Yemeni gunmen loyal to the Shiite Houthi movement man a checkpoint in Sanaa.

Suspected Al-Qaeda gunmen killed a Yemeni police officer and a soldier in two separate attacks in the south of the strife-torn country, security sources said Friday.

“Two Al-Qaeda gunmen on a motorcycle shot and killed commander Fadl al-Majidi on Thursday night in downtown Huta,” capital of Lahij province, a security source told AFP.

The assailants were able to flee the scene.

Farther south in Mahfad, a town in Abyan province, gunmen fatally wounded a soldier in his barracks on Thursday night, said another security source who blamed al-Qaeda.

Yemen has fallen deeper into turmoil since an uprising forced out autocratic president Ali Abdullah Saleh in 2012 after a year of unrest, with rivals, including Shiite rebels and al-Qaeda, battling each other.

Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, or AQAP, a merger of the jihadist network’s Yemeni and Saudi branches, is seen by the United States as al-Qaeda’s deadliest offshoot.

 
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