Security officer killed in drive-by shooting in southeast Yemen

A senior Yemeni security officer was shot dead by unidentified gunmen in the southeastern province of Hadramout on Friday afternoon, a government official told Xinhua. Two masked gunmen on a motorcycle shot and killed Basel al- Kathery, a senior officer of the central security forces near his house in Sayun town before fleeing the area, the local government official said, requesting anonymity. The security officer, from the provincial anti-terrorist office, was gunned down while he was getting out of his residential building in central Hadramout province, the government source said. The drive-by shooting, which carried the hallmarks of an al- Qaida operation, was the latest of a wave of armed attacks and assassinations targeting senior Yemeni security and intelligence officials across the Arab country, according to police sources. Yemen\'s military launched a month-long offensive earlier this year and forced al-Qaida militants to flee several of their bastions in the country\'s restive southern and eastern provinces, which they captured during last year\'s political turmoil. The resurgent Yemeni branch of al-Qaida, which has increased its attacks on both foreign and government targets in the Arabian Peninsula state, vowed to carry out more suicide attacks and assassinations to take revenge. Combating al-Qaida militants in the restive south is one of the challenges confronting Yemeni President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi, who has promised to launch a national dialogue to settle disputes among all political factions and uproot the Yemeni branch of al- Qaida with the help of the United States and neighboring Saudi Arabia.