ABYAN, July 14 (Xinhua) — Two coordinated gun attacks targeted the intelligence headquarters in Yemen’s southern troubled province of Abyan on Wednesday, killing at least 10 intelligence personnel and wounding 13 others, a provincial security official said.

The official said the assailants carried out coordinated attacks against the two neighboring buildings of the intelligence office and the general security camp in Zinjubar city of Abyan early Wednesday.

The attackers launched serious shootings by heavy machine guns and rocket-propelled grenades from four cars and broke into the two buildings.

The dead and injured were rushed to a nearby hospital, said the official.

The attackers managed to flee while backup security forces were sent immediately to the scene.

“The pair attacks were spectacular, it’s Al-Qaeda again, it’s the second of its kind in less than one month against the Yemeni southern intelligence headquarters’ buildings,” said the official who asked not to be named.

Meanwhile, the top army official ordered to launch an air raid against Al-Qaeda hideouts in Abyan province, an Interior Ministry source told Xinhua on condition of anonymity.

On June 19, militants raided the intelligence headquarters in the southern port city of Aden, killing at least 11. Al-Qaeda later claimed responsibility for the attack, saying it killed at least 24 people.

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

Moreover, two soldiers were injured last night by a gunman in a public market in Al-Khoka, in Hodeida governorate in western Yemen.

According to a source within the security forces in Hodeida, the two soldiers are badly injured and security forces are looking for the culprit, Mohammad Ahmad Oraij, who has been previously accused of murders, closing the roads, smuggling, and forming an armed gang.

The source added that Oraij escaped to Al-Mahjar district, Mocka, in Taiz. The security forces in Hodeida and Taiz are still working to find and arrest him.

According to Al-Sahwa Net, the Islah opposition party’s website, people in Al-Khoka district in Hodeida have complained about the intense security conditions in the area. The local authorities at the governorate asked security forces to end this situation quickly.

Last month’s attack in Al-Dhale’ continues to cause death

One soldier was killed and another injured in Al-Dhale’ governorate in the south of Yemen this Tuesday when one of the soldiers shot them by mistake in security forces headquarters in Al-Dhale’, according to Mohammad Al-Atabi, the deputy governor.  

Al-Atabi explained that the soldiers, who were sent recently from Sana’a, are unskilled in terms of dealing with weapons.

In another example of the continuing problems resulting from the unrest in Al-Dhale’, the Ministry of Defense announced on its website last Monday that a wounded soldier, Mohammad Yahya Sailan, died from a shot in the abdomen he received last month in an attack by gunmen suspected to belong to Al-Qaeda.

The ministry added that the attackers will not go free and that they will continue to investigate the attack, which targeted General Brigadier 135, Mohammad Saleh Al-Shaief, at the Hareeb crossroads, 7 kilometers to the south of Marib governorate.

The attack last month also resulted in the deaths of two soldiers and the injuries of four others, one of whom was Sailan. Last month, a responsible source in the local administration said that Sailan’s case was critical.