SANAA, Oct 25: Two gunmen armed with Kalashnikov rifles and riding motorcycles shot dead an anti-terror officer and a local police chief in central Yemen on Thursday, a security source said.

The gunmen riddled with bullets the car in which Colonel Ali Al Yamani, an intelligence officer in charge of combating terrorism, was travelling the Dhamar district south of Sanaa along with a local deputy police commissioner.

Col Yamani and the police chief who was not identified were killed on the spot and their assailants managed to flee, the security source said without providing details.

Yemeni police officers are increasingly the target of armed attacks, sometimes carried out by men on motorcycles often accused by authorities of being members of the Al Qaeda militant network.

Yemeni authorities are chasing fighters of the network who were pushed out in mid-June from their main strongholds in the southern restive Abyan province after a massive offensive was launched by the army.

Al Qaeda had taken advantage of the weakening of central power during last year’s popular uprising against former president Ali Abdullah Saleh to strengthen its hold in southern and eastern Yemen.—AFP