ADEN, Yemen, July 19 (Xinhua) -- A senior official of Yemen's Criminal Investigation Department (CID) was shot dead by unknown gunmen on Thursday in the southern port city of Aden, a government official told Xinhua.
The Aden-based source said the victim, Colonel Saif Adhalea, 45, was ambushed in his car by masked gunmen on a motorcycle past by at 10 a.m. local time (0700 GMT) near Express oil station in the district of Mansourah.
The source said Saif was heading to his workplace at Aden's Central Prison. The driver was unharmed and managed to rush the victim to a local hospital. Saif died later at Naqeeb hospital of gunshot wounds in the chest.
No group has claimed responsibility for killing the criminal investigation official, but police sources blamed militants of the Yemen-based al-Qaida branch (AQAP) for being behind the attack.
For the past two years, the al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula and other terrorist groups, including the Islamic State, have been active in southern Yemen.
Considered as Yemen's temporary capital, Aden is where the Saudi-backed government has been based since 2015.
The impoverished Arab country has been locked into a civil war since late 2014, when the Iranian-backed Shiite Houthi rebels overran much of the country and seized all northern provinces, including the capital Sanaa.
Saudi Arabia is leading an Arab military coalition that intervened in Yemen in 2015 to support the government of President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi after Houthi rebels forced him into exile.
