Al Qaeda militants took control of a western district of Yemen's main port city of Aden on Saturday night, residents said, in another sign that the group is drawing strength from five months of civil war. The entrance of Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula into Aden, once one of the world's busiest ports and the most secular and secure parts of an otherwise restive country, would be one of its biggest gains yet. Meanwhile United Arab Emirates forces based in Aden freed a British hostage who had been held by the group. The hostage, earlier identified by a Yemeni police source as an oil worker abducted in February last year, was taken to the Emirati capital Abu Dhabi on a military plane on Saturday night. Britain's Foreign Office confirmed that the hostage had been rescued in a military intelligence operation and was safe and well.