A firefight in which three soldiers and two civilians were killed erupted when security forces moved in to arrest an Al-Qaeda suspect in southeastern Yemen, the defence ministry said on Tuesday.
"Yemeni security forces arrested an Al-Qaeda leader Mohammed Abdullah Maouda when he was on his way... with an armed group to Shabwa province Monday afternoon," governor of Marib province Ali Naji al-Zaidi told 26sep.net, the ministry's website.
It added that a shootout ensued during which five people, three soldiers and two civilians, were killed.
"A soldier stopped Maouda and other gunmen from the network (Al-Qaeda) at a checkpoint while they were in a car, and when he asked them for their documents, they shot him dead," the defence ministry reported.
The gunmen then "clashed with the security forces after another group of militants came to the rescue of Maouda and his companions, causing the death of two other soldiers and two civilians."
Six soldiers and a civilian were also wounded in the clashes, said the governor.
Maouda is one of the "most dangerous wanted Al-Qaeda elements who has carried out terrorist attacks against security checkpoints," the ministry's news website quoted Zaidi as saying.
Situated at the strategic southern tip of the Arabian peninsula, Yemen -- ancestral home of Osama bin Laden and scene of anti-government protests in recent days -- has been fighting Al-Qaeda insurgents in its south and east.
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