The suspected Al-Qaeda militant snatched a gun from one of two intelligence agents guarding his room and opened fire, a hospital administrator said. One of the agents was killed and the other wounded, a security official said.
More gunmen opened fire at the hospital entrance as the Al-Qaeda suspect tried to make his way downstairs, the administrator added. There was no word on civilian casualties.
"I saw smoke rising from the window of one story of the hospital, and heard the screams of people who were inside," said a journalist who was at the hospital when the shooting broke out, asking not to be named.
He said the smoke was probably from smoke bombs fired by security forces after the shooting. Al Arabiya television had reported both guards in the room were killed.
Hospital sources said the suspected Al-Qaeda militant was apprehended, but the gunmen who opened fire at the hospital entrance managed to flee.
A security official said the suspect, a non-Yemeni, had been among 11 Al-Qaeda suspects held this week in the capital Sanaa.
Meanwhile, in south Yemen on Sunday, security forces clashed with separatist gunmen who blocked an intercity road, and five people were wounded in the ensuing gunbattle near the city of Dalea that was the scene of clashes on Saturday.
And in the southern city of Zinjibar, a man was killed when an explosive device he was trying to set up at the local offices of the ruling party went off, a party official said.
Escalating violence between government troops and separatists in Yemen's southern provinces has left several dead on both sides in recent weeks, even as separate violence in Yemen's north has eased.
"The southern movement cut off a road linking Dalea to Sanaa and security forces clashed with them. The confrontation lasted half an hour," a government official said, adding the separatists used rocks to block a road between Dalea and Sanaa.
The official said the wounded included three security men and two separatists. Residents said all five wounded were security forces.
In Dalea, sporadic gunfire continued to punctuate what residents described as a shaky calm following unrest on Saturday when troops raided a number of houses, sparking clashes with armed groups. At least 15 people were wounded in the unrest.
A government official had said Saturday's violence broke out when soldiers tried to arrest suspects in the recent killing of a local intelligence official. Up to 50 people were arrested in Saturday's sweeps, bringing the number of people arrested in sweeps over the past month to well over 200.
