A senior Yemeni commander, Nasser Mahdi, and three other soldiers were killed on Saturday as Al-Qaeda suspects installed an ambush in Wadi Abeeda in the east of Marib.
Eyewitness said that Al-Qaeda captured 3 military vehicles and three of its vehicles were destroyed in clashes, pointing out that some villages close to the incident scene were attacked by the army.
Meanwhile, Commander of the Special Forces in Hodeida governorate Ahmed Mana'a escaped an assassination attempt on Friday.
Military sources said that Al-Qaeda suspects in a four-wheel car opened fire at Mana'a and two of his escorts were wounded.
The sources said that three of the attackers were arrested.
In late November, Commander of al-Anad Airbase Mohammad al-Subaihi escaped an assassination attempt on Sunday in the southern governorate of Lahj.
Military sources said al-Qaeda was behind the event, citing that al-Subaihi is pursuing a military offensive against al-Qaeda in Abyan governorate.
Al-Qaeda had claimed its responsibility for the assassination of senior Yemeni commanders including the commander of the Southern Military Region Salem Qatan who was killed in last June.
More than 60 Yemeni officers, most of them are intelligence officers, were killed across Yemen since the beginning of 2012.
Most assassinations carried out against intelligence officers have occurred in Aden and Sana'a which experience alarming insecurity since the popular uprising erupted against the former regime in early 2011.
Yemeni analysts say that Al-Qaeda failed to target Yemeni strategic facilities and it resorted to assassinate high-ranking officers as a simple option.