suspected Al-Qaeda ambush against a Yemeni army convoy joining a new offensive in the south triggered a gunbattle Tuesday that killed 15 soldiers and 12 militants, medical and tribal sources said. The government hospital in the Shabwa provincial capital Ataq received the bodies of 15 soldiers and 10 wounded comrades, medics told AFP. An officer confirmed the army had lost 15 dead when the convoy was ambushed in the Al-Saeed district of the province. A tribal source in an area where Al-Qaeda militants take their dead said 12 were killed in Tuesday's clash.