Ali Hassan al-Ahmadi told the defence ministry's 26sep.net news website that the operation was underway in "the Hada area of the Haban district to free two Chinese who were abducted by outlaw elements."

The pair were seized "along with two Yemeni drivers and two soldiers," in the eastern province, said the governor.

He also urged the kidnappers to "release unconditionally their hostages and surrender" to authorities, 26sep.net said.

Local dignitaries were also engaged in mediation efforts to secure the release of the hostages, the governor said.

On Sunday a tribal source told AFP that armed men seized the Chinese oil workers and their escort in protest after a fellow tribesman was wounded by police gunfire at a checkpoint.

"The armed men seized the two Chinese experts from their car in the Mater region" of Shabwa province, 750 kilometres (460 miles) from Sanaa, the source said.

The source, who declined to be named, said the kidnappers belonged to the Laqmush tribe -- a claim confirmed by the governor of Shabwa.

Meanwhile, China's official Xinhua news agency quoted China's ambassador to Yemen as saying that the two oil workers "are now in a safe condition."

Ambassador Liu Denglin also said the two are employees of the Zhongyuan Oil Field Company, Xinhua said.

Yemen's powerful tribes frequently carry out abductions of foreigners to try to secure bargaining counters in disputes with the central government.

Large swathes of the country are controlled by armed tribes and are only nominally under the government's writ.

Of the 200 or so foreigners seized in Yemen over the past decade, all have been released unharmed, except for three Britons and an Australian seized by Islamists in December 1998 who were killed in a botched rescue bid.

In June last year in the far north of Yemen, however, nine foreigners were seized by unknown parties amid sporadic fighting between the army and Zaidi Shiite rebels.

The bodies of two Germans and a South Korean were found soon afterwards.

Five Germans and a Briton are still missing, and Germany's Spiegel magazine in January reported that their abductors were demanding a ransom of two million dollars.

Yemen, the poorest country in the Arabian Peninsula, is beset by a raft of woes, including tribal rivalries and a secessionist movement agitating for the restoration of independent South Yemen.

The government is also battling with a resurgent Al-Qaeda in Yemen, the ancestral home of Osama bin Laden.

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