Yemen’s presidential adviser survives attack
Yassin Said Noman shot at by a sniper, but saved by darmoured vehicle from bullet, Saba news agency says.
An adviser to Yemen’s president has survived an assassination attempt, the country’s government said.
An unidentified sniper fired shots with a weapon equipped with a silencer on Sunday at Yassin Said Noman’s car, according to the official Saba news agency.
The incident happened when the vehicle was driving through the capital Sanaa, but the bullet did not hit Noman as the car was armoured, the agency reported.
The attack was the third attempt to kill Noman, who is vice president of the National Dialogue Conference and secretary general of the Socialist Party.
“Targetting such a well-known political personality and important national figure is targetting the move towards reform that Yemen is currently undergoing,” the agency quoted the government as saying.
Other attacks
Meanwhile, gunman managed to shoot dead two senior Yemeni officers in separate ambushes on their cars on Sunday, security sources said.
Brigadier General Saddam Hussein al-Dhahri, the head of security of the presidential palace, was killed by an attacker from a passing car as the victim left work in the southern Yemeni city of Taiz, a security source told the Reuters news agency.
In a separate incident, Police Colonel Abdullah Gaithallah was killed in the southern province of al-Baida by gunmen who ambushed his car.
It was not immediately known who the gunman were, but Yemeni officials have blamed a string of similar killings of police and military officers on armed rebels affiliated to al-Qaeda.
Violence is common in Yemen, where an interim government is facing southern secessionists and northern Houthi rebels in addition to the al-Qaeda-linked fighters who are seeking to overthrow the government and impose Islamic law.