Sana’a: An Al Qaeda-linked group claimed responsibility yesterday for the killing of three senior security officers in Yemen this week, saying it had acted to avenge comrades held in Yemeni prisons.

The three men and their two guards were killed on Tuesday in an ambush in Hadramut province, where they worked.

The attack was “in support of our brothers in the prisons of Hadramut, Sanaa and others and in revenge for anyone who has the intention of harming the mujahedeen,” Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula said in a statement.

A security official had said on Tuesday that he “would not rule out the possibility that Al-Qaeda might be behind the attack”.

Last year, Hadramut was the scene of at least 18 attacks by Al Qaeda militants on security installations and patrols. In one, a suicide car bomber targeted a security compound in the town of Sayun that killed a policeman and wounded 17 people.

Yemen, the ancestral land of Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, has also witnessed a number of attacks claimed by Al Qaeda on foreign missions, tourist sites and oil installations.