Five Militants Killed in Clash With Yemen Forces

Two militants were arrested after the shootout in which two Yemeni policemen were killed and four wounded.

Five suspected members of al Qaeda were killed and two arrested in a clash in Yemen after police stormed a hideout in a southern town on Monday, provincial officials said.

Two militants were arrested after the shootout in which two Yemeni policemen were killed and four wounded, they said.

"The force clashed with the militants when they tried to storm a house they were holed up in. The militants opened fire and used hand grenades," one provincial official told Reuters describing the clash in Tarim, a town in the Hadramout province.

The Yemen Soldiers Brigades, an al Qaeda-linked group, claimed responsibility for a suicide car bomb attack that killed two people and injured 18 at a police complex in Hadramout province last month.

A state-run website said late in July that security forces were searching for 12 militants suspected of involvement in that attack. The website of the ruling party said at the time the suspects included a Saudi militant wanted by Saudi authorities.

Yemen, the ancestral home of Osama bin Laden, is grappling with a campaign by al Qaeda militants, who have also claimed responsibility for a shelling near the U.S. embassy and a mortar attack on a refinery in Aden.

A statement from a Yemeni security official, read out on television, said the militants were believed to be behind an attack that killed seven Spanish tourists last year, a mortar attack on the U.S. embassy that hit a nearby girls' school, as well as a string of other attacks around the volatile country.