Shia lawmaker assassinated in Yemeni capital

A Shia Houthi lawmaker, identified as Abdul Karim Jadban, has been assassinated while leaving a mosque in the Yemeni capital Sana’a.

The Yemeni Shia MP was shot dead by unknown gunmen on a motorbike on Friday, Reuters reported.

Meanwhile, the convoy of Jamal Benomar, the United Nations envoy to Yemen, came under an attack by gunmen, who fled the scene after the convoy guards shot back at them.

Last week, the UN convoy said in an interview with Yemeni state television that elements of the former regime, run by Ali Abdullah Saleh, were behind problems facing national reconciliation talks that kicked off in the capital on March 18.

Saleh, who ruled Yemen for 33 years, stepped down in February 2012 under a US-backed power transfer deal in return for immunity, after a year of mass street demonstrations demanding his ouster.

Yemen is the Arab world’s poorest country. Forty percent of the people of Yemen are living on two US dollars a day or less and one third are wrestling with chronic hunger.