SANAA, Yemen (AP) — A masked gunman assassinated a Yemeni security official who worked for the U.S. Embassy in a drive-by shooting near his home in the capital Sanaa today, officials said.

Yemeni officials said the killing bore the hallmarks of an attack by the al-Qaida offshoot in Yemen, but it was too early to determine whether the group was behind it. The assassination resembles other attacks recently that have targeted Yemeni intelligence, military and security officials.

Those attacks are believed to be in retaliation for a military offensive by Yemen’s U.S.-backed government against Yemen-based Al- Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), which Washington considers the most dangerous offshoot of the global terror network.

AQAP has called for attacks on U.S. embassies in a bid to exploit the anti-American sentiment that has swept the Middle East and other parts of the Muslim world in the past month over an anti-Islam film produced in the United States.

Initially, the film was linked to an attack on the U.S. Consulate in the Libyan city of Benghazi on Sept. 11 which left four Americans dead.

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