Yemeni forces have arrested three suspected al-Qaeda militants who were wounded in a raid that killed two members of the group earlier this week.
Yemeni forces killed at least two al-Qaeda members on Monday they said were behind threats that forced Western embassies to close. The raid met US security concerns that allowed its already heavily fortified mission to reopen.
Three militants wounded in Monday's raid had initially escaped, fleeing to another province where they sought shelter and medical care, the security source said. They were found in a hospital and arrested yesterday.
Four other people who had been sheltering the militants were also detained, the source said. He added that doctors in the hospital may not have realised the men they were treating were probably from al-Qaeda.
Security sources described all the al-Qaeda militants arrested in recent days as rank-and-file members of the group.
Yemen, the poorest Arab country, was thrust into the foreground of the US-led war against Islamist militants after a Yemen-based wing of al-Qaeda said it was behind a Christmas Day attempt to bomb a US-bound plane.
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has said fighting in Yemen was a threat to regional and global stability.
Placed strategically on the Arabian Peninsula's southern rim, Yemen is trying to fight a threat from resurgent al-Qaeda fighters while a Shia revolt rages in the north and separatist sentiment simmers in the south.
Yemen has sent troop reinforcements to take part in a campaign against al-Qaeda in three provinces over the past four days, and one security source said forces had set up extra checkpoints on main roads.
The West and Saudi Arabia fear al-Qaeda will take advantage of Yemen's instability to spread its operations to the neighbouring kingdom, the world's biggest oil exporter, and beyond. Yemen is a small oil producer.
Yemen, with shrinking oil reserves, a water crisis and fast-growing population, had already stepped up security on its coast to block militants from reaching its shores from Somalia.
Yemeni officials acknowledge the need for US help with counter-terrorism, but say the government also lacks resources to tackle the poverty that widens al-Qaeda's recruiting pool.
Defence and counterterrorism officials say Washington has been quietly supplying military equipment, intelligence and training to Yemen to root out suspected al-Qaeda hide-outs.
Civil war and lawlessness have turned Yemen into an alternative base for al-Qaeda, which US officials say has been largely pushed out of Afghanistan and is under military pressure from the Pakistani army in bordering tribal areas.
Reuters