Sanaa, March 24 (RHC)-- Al-Qaida militants killed 24 Yemeni soldiers of the Special Forces on Monday in an attack on a military barracks in the southeast province of Hadramout, a provincial security official told Xinhua.

"A total of 24 soldiers of the Special Forces were killed and only one soldier survived the attack but sustained severe injuries, " the official at the scene told Xinhua by phone on condition of anonymity.

The attack, carried out early in the morning, targeted the barracks and its checkpoint located at the middle of a 250 km-long highway linking Hadramout's provincial capital of Mukalla and the far southeast province of al-Mahara.

Although no group has claimed responsibility for the attack, militants of the Yemen-based al-Qaida offshoot are mostly responsible for all kinds of armed attacks and assassinations in the Arabian country.