Gunmen kill second Yemen airman in 24 hours

Unidentified gunmen shot dead on Tuesday a Yemeni air force officer in the capital, the second killing of its kind in less than 24 hours, a military official said.

Colonel Ali al-Dailamy died instantly after he came under fire from gunmen near the military hospital in Sanaa, the official said, adding that the assailants managed to flee.

On Monday, air force colonel Abdulwahab Azzan was also shot dead in Sanaa, as he drove back from Al-Dailamy air base, 20 kilometres (12 miles) north of Sanaa.

The two killings are the latest in a series of attacks targeting military personnel, which remain unclaimed by any party, including Al-Qaeda loyalists who have carried out almost daily attacks on security personnel in southern Yemen in recent months.

Late August, a bomb planted on a bus transporting air force personnel to Al-Dailamy air base, killed one and wounded 25 others.

On Friday, suspected jihadists launched spectacular dawn attacks on three police and army positions in Shabwa province that claimed the lives of at least 56 security personnel.

That was the deadliest attack on the army since a suicide bombing in the capital on May 21 last year in which some 100 soldiers were killed.