Al-Qaeda assassinates 2 Yemeni intelligence officers

Al-Qaida militants assassinated two senior Yemeni intelligence officers in the southern part of the country, government officials said on Friday.Colonel Abulmajid al-Salmi, of a military intelligence body, was shot in the head near his home in the southwestern province of Lahj, a local security official told Xinhua by phone on condition of anonymity.He said that the assailants rode a motorcycle to al-Salmi's home and killed him late on Thursday.The 50-year-old was also head of a social, sport and youth club in al-Majhafa area in Lahj's district of Tibn.A provincial spokesman of the Al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) told Xinhua that "their investigations in the past weeks in Lahj and nearby provinces of Abyan and Shabwa revealed that Colonel al-Salmi was one of the officials responsible for recruiting local youths to place electronic chips on targets to instruct the U.S. drone strikes."U.S. drones increased air raid last month against the AQAP in Yemen's southern regions after Washington temporarily closed its embassy in Sanaa due to security threats. The Yemeni government said more than 40 suspected terrorists were killed in the strikes.Meanwhile, the Yemeni Defense Ministry said that Colonel Omar Bdyee bin Amro, with the Political Security Agency's branch in the southeastern province of Hadramout, was killed on Friday afternoon.The ministry said that "two al-Qaida gunmen on a motorbike fired at the Colonel Amro after he finished Friday's prayers in a mosque in Hadramout's district of al-Quton.More than 70 intelligence and security officers have been killed in attacks in the past two years, according to recent statistics by the Yemeni interior ministry.The Yemen-based AQAP, which emerged in January 2009, is considered the most strategic threat to the country and its neighboring oil-rich Saudi Arabia.