Yemen arrests 4 suspects over killing intelligence officer

Yemeni police on Saturday arrested four militants, including two suspected al-Qaida operatives, over the drive-by killing of a high-ranked intelligence officer, a ruling party media reported.

On Thursday, a number of unspecified motorcycle gunmen shot dead Colonel Saleh Salem Amdhieb of the Yemeni Political Agency while the latter was passing through a busy market in Abyan, a southern troubled province where al-Qaida militants and armed secessionists are highly active.

"Two of the arrested were suspected al-Qaida operatives while the rest pair were outlaws with whom the police confiscated a gun and said was used in the shooting," the ruling party's on-line paper www.almethaq.net quoted the police source as saying.

"Colonel Amdhieb was the second intelligence officer to be shot dead in Abyan in less than a month," the website added.

Yemen, the ancestral homeland of al-Qaida network leader Osama bin Laden, has intensified security operations and air raids against terrorist groups, after the Yemen-based al-Qaida wing claimed responsibility for a failed Christmas Day attempt to blow up a U.S. passenger plane bound for Detroit last year.

Source: Xinhua