ADEN - A senior Yemeni army commander escaped an assassination attempt conducted by unidentified gunmen in the southern port city of Aden on Tuesday, a security official told Xinhua.

"Gunmen riding motorcycles opened fire and directly targeted a vehicle carrying Colonel Haidrah Askr in Aden's neighborhood of Enma, leaving one soldier injured at the scene," the source said on condition of anonymity.

But the gunmen failed to assassinate Askr who leads the first Infantry Brigade of the newly-recruited troops backed by the United Arab Emirates (UAE) in Aden, the source said.

An Aden-based government official confirmed that "the UAE-backed colonel was the main target but he escaped unharmed after a short gunfight with the attackers."

The investigation is underway and it is too early to declare who could be behind the botched assassination attempt in Aden, the government source said.

Government officials, including high-ranking security commanders and intelligence officers, have been the prime targets in kidnapping incidents as well as armed attacks launched by unknown gunmen in recent days.

The impoverished Arab country has been locked into a civil war since the Iran-backed Shiite Houthi rebels overran much of the country militarily and seized all northern provinces, including the capital Sanaa, in 2014.

Saudi Arabia leads an Arab military coalition that intervened in Yemen in 2015 to support the government of President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi after Houthi rebels forced him into exile.