ADEN/SANA’A: Suspected militants killed five soldiers guarding a checkpoint in southeastern Yemen yesterday, local officials said, and a leader of a Shia Muslim party was wounded in a drive-by shooting in the capital Sana’a in which two guards died.
The incidents underscored the volatility in Yemen more than two years after long-serving President Ali Abdullah Saleh stepped down following months of protests by Yemenis demanding democratic reforms.
A security source said gunmen in two vehicles stormed the Buroum checkpoint on the border between Shabwa and Hadramout provinces with automatic fire and grenades, killing the five soldiers. The attack was the third in two weeks in Hadramout.
In Sana’a, a security source and witnesses said gunmen riding in a car opened fire on Ismail Al Wazir, head of the Shura Council of Al Haq party - a political group associated with Shia Houthi rebels based in northern Yemen. They said Wazir, who is also a law professor at Sanaa University, was seriously wounded in the pelvis and two of his security escorts were killed. Reuters
