Attackers kill 'hit list' Yemen policeman

Assassins on motorbike shoot officer on al Qa'eda list of 55 policemen to be killed.

ADEN // Two attackers on a motorbike in a south Yemen town gunned down an officer who featured on an al Qa'eda hit list of policemen to be killed, a security official said today.

One of the attackers drove the motorbike while the other shot the criminal investigations officer, Ghazi al Samawi, the official said. The attack took place yesterday evening in the town of Zinjibar in Abyan province. Witnesses said the attackers yelled "Allahu Akbar" (God is greatest) as they carried out the killing and then sped off.

Samawi featured on a list drawn up by n al Qa'eda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) of 55 policemen to be targeted for killing. On Saturday AQAP claimed responsibility for the ambush in September of a bus carrying Yemeni intelligence agents, saying it killed 14 people.

The US-based SITE monitoring service also reported that AQAP claimed it had assassinated a colonel named Abdul al Karim al- Baan in the southern Lahij province, whom it described as "the head of investigations."

AQAP also said it had shot an intelligence officer named al Hashidi in the province, without saying whether or not he died, and said it was responsible for an attack on a security and intelligence buildings in Lahij.

* AFP