One person was killed and three others wounded in an attack apparently targeting a Yemeni official's car on Thursday, a security source said. 

 

The eldest son of deputy interior minister Ali Nasser Lakhsheh was killed when a rocket-propelled grenade hit the family's car in the southern Abyan province, the official said.

 

His wife, another son and a daughter were wounded. It was unclear if the deputy minister himself was in the vehicle at the time of the attack.

 

The official said al-Qaida militants were behind the attack which was carried out when the family was en route from Aden, where the government of President Abedrabbo Mansour Hadi is currently based.

 

Abyan has been the site of attacks by Al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) in recent weeks. Five soldiers were killed by suspected militants there earlier this month.

 

Abyan has also been the target of a string of U.S. air raids targeting AQAP, which Washington regards as the radical group’s most dangerous branch.

 

AQAP has exploited a power vacuum created by the war between the Hadi government and Huthi rebels who control the capital Sanaa and number of major cities along the Red Sea coast.

 

More than 7,700 people have been killed and 40,000 wounded in the conflict, according to the United Nations.