SANAA (AFP) -- Yemeni security forces shot dead a suspected Al-Qaeda extremist who was among 23 militants to have escaped from jail nearly a year ago, the interior ministry said.

Yasser Nasser al-Homaiqani was killed during a shootout with government forces in the mountainous southern province of Abyan in which two officers were also wounded, a ministry official told the state Saba news agency.

Homaiqani opened fire on security forces and hurled a hand grenade at them, sparking the clash in which he was fatally wounded, the official said.

Security forces had spotted and attempted to question the fugitive in Abyan as they continued their hunt for wanted militants who escaped from the political security prison in Sanaa in February 2006, the official said.

Homaiqani was wanted for "taking part in plotting terrorist attacks" that occurred in Yemen, he added.

Homaiqani was among 23 al-Qaeda suspects who broke out of the detention facility in the Yemeni capital. Seven of the escapees are still on the run. The 16 others have either been killed, captured or turned themselves in.

Yemen is the ancestral homeland of al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden.

Since the September 11, 2001 attacks on the United States, Sanaa has worked with Washington to clamp down on suspected al-Qaeda sympathizers.