Aden: A Yemeni intelligence officer was seriously wounded when his car exploded on Tuesday in the main southern city of Aden, a security official told AFP.
The attack is the second in a week against an intelligence officer in Aden after suspected Al Qaida gunmen killed Colonel Marwan Al Maqbali there on Thursday.
“Colonel Saleh Al Qadi was seriously wounded in the explosion of a car that was probably booby-trapped,” the security official told AFP at the site of the Tuesday attack.
“He was taken to the hospital,” the official said, standing near debris of the still-burning vehicle in Aden’s district of Crater.
He said that police could not immediately know if the attack was carried out by Al Qaida, blamed for most of the increasingly common hit-and-run strikes targeting military personnel and officials.
The jihadist group rarely claims responsibility for such attacks, but did admit being behind a brazen daylight assault on the defence ministry in Sanaa that killed 56 people on December 5.
Al Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) took advantage of a decline in central government control during Yemen’s 2011 uprising to seize large swathes of territory across the south.
The militants were driven back in June 2012 by a military offensive and the group has been further weakened by US drone strikes.
AQAP is considered by Washington to be the most dangerous affiliate of the Al Qaida network.
