The military intelligence chief of Yemen's southeastern province of Hadramout escaped an assassination bid by an improvised-explosive device on Tuesday, a government official told Xinhua.

Armed terrorists tried to assassinate Hadramout's military intelligence chief colonel Mohammed Hadiq, and placed an improvised-explosive device under his own car, but he survived the bomb safely and unharmed, the local government official said on condition of anonymity.

The explosive device affixed under the intelligence chief's car went off causing material damage only, the government source said, adding that the bombing was an attempt on Hadiq's life.

A police official told Xinhua anonymously saying that "an explosive device attached to the intelligence chief's car was detonated near his residential building, but no one was injured in the bombing."

Witnesses at the scene confirmed to Xinhua saying that " ambulances and fire trucks rushed to the bomb site."

Although al-Qaida militants are usually held responsible for such armed attacks and assassinations, no group has yet claimed responsibility for the roadside bombing.

In January 2009, al-Qaida affiliates in Saudi Arabia and Yemen officially merged and formed Al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula. The group, mainly entrenching itself in Yemen's southern provinces of Abyan and Shabwa, is on the terrorist list of the United States, which considers it as an increasing threat to national security. Endi

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