Five killed in attack on Yemeni post office vehicle

Attackers get away with haul worth almost $50,000, leaving dead four security men and a post office manager.

SANA'A // Five people were killed yesterday afternoon in an attack on a post office department vehicle in the eastern province of Hadramaut.

According to local sources, attackers blocked the way of the vehicle, and its accompanying police car, which was carrying money from Mukalla city to Shaher city, and opened fire, killing four security men and the finance manager of Mukalla post office.

A security official in Hadramaut said: "The attackers managed to escape with the money, estimated at 10 million rials [$47,000]."

Four people were killed and four others wounded on January 9 in a similar attack on an electricity department vehicle in the southern province of Abyan which was carrying money to be deposited at the Central Bank branch in Zinjibar.

The activities of al Qa'eda in the Arabian Peninsula, with whom some have suggested yesterday's attackers are believed to be affiliated, have increased in recent months. The terror organisation this month claimed responsibility for 50 operations carried out in different parts of Yemen in the last five months of 2010.

It said in a statement that it executed 13 operations against security officers in five Yemeni provinces, six of them in Abyan, in which 13 officers and soldiers were killed.