A Yemeni senior intelligence official was shot dead late Saturday by al-Qaida-linked gunmen in Yemen's southern province of al-Bayda, said an official of the Interior Ministry.

"Eyeda bin Faraj, the colonel of al-Bayda's provincial intelligence service, was shot dead Saturday night in al-Bayda's central city by al-Qaida militants led by Tariq al-Dhahab," the official told Xinhua on condition of anonymity. Yemeni intelligence personnel have been the key target of the al- Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) in the past several months. The group vowed to "eliminate all high-ranking personnel of the Yemeni government intelligence agencies."

Al-Bayda, about 130 km south of the capital Sanaa, has recently witnessed growing activities of al-Qaida, known locally as Ansar al-Sharia, according to security officials there. Last month, al-Qaida leader Tariq al-Dhahab made a deal with the Yemeni transitional government, under which the government released 15 al-Qaida prisoners in return for the withdraw of around 1,000 al-Qaida militants from al-Bayda's town of Radda after al-Dhahab's group held it for a week.

Al-Dhahab, a relative of the Yemeni-born U.S. cleric Anwar al- Awlaki, hosted Awlaki for months before the radical cleric was killed by unmanned drone last September, according to a source close to the al-Qaida group.