Unknown gunmen shot dead a Yemeni security chief and his bodyguard in Baidha province on Sunday as part of an uncontrolled of assassination campaign targeting military and security officers in many parts of the republic.
The authorities said Major. Abdulwali Saleh Al-Nihmi, security director in the Thi Naem district, and his bodyguard, Adnan Ahmed Saeed Al-Qubati, were killed in the Haid Al-Sama’a. “They were ambushed. The gunmen opened fire at their patrol and ran away,” an official in Sanaa told the Yemen Post.
The incident came days after the authorities in Baidha, in central Yemen, announced the militants had left the Manaseeh area, part of the Rada city, under a tribal mediation that stopped a military campaign which was dispatched to drive the militants out of the area and release three Europeans.
The two Finns and Austrian were kidnapped in Sanaa in December and were said to have been handed to Al-Qaeda-linked militants in this province.
They are still detained and earlier today the Austrian appeared in a videotape appealing his country to release him. Also, Al-Qaeda is still detaining other foreigners including the Saudi deputy consul, Al-Khalidi, who was abducted near his house in Aden early last year.
Media quoted security officials in Baidha as blaming Al-Qaeda for the attack.
Tens of military and security chiefs and officers, mostly intelligence detectives, have been assassinated in key parts of the republic including the capital Sanaa since last year.
Many others escaped death and others were hurt in failed plots.
The assassinations, mostly by unknown attackers using motorbikes, come amid alarming security disorder at a time when the country is struggling to return the situation to normal under a West-backed power-transfer deal which was brokered by the GCC after the 2011 unrest.