonymity because they feared retaliation.

While the United States acknowledges its drone program in Yemen, it does not confirm individual strikes or release information on how many have been carried out.

An AP reporter in Sanaa said a drone buzzed over the capital for most of the day.

Security checkpoints have been set up across Sanaa, searching cars and individuals. The Yemeni army has surrounded foreign installations, government offices and the airport with tanks and troops in the capital as well as the strategic Bab al-Mandeb straits at the entrance to the Red Sea in the southern Arabian Peninsula. Top government officials, along with military and security commanders, were told to stay vigilant and limit their movements.

The terrorist network's Yemeni offshoot, known as al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula, has been bolstering its operations for the past few years after key Saudi operatives fled there following a major crackdown in their homeland.

View gallery."

Travelers make their way to the departure lounge at Sanaa International Airport, Yemen, Wednesday, A …

The group overran entire towns and villages in 2011, taking advantage of a security lapse during nationwide protests that eventually ousted Yemen's longtime ruler, Ali Abdullah Saleh. Backed by the U.S. military, Yemen's army was able to regain control of the southern region, but al-Qaida militants continue to launch deadly attacks on security forces.

Massive al-Qaida plot foiled in Yemen

Security forces say they have stopped a plan to seize oil and gas export facilities in key cities.
Terror group's attack strategy

The U.S. military has a problem with atheists

By Jack Kim

SEOUL (Reuters) - Impoverished North Korea said on Wednesday it was reopening the troubled Kaesong industrial zone jointly run with the wealthy South just minutes after Seoul signalled its willingness to let it close for good.

The North's Committee for the Peaceful Reunification of Korea, which handles Pyongyang's ties with Seoul, proposed talks aimed at normalising the project and said the safety of South Koreans visiting the factory park would be guaranteed.

The committee was "prompted by its desire to bring about a new phase of reconciliation, cooperation, peace, reunification and prosperity by normalizing operation in the Kaesong zone", it said in unusually conciliatory remarks.

The comments were carried by the North's official KCNA news agency about 90 minutes after South Korea announced steps to compensate its firms that operate factories in Kaesong for losses - a step widely seen as a move towards shutting down the rivals' last symbol of cooperation.

Reclusive North Korea, for which Kaesong has been a rare source of hard currency, and the South, one of the richest countries in the world, are technically still at war as their 1950-53 civil conflict ended not in a treaty but in a mere truce.

The decision to pay 109 South Korean small and medium-sized manufacturers from a government insurance fund came after the North went for 10 days without responding to what Seoul said was its "final offer" for talks aimed at reopening the project.

South Korea had said it would not wait forever.

The South welcomed the North's change of heart and accepted the proposal for talks to be held on August 14 in Kaesong.

View gallery."

Protesters comprising of South Korean employers and employees working at factories in the Kaesong In …

"We hope that a rational solution can be found ... for the normalisation of the Kaesong industrial zone," South Korean Unification Ministry spokesman Kim Hyung-suk said.

It was not immediately clear if the South really wanted to end the project, which would have dealt a huge blow to relations between the two foes, but this was the toughest it had talked since the Kaesong crisis began.

North Korea shut down the factories, a few miles from the two Koreas' heavily armed border, in April, pulling out all 53,000 of its workers and banning South Korean firms from crossing the border with supplies at the height of nuclear tensions between the two sides.

The Kaesong project generated roughly $90 million annually in wages paid directly to the North's state agency that manages the zone. The companies had no oversight on how much was paid to the workers, most of whom are women who work on assembly lines.

Earlier this year, North Korea threatened nuclear strikes against the South and the United States after the United Nations tightened sanctions against it for conducting its third nuclear test in February.

The North suddenly agreed to dialogue in June that would have led to the resumption of high-level talks for the first time in six years. However, plans for that meeting collapsed over seemingly minor protocol issues.

The reopening of Kaesong is seen as addressing the political interests of the democratic South and the economic interests of the North that is so poor it can't feed its people.

South Korean President Park Geun-hye has pledged to engage the North in dialogue and take steps to build confidence for better ties, but has also vowed not to give in to unreasonable demands or make concessions to achieve superficial progress.

(Editing by Nick Macfie)

N. Korea blinks in standoff over shared zone

As soon as South Korea signaled that shuttering a joint industrial area would be OK, North Korea changed its stance.
Proposes new talks