Yemen: Gunmen attack foreign advisers, kill one

SANAA, Yemen—Unknown gunmen in Yemen killed a foreign military expert and wounded his colleague in a drive-by shooting Tuesday in the capital, a Yemeni security official said.

Colonel Mohammed al-Mawri of the Interior Ministry information department said two gunmen on a motorcycle shot the two Tuesday as they left their hotel in Sanaa’s Benoun street.

He said the two are military experts working for Yemen’s Defense Ministry. An investigation is underway and the ministry is also trying to determine the nationality of the two victims.

A spokesman for the Russian Embassy in Sanaa, Nikolai Lyagushin, told the Associated Press by phone that the two were Belarussian citizens who were working “on private contract.” The Belarussian Foreign Ministry, which has no embassy in Yemen, told Russian news agencies that they were still investigating the incident.

Yemen is fighting a war against al-Qaida’s local branch, which Washington considers one of the world’s most dangerous offshoots of the terror network.

The branch, also known as Al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula, regularly strikes security and military targets with drive-by shootings, suicide bombings and other attacks.

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