An Iranian diplomat was fatally wounded in a drive-by shooting outside the ambassador’s residence in the Yemeni capital on Saturday.

An Iranian diplomat was fatally wounded in a drive-by shooting outside the ambassador's residence in the Yemeni capital on Saturday, a medic said.

"He was taken to the operating theater then transferred to intensive care but died after an hour and half," the medic at Sanaa's Modern German Hospital told AFP.

He said the diplomat, identified as Ali Asghar Assadi, had been "hit in the shoulder, abdomen and stomach."

Nobody at the Iranian embassy was immediately available for comment but other diplomats said Assadi was an embassy security officer.

"Unidentified assailants in a van fired on the diplomat three times as he was leaving the ambassador's residence near a shopping center in Hadda," the main diplomatic district of Sanaa, a police source said.

The shooting comes as another Iranian diplomat, Nour-Ahmad Nikbakht, who was kidnapped in Sanaa in July, remains in captivity, with tribal sources saying his captors are members of Al-Qaeda.

There has been a spate of attacks targeting foreigners in the Yemeni capital in recent months.

On December 15, the Japanese consul was seriously wounded after being dragged from his car in Hadda and repeatedly stabbed.

On November 26, gunmen killed one Belarussian defence contractor and wounded another as they left their Sanaa hotel.

And on October 6, a German embassy guard was killed as he resisted an attempt to kidnap him.