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Al-Qaida assassinates Yemeni intelligence officer: official

03 July 2013 23:14 (UTC +04:00)

Baku-APA. Al-Qaida gunmen shot dead a Yemeni intelligence officer in the southeastern province of Hadramout on Wednesday, an Interior Ministry official told Xinhua, APA reports quoting Xinhua.

Officer Hadi Abidan of the Political Security Service was gunned down by two masked gunmen on a motorbike on a street in Mukalla, the capital city of Hadramout, the official said on condition of anonymity.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the attack, but assassinations are increasingly used by al-Qaida militants in their campaign against the Yemeni government forces, and police officials in Mukalla said the attack bore the hallmarks of al- Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP).

Yemeni security services have repeatedly blamed militants of the Yemen-based AQAP for a series of assassination attacks, mostly in the country's southern regions.

The AQAP, which emerged in January 2009, is considered a major threat to the Yemeni government and its neighboring oil-rich Saudi Arabia.