ADEN, Yemen, July 25 (Xinhua) -- Three Yemeni police officers were killed Tuesday in an ambush attack by suspected al-Qaida militants in the southeastern province of Hadramout, a government official told Xinhua.
A two-car convoy of the police forces backed by the United Arab Emirates (UAE) was ambushed in the district of Dawan, the official based in Hadramout said.
"We got information that suspected al-Qaida assailants rained the police troops with heavy gunfire and resulted in killing three police officers at the scene," said the official, who spoke under condition of anonymity.
No group immediately claimed responsibility for the attack, but al-Qaida gunmen and other terrorist groups have recently increased their attacks against UAE-backed Yemeni security forces mainly in the southern provinces.
Yemen, an impoverished Arab country, has been gripped by one of the most active regional al-Qaida insurgencies in the Middle East.
The Yemen-based al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), also known locally as "Ansar al-Sharia," emerged in January 2009 and has claimed responsibility for a number of terror attacks against Yemen's army and governmental institutions.
The AQAP and the Islamic State-linked militants have taken advantage of the security vacuum amid an ongoing civil war to expand their influence and seize more territories in southern Yemen.
Security in Yemen has deteriorated since March 2015, when war broke out between the Shiite Houthi rebels, supported by former President Ali Abdullah Saleh, and government forces backed by a Saudi-led Arab coalition.
Over 10,000 people have been killed in ground battles and airstrikes since then, many of them civilians.
