Qaeda claims failed ambush on Yemen general, death of soldier

Al-Qaeda today said it had carried out an unsuccessful bid to assassinate a top Yemeni general in an ambush the government said killed two soldiers and wounded 11 others.
Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula also said it had killed an intelligence officer in a separate incident today.
In an Internet statement picked up by SITE Intelligence Group, AQAP said it had targeted the vehicle of the commander of the First Military Region, General Abdulrahman al-Hulaili, with an explosive device, but that he had survived.
After the blast, the general's guards "indiscriminately fired their weapons, which horrified the Muslims in the area and afflicted them with some material losses to their property", the statement said.

A military official said two soldiers were killed and 11 wounded when Al-Qaeda militants ambushed Hulaili's convoy in southeastern Hadramawt province.
They detonated explosives planted by the roadside and opened fire as the convoy passed, but Hulaili escaped unscathed, the official added.

In the second incident, AQAP said its gunmen opened fire on Colonel Nasser al-Wahishi in central Baida city, killing him instantly.
A local official there said two gunmen on a motorbike shot Wahishi dead, and that the assailants were suspected of being in Al-Qaeda.
The attacks come a day after a similar bombing targeted the commander of the 31st Armoured Battalion, General Farej al-Atiqi, in the southern city of Aden.

Atiqi escaped unharmed, but his driver was killed and two bodyguards were wounded.