Gunmen assassinated early Tuesday a Yemeni intelligence officer in the eastern province of Hadramout, a killing that comes within a series of assassinations targeting key military and security chiefs and officers.

Security officials in the capital Sanaa said Colonel Ahmed Baramada, deputy intelligence office in Hadramout, was shot dead near his home in Mukalla.

So far this year, several senior Yemeni officers have been killed in Mukalla, the capital of Hadramout where assassinations and drugs trade have thrived.

The gunmen, who carried out the assassination, were on a motorbike and are believed to be from Al-Qaeda militants, the officials said, adding they had run away before the authorities arrived at the scene.

The assassination of Baramada came a day after a counterterrorism officer from the central security organization escaped an assassination plot in the capital Sanaa.

Captain Muhammad Homran was seriously injured after a suspected Al-Qaeda militant shot him from onboard a motorbike.

Tens of Yemeni military and security officers, mostly intelligence officers, have been killed since the Yemeni army launched a US-backed offensive and drove Al-Qaeda militants out of their strongholds in the south earlier this year.
The killings including those by suicide bombings occurred in main cities including the capital Sanaa which has seen the deadliest ever suicide bombings against military and security targets