10 Yemeni policemen killed in gunmen attack on checkpoint

About ten policemen were killed following a terrorist armed attack by al-Qaida militants on a security checkpoint in Yemen's southeastern province of Hadramout on Friday afternoon, a military official told Xinhua. "Masked terrorists numbered 12 or 15 raided a security outpost of the special forces unit in the entrance of Qatan region in Hadramout province, leaving ten policemen killed and two others wounded," the military official said on condition of anonymity. Some of the al-Qaida attackers were either killed or wounded as a result of the exchange of fire with soldiers at the checkpoint, the military source said without giving an exact number. The al-Qaida gunmen stormed the area around 2.15 p.m. local time and opened fire on soldiers manning the checkpoint, before destroying an armored vehicle with a rocket-propelled grenade (RPG) , another official in Hadramout told Xinhua anonymously. Residents said the attackers drove in through the southern part of the region in a pick-up truck and motorcycles and managed to escape after conducting the incident. The military authorities in Hadramout sent enforcement troops to the area and a search operation was launched to catch and follow the perpetrators, according the Yemeni officials. The attack came just one day after gunmen suspected to be al- Qaida members invaded the headquarters of the Fourth Military Region in the port city of Aden, leaving at least 16 people killed. Last month, al-Qaida militants killed 24 Yemeni soldiers of the special forces in an attack on military barracks in the southeast province of Hadramout. Militants of the Yemen-based al-Qaida offshoot were blamed by the country's government for a series of assassinations and armed attacks, mostly in the country's southern regions. The al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula, which emerged in January 2009, is considered the most strategic threat to the Yemeni government and neighboring oil-rich Saudi Arabia.