“Colonel Mohammed Saleh al-Shaief and two bodyguards were killed when his vehicle was fired upon by al-Qaeda members” from another car, the source said.
Shaief, 43, was travelling with a convoy to inspect military forces stationed in the Safar oil field when the attack occurred south of Marib, the source added.
A military source confirmed that Shaief and two bodyguards were killed in an attack, but did not accuse al-Qaeda of being behind it.
Another tribal source said that an al-Qaeda member identified as Al-Uqaili, from the Beyhan area south of Marib, was among the attackers.
In late May, provincial official Jaber Ali al-Shabwani and four of his bodyguards were killed an air strike in Marib province that targeted a wanted al-Qaeda suspect.
The suspect, named as Mohammed Said bin Jardan, was wounded but managed to escape, security sources said.
The deaths sparked a string of revenge attacks in Marib by members of the Al-Shabwan tribe, on the oil pipeline from the Safar field, petrol stations, army positions and a government building.
Two tribesmen were also killed and a policeman was wounded in the unrest.
Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh ordered an investigation into those incidents, and the high security council vowed to continue efforts against al-Qaeda.
Yemen is the ancestral homeland of al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden and has been the scene of several attacks claimed by the group on foreign missions, tourist sites and oil installations.
Marib is one of al-Qaeda’s strongholds in Yemen.
The group has suffered setbacks amid U.S. pressure on the government to crack down. But its presence threatens to turn Yemen into a base for training and plotting attacks, a senior U.S. counter-terrorism official said in September.
In addition to the al-Qaeda threat, Yemen, the Arab world’s poorest country, is also contending with a separatist movement in the south and the aftermath of a six-year uprising by Zaidi Shiite rebels in the far north.
Source: Al Arabiya