Al-Qaeda gunmen on a motorbike shot dead an intelligence officer in Yemen’s central province of al-Bayda on Sunday evening.

Al-Qaeda gunmen on a motorbike shot dead an intelligence officer in Yemen's central province of al-Bayda on Sunday evening, a provincial police official told the Chinese news agency Xinhua.

"Major Mohammad Nasser al-Mamary, with the Political Security Agency, was killed tonight near a popular market by two al-Qaida gunmen driving a motorcycle while he was driving back home," the official said.

"The attackers left a leaflet near the body of the dead officer, saying it was in revenge for recent U.S. drone strikes," he said.

Police forces cordoned the province's intelligence building and set up security checkpoints in major cities and main roads as a precautionary measure.

The attack came a few days after the militants ambushed another three intelligence agents in nearby district of Walad Rabyee.

More than 60 intelligence and security officers have been killed in hit-and-run attacks in the past two years, according to recent statistics by the country's interior ministry.

On Thursday, the ministry said that al-Qaeda gunmen killed a bodyguard of the Saudi consul in the Yemeni capital of Sanaa after they failed to kidnap him.

The Yemen-based al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, the most active terrorist branch in the Middle East, has held the Saudi deputy consul who was kidnapped in Yemen's southern port city of Aden, for nearly one year, demanding the release of women jailed in Saudi Arabia and a large ransom.

Yemen boosted security around Western embassies on Sunday as Washington warned of an al-Qaeda threat that prompted it to close its mission in the Yemeni capital of Sanaa. Britain, France and Germany. It also announced that they would close their offices in the Arab country for at least two days.