Gunmen kill 3 security personnel in Yemen's Aden

A Yemeni officer and two policemen were killed by unidentified gunmen in the southern port city of Aden on Wednesday afternoon, a government official told Xinhua.

No organization has claimed responsibility for the attack, in Sheikh Othman neighborhood of Aden, but local security authorities usually blame militants of the Yemen-based al-Qaida branch or the Islamic State (IS) group for such attacks in Aden.

"The gunmen who were riding a motorcycle rained the police patrol with a barrage of bullets and left an officer and two policemen killed on the spot, before fleeing to unknown location," a local government official based in Aden said on condition of anonymity.

He added that soldiers who were recently trained and equipped by the United Arab Emirates have been sent to the area in search of the attackers and maintain security.

The Yemen-based affiliate of IS group has claimed responsibility for several suicide attacks that targeted high-ranking Yemeni government officials and military bases in Aden this year.

Last December, the former governor of Aden province, Maj. Gen. Jaafar Saad, and eight bodyguards were killed in a car bombing, an attack the IS-Yemen branch said it committed.

Security sharply deteriorated in Yemen since March 2015 when conflicts erupted in several provinces in the country's southern and northern regions.

Yemen, an impoverished Arab country, has been gripped by one of the most active regional al-Qaida insurgencies in the Middle East. Endit