(Xinhua) -- At least three internal security troops were bumped off and five others maimed on Wednesday when a group of al-Qaeda gunnies fell upon the convoy of the Shabwa governor and other brass hats in south Yemen, a provincial security official told Xinhua.The official said the al-Qaeda's attack took place in Yashbam valley, close to al-Hota town where combined security and armed forces were still duking it out with fighters of the resurgent al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) in the country's southeast province of Shabwa.
"Shabwa Governor Ali Hassan al-Ahmadi and Deputy Chief of General Staff, Brigadier General Salim al-Qetin, and other top officials survived al-Qaeda's attack," the official told Xinhua on condition of anonymity.
"Three security soldiers were bumped off and another five soldiers maimed in fierce clashes with al-Qaeda murderers to protect the officials," he said.
The Yemeni Defense Ministry said later that the Shabwa governor and other top security and army officials survived on Wednesday a deadly attack by al-Qaeda gunnies who managed to kill one soldier and wound other security escorts in an ambush in southeast Yemen.
"One soldier was killed and nine other security bodyguards injured in a bushwhack by al-Qaeda cut-throats in Yashbam valley in the province of Shabwa during Wednesday's sunset," the ministry said in a statement on its website, citing Shabwa's security director Ahmad al-Makdashi.
"The security head of al-Saieed district was among the injured, " al- Makdashi said.
The cut-throats with machine guns and rocket-propelled grenade ( RPG) launched attack from their hideouts in some houses in Yashbam area when the official's convoy en-route from the house of Brigadier General Salim al-Qetin to Ataq, the quiet provincial capital city of Shabwa, he added.
"Security forces were dispatched to the scene and set besiege to the area to bag the terrorist elements and bring them to justice," he said.
Shabwa has become a stronghold of AQAP, which has witnessed a series of deadly battles between al-Qaeda gunnies and internal security troops over the past month.
Last week, Yemen's Defense Ministry said in a statement that the combined forces of security and army units cleansed Hota town in Shabwa of the entrenched al-Qaeda cut-throats and forced the rest to beat feet to surrounding mountains.
According to intelligence reports, as many as 200 al-Qaeda cut-throats had arrived in the town from the northeastern province of Marib and the southern province of Abyan, bringing the total number of al-Qaeda gunnies there to about 300, he said.
The Yemeni government has intensified security operations and air raids against terrorist groups after the Yemen-based al-Qaeda wing claimed credit for an attempt to blow up a U.S.-bound passenger plane last December.