Yemen Police, Qaida Clash Kills 4

Two Yemeni policemen and two al-Qaida suspects were killed in a clash Tuesday when extremists attacked a checkpoint in a bid to free four arrested comrades, the interior ministry said.

The clash erupted after the security services detained "four al-Qaida militants at a checkpoint in (the western province of) Hudaydah" at dawn, the ministry said in a statement.

Two hours later, al-Qaida militants in two cars, one of them booby-trapped, launched an attack on the checkpoint, it said.

This sparked an exchange of fire during which two policemen and two of the assailants were killed.

Two other policemen and a third attacker were wounded as the rest of the extremists fled, and the authorities were dismantling the unexploded bombs planted in the vehicle.

The United States views al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula as the global jihadist network's most dangerous branch.

AQAP has claimed repeated deadly attacks, some of them in the heart of the capital Sanaa.

Despite repeated attempts by the army to crush AQAP in its strongholds in the east and south, militants continue to carry out deadly attacks on security forces across the country.

AQAP took advantage of a weakened central government during a 2011 uprising that ousted veteran president Ali Abdullah Saleh to seize control of large swathes of southern and eastern Yemen.

The army has since regained control of most of the region's main towns, but the jihadists remain active in the countryside.