Suspected Al-Qaeda militants stormed an airport in Yemen’s southeastern Hadramawt province on Thursday, triggering an army intervention to evacuate the passengers of a civilian airliner.

Suspected Al-Qaeda militants stormed an airport in Yemen's southeastern Hadramawt province on Thursday, triggering an army intervention to evacuate the passengers of a civilian airliner, military and security officials said.

Three soldiers were killed in the attack on Sayun airport, while five more were killed in a suicide bombing that hit a nearby military headquarters, the officials said.

Troops were still in a standoff with the militants, who seized the airport control tower and took hostages before bombing it, a security official said.

Sayun is the main town in the Hadramawt valley, an extremist stronghold in the province's interior, and was the scene of a spectacular May 24 raid by scores of militants that left 15 soldiers and police dead.

Attackers gunned down three soldiers at the entrance to the Sayun airport, which is also used by the air force, before taking control of parts of the facility, including the control tower, a security official said.

Simultaneously, a suicide bomber targeted a military base close to the airport, killing five soldiers, a military official said.

The attack on the airport took place as a Yemen Airways plane landed, a military official said.

Troops scrambled armored vehicles to confront the militants and evacuate the passengers of the arriving aircraft in army buses through the northern gate of the airport, the official said.