A Yemeni intelligence officer was seriously wounded when his car exploded on Tuesday in the main southern city of Aden, a security official told AFP.

The attack is the second in a week against an intelligence officer in Aden after suspected al-Qaeda gunmen killed Colonel Marwan al-Maqbali there on Thursday.

"Colonel Saleh al-Qadi was seriously wounded in the explosion of a car that was probably booby-trapped," the security official told AFP at the site of the Tuesday attack.

"He was taken to the hospital," the official said, standing near debris of the still-burning vehicle in Aden's district of Crater.

He said that police could not immediately know if the attack was carried out by al-Qaeda, blamed for most of the increasingly common hit-and-run strikes targeting military personnel and officials.

The jihadist group rarely claims responsibility for such attacks, but did admit being behind a brazen daylight assault on the defence ministry in Sanaa that killed 56 people on Dec. 5.

Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) took advantage of a decline in central government control during Yemen's 2011 uprising to seize large swathes of territory across the south.

The militants were driven back in June 2012 by a military offensive and the group has been further weakened by U.S. drone strikes.

AQAP is considered by Washington to be the most dangerous affiliate of the al-Qaeda network.

AFP