Gunmen attack a Yemeni official’s motorcade, killing 5 security officers

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ADEN, Yemen (AP) — Gunmen fired on a Yemeni provincial leader’s motorcade Monday, killing at least five security officers and wounding two others, authorities said.

The attack targeted Taiz Gov. Nabil Shamsan on a road linking the province to the rest of the country, a provincial spokesman told The Associated Press. Mohamed Abdel-Rahman added that two assailants were killed in the shootout.

No group immediately claimed responsibility.

In a statement, the governor’s office said security and military forces were working to bring those behind the attack to justice.

The province’s capital, also named Taiz, has been a battleground pitting the Iranian-backed Houthi rebels and other militias backed by the Islamist Islah party against each other as well as other factions in Yemen’s civil war.

Taiz, in the southwest, is the junction of two crucial highways: an east-west road leading to the coastal city of Mocha on the Red Sea, and another north-south, to Sanaa via Dhamar and Ibb provinces. It has been under Houthi blockade since 2016 as part of their war against the internationally recognized Yemeni government.

The country’s brutal war began in 2014, when the Houthis marched from their northern stronghold of Saada province and forced the internationally recognized government into exile. A Saudi-led coalition that included the United Arab Emirates entered the Yemen war the following year in an attempt to restore the government.

The war has been stalemated in recent years, and the rebels reached a deal with Saudi Arabia that stopped their attacks on the kingdom in return for ceasing the Saudi-led strikes on their territories.