Two Yemen soldiers killed in Qaeda attack — officials

DUBAI — Suspected Al Qaeda militants on Sunday killed two Yemeni soldiers during an attack in the south of the country, officials said.

The dawn attack targeted a military checkpoint in the oil-producing province of Shabwa, a Yemeni government security official told AFP on condition of anonymity.

“Two fighters were also injured but they managed to escape,” another Yemeni official said.

Yemen erupted into conflict in 2014 when Iran-backed Houthi rebels seized the capital Sanaa, before a Saudi-led military coalition intervened the following year on the side of the country’s internationally recognised government.

The impoverished country is also a hotbed for extremists like Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), considered by the United States to be the extremists group’s most dangerous offshoot.

AQAP attacks on both government and rebel forces have declined in recent years.

A leading member of the group, Hamad Bin Hamoud Al Tamimi, was killed in late February in the south of Yemen in a suspected US air strike.

The war in Yemen has killed hundreds of thousands and resulted in the world’s worst humanitarian crisis.

But fighting has largely died down since a six-month UN-brokered ceasefire that began in April last year.