Africa

Home page

Africa

Militants kill local Yemeni security chief

14 October 2010 22:21 (UTC +04:00)

Baku-APA. Two attacks by suspected al-Qaida militants in Yemen on Thursday killed a security chief of a southern town and injured two of a regional governor’s bodyguards, security officials said, APA reports quoting news.yahoo.com website.
The attacks follow a similar shooting the day before and are part of what Yemeni officials say is an increase in al-Qaida’s attempts to assassinate security officials.
Yemen’s weak central government is struggling to contain al-Qaida militants, who have expanded their operations there since their Yemeni and Saudi branched merged a year and a half ago to form al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula. Washington is deeply concerned about the group, which claimed responsibility for the failed attempt to down a Detroit-bound jetliner with a suicide bomber in December. The U.S. is funding and training Yemen’s military.
Yemen, the Arab world’s poorest country, also faces an on-and-off Shiite rebellion in the north and a separate secessionist movement in the south.
In one of the attacks Thursday, militants shot and killed Abdullah al-Baham, security chief of the town of Mudiyah in Abyan province while he was performing a routine security check, town mayor Mohammed al-Nukhei said.
A few hours later, gunmen opened fire on the entourage of the Abyan governor, leading to a fire fight that injured two of his security guards. Governor Ahmad al-Maisari was on his way to investigate the first attack when the shooting started, police said.
Security officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they weren’t authorized to speak to media, said they suspect al-Qaida militants, led by leader Anwar al-Ambari, were behind the two attacks.
Also Thursday, the deputy intelligence chief in the town of Sayoun in Hadramut province died after gunmen on motorcycles shot him a day earlier, hospital officials said on condition of anonymity. Al-Qaida militants are also suspected in that attack.