ADEN, Yemen - Yemeni explosives experts disabled a car bomb in Huta soon after retaking the besieged southern town from Al-Qaeda militants, the interior ministry said on Sunday.

The bomb was found on a vehicle that also contained shells and sticks of dynamite, the ministry said in a statement on its website, accusing Al-Qaeda of being behind the foiled attack.

The device, which was deactivated in the town's main market square late on Saturday, "seemed to have been prepared to be activated as the army entered Huta," local government official Abdullah Ateq said.

Yemeni soldiers on Friday regained control of Huta from suspected Al-Qaeda militants who had been holed up in the Shabwa provincial town for a week in fighting that sparked a mass exodus of civilians.

In its statement, the interior ministry said the fighting resulted in "the deaths of five members of Al-Qaeda, two members of the security forces and the arrest of 32 suspects."

Ateq told AFP the "army continued a sweep of the town where the displaced have begun to gradually return."

Between 8,000 and 12,000 of Huta's 20,000 residents were estimated to have fled the town, according to the Yemeni Red Crescent. The UN refugee agency put the figure at about 4,000.

"Some 35 percent of IDPs (internally displaced people) have already returned to Huta," a local official told AFP on condition of anonymity.

Yemen is the ancestral homeland of Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden and has seen repeated attacks by his jihadist network.

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