Military officials say a senior Yemeni army officer and three soldiers have been killed in separate bomb attacks by suspected al-Qaeda militants across the country’s troubled southern and southeastern regions.
“A bomb planted by Al-Qaeda on a road linking the towns of Seiyun and Shibam (in the southeastern province of Hadramawt) exploded when an army vehicle passed, killing three soldiers and wounding six others,” a military official said on condition of anonymity.
The official added that two suspected al-Qaeda members were arrested at a checkpoint at the entrance to Seiyun just hours before the attack.
Meanwhile, a senior Yemeni army officer was killed in al-Mansura district of the southern port city of Aden on Saturday when a bomb planted in his vehicle went off.
“A bomb exploded in the car of General Ahmed Mohammed Saleh al-Omari, logistics and supplies officer of the third military region... wounding him and his son,” an unnamed military source said. The official noted that both were rushed to a nearby hospital, where Omari later succumbed to his wounds.
Yemen has witnessed regular attacks on its troops and other acts of violence, with authorities blaming al-Qaeda militants for the deadly assaults.
On August 6, al-Qaeda suspects opened fire on an army vehicle in Habban in Shabwa Province, killing five soldiers and wounding another.
On August 4, four soldiers were killed in ambushes in Hadramawt, two days after militants shot dead four policemen in an attack on a checkpoint in Shabwa.
Al-Qaeda-linked violence against Yemeni security forces has reportedly grown since February 2012, when President Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi came to power in a one-man election backed by Saudi Arabia and the United States.
Hadi replaced long-time dictator Ali Abdullah Saleh, who was ousted after a year of mass protests across the country.
