ADEN: Suspected Al Qaeda gunmen killed a Yemeni police officer and a soldier in two separate attacks in the south of the strife-torn country, security sources said yesterday.
“Two Al Qaeda gunmen on a motorcycle shot and killed commander Fadl Al Majidi on Thursday night in downtown Huta,” capital of Lahij province, a security source said. The assailants were able to flee the scene.
Farther south in Mahfad, a town in Abyan province, gunmen fatally wounded a soldier in his barracks on Thursday night, said another security source who blamed Al Qaeda.
Yemen has fallen deeper into turmoil since an uprising forced out autocratic president Ali Abdullah Saleh in 2012 after a year of unrest, with rivals, including Shia rebels and Al Qaeda, battling each other. Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, or AQAP, a merger of the jihadist network’s Yemeni and Saudi branches, is seen by the United States as Al Qaeda’s deadliest offshoot.
Agencies
