Al-Qaida gunmen kidnap Yemeni gov't official
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E-mail Xinhua, April 16, 2012
Suspected al-Qaida gunmen kidnapped a Yemeni government official in the southeastern province of Hadramout on Sunday morning, a police officer told Xinhua.
Ahmed Juman, a security director of the Reida district in the east of Hadramout's provincial capital of Mukalla, was snatched from a main road near his residence by unknown gunmen believed to belong to the al-Qaida terrorist group, the police officer said on condition of anonymity.
The abductors put Juman in a pickup vehicle, taking him towards the insurgents-controlled town of Azzan in neighboring Shabwa province, the officer said.
Meanwhile, a security official told Xinhua anonymously that a roadside bomb killed three civilians in Qutun area in Hadramout when it struck their vehicle.
"A civilian car ran over a landmine which was planted by insurgents on the main road in an attempt to target vehicles of the security forces, leaving three civilians killed," the official said.
On March 22, the al-Qaida militants claimed responsibility for killing a Yemeni intelligence officer after kidnapping him also in Mukalla.
Several security and intelligence officials have been assassinated or kidnapped in recent months in southern Yemen, where hundreds of al-Qaida militants have overrun several cities due to security vacuum during last year's political upheaval.
In recent months, militants of the Yemen-based al-Qaida branch have carried out large-scale attacks and suicide bombings against government troops across the country's lawless southern regions.
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