Yemen ? Thousands of people have fled a village in southern Yemen where security forces are laying siege to al-Qaida militants, a security official said Monday, signaling an escalation in the government’s U.S.-backed campaign to uproot the terror network’s local offshoot.

Government forces have moved into the village of Hawta with tanks and armored vehicles and 90 percent of its residents have fled, said Abdullah Baouda, police chief for the surrounding district.

One family fleeing Hawta said forces have shelled the village indiscriminately for the past two days to flush out the militants. Troops also fired on vehicles of residents fleeing the village and another nearby trouble spot, the city of Lawder, killing two civilians and wounding three others, according local government and medical officials.

Hawta is in Yemen’s mountainous Shabwa province, one the areas where al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula has taken root over the past year and a half beyond the reach of a weak central government that has little control beyond the capital.