Two Al Qaeda militants killed in Yemen

Sanaa, June 4: Yemeni security forces clashed with suspected Al Qaeda gunmen at a military checkpoint in the southeastern province of Hadramout Wednesday, killing two terrorists and detaining four others, a government official said.

"The security personnel manning a military checkpoint in Wadi Hadramout intercepted an Al Qaeda vehicle loaded with explosives and ammunition, triggering a brief shootout that ended with the killing of two terrorists and detention of four others," the official told Xinhua.

He also confirmed that the security forces found and seized heavy weapons hidden in the truck, and said two policemen were also injured in the firefight that lasted for one hour.

"The captured Al Qaeda militants will be airlifted to the Yemeni capital Sanaa via military helicopter gunship and be prosecuted to the full extent of the law," a local intelligence officer told Xinhua over phone.

On Tuesday, a high-ranking security official said army units of the 37th Armoured Brigade shelled a number of suspected Al Qaida-held sites in the valley of Hadramout, without saying if there were any casualties.

Militants of the Yemen-based Al Qaeda offshoot have been blamed by the government for a series of assassinations and armed attacks, mostly in the country's southern region.

The Yemeni military and security forces, with US support, have recently intensified operations against suspected Al Qaeda strongholds throughout the country, killing many non-Yemeni Al Qaeda suspects, and prompting retaliatory attacks by the Al Qaeda.

IANS