Gunmen Kill Senior Security Officer in Yemen's Aden

Gunmen on a motorbike Sunday shot dead the director of security operations in war-strewn Yemen's second city Aden, police said. 

Colonel Abdelhakim al-Sanidi was killed as he was leaving his home in the coastal city's Mansura district, police officials said. The attackers fled after the shooting.

Yemeni authorities have long blamed the country's branch of al-Qaida for such attacks on members of the security forces.

Backed by weapons and troops from Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, government loyalists recaptured Aden from Iran-backed rebels and their allies in mid-July, before retaking four other southern provinces.

But security has remained fragile in the port city, where al-Qaida suspects were accused last week of blowing up a building used by the secret police. 

They also set up checkpoints in a district of the southern city and seized five buildings including an intelligence services facility, officials said.

Also last week, a rocket attack on the governor's temporary headquarters in Aden killed four people and wounded 10 others.

Al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula, viewed by Washington as the network's deadliest, has exploited the unrest sweeping Yemen to seize the port city of Mukalla, 480 kilometers (300 miles) east of Aden.