The midnight bombing on Wednesday at the police station of Jaar, a town in the southern province of Abyan, was the latest in a string of attacks on security personnel in south Yemen since June, most of which have been claimed by Al-Qaeda.
Security forces have launched a search for the attacker, the official told Reuters. He said the bombing followed gunbattles in Jaar between security forces in and unidentified gunmen.
Al Qaeda's campaign against government forces in southern Yemen marks a widening of tactics for the global militant group's Yemen arm, which has clashed with authorities for many years but previously focused on attacks against foreign targets.
With US-backing, the government has launched a crackdown against Al-Qaeda, who had long made use of Yemen's impenetrable mountains and deserts to hide and set up training camps.
Security forces said on Thursday that Hazam Majali, an Al-Qaeda militant who was convicted for participating in a 2002 attack on the French flagged oil tanker Limburg off Yemen, and several other militants turned themselves in to police, the Defense Ministry's newspaper 26 September reported.
In 2006, Majali and 23 other militants escaped from a jail in Sanaa, enabling Al-Qaeda to revive its regional wing.
Western powers have long feared that Al-Qaeda is exploiting instability in Yemen, which borders Saudi Arabia, to strengthen its operations and launch attacks abroad. In December the group claimed an attempted bombing of a US-bound passenger plane.
The recent Al-Qaeda attacks against the security apparatus came as violence between the state forces and southern separatists rose to its worst level since a 1994 civil war.
A woman passerby was killed by stray gunfire on Wednesday in clashes between a southern separatist and policemen. Three policemen were also injured in the fighting.
North and south Yemen united in 1990, but many in the South, home to most Yemen oil facilities, feel northerners commandeer their resources while denying them political rights.
The government is also still reeling from the latest round of an intermittent six year war against northern rebels that ended with a truce in February.
