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District police chief gunned down in southern Yemen

Xinhua, March 5, 2016 Adjust font size:

A district police chief, along with a bodyguard, was killed in a drive-by shooting in Yemen's southern port city of Aden on Saturday, the latest in a string of targeted attacks in the country's temporary capital, a government official told Xinhua.

"Unidentified gunmen opened heavy gunfire after ambushing the vehicle carrying the commander of police forces for Tawahi district of Aden province, Colonel Salim Malkat," the local government official based in Aden said on condition of anonymity.

The armed attack left Colonel Salim and his own bodyguard dead inside their vehicle near Kaltex roundabout in Aden, the government source said.

Sources with Aden's Police Command confirmed to Xinhua that "the director of Tawahi police station was assassinated by terrorists," blaming the al-Qaida insurgent group for the attack.

On Friday, at least 17 people were killed, including foreign missionaries and four Catholic nuns, in an armed attack on a nursing home for the elderly in Aden's district of Sheikh Othman.

Security forces backed by armored vehicles of the Saudi-led Arab coalition have launched a massive manhunt in Aden to nab the culprits behind Friday's bloody incident.

The Yemen-based al-Qaida branch released an official statement denying connection or involvement in the deadly attack on home for elderly in Aden, saying that "such attack is not our way of fighting."

The port city of Aden, Yemen's temporary capital, has been witnessing a state of chaos and lawlessness during the past weeks that resulted in the assassination of Aden's former governor, several high-ranking security officers and judges.

The turbulent and complicated security situation in Aden and neighboring southern provinces of Lahj and Abyan is one of the biggest challenges for the Saudi-led Arab coalition forces operating in Aden.

The Saudi-led Arab coalition has dispatched thousands of soldiers from Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Sudan and Bahrain into five anti-Houthi southern provinces to support and train local Yemeni security forces there.

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

The security situation in the country has deteriorated since March when war broke out between the Shiite Houthi group, supported by former President Ali Abdullash Saleh, and the government backed by a Saudi-led Arab coalition. Endit