Two Yemeni security troops and five suspected al-Qaeda militants have died in a shootout in a southern Yemeni town, a provincial security official says.Authorities also arrested two suspected al-Qaeda militants in the shootout, which took place in the town of Tarim in Hadramawt province, the official said on Monday.
He spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorised to speak to the media.
The provincial governor, Ahmed al-Khanbashi, said the troops had surrounded a house in Tarim and exchanged fire with men inside, believed to be members of an al-Qaeda branch.
The governor, who initially said that only two militants died, gave no further details, but the town's residents said the fighting continued for about two hours and that some of the armed men managed to flee.
Last week, two grenades were thrown at a police convoy in the province's capital of al-Mukalla but caused no casualties. Earlier, al-Qaeda claimed responsibility for a suicide car bomb that killed a policeman in the Interior Ministry's regional headquarters in Hadramawt.
Al-Qaeda has an active presence in Yemen, which is the ancestral homeland of Osama bin Laden.