Lahj -- Gunmen opened fire Monday on the governor of Taiz’s motorcade, killing at least five security officers and wounding two others, authorities said.

The attack, targeting Nabil Shamsan, happened on a key road linking Taiz to the rest of the country, Mohamed Abdel-Rahman, a spokesman for the province, told The Associated Press. He added that two assailants were killed in the shootout.

No group immediately claimed responsibility for the attack.

In a statement, the governor’s office said security and military forces were working to bring those behind the attack to justice.

The province’s capital, also named Taiz, has been a battleground pitting the Iranian-backed Houthis and other militias backed by the Islamist Islah party against each other as well as other factions in Yemen’s civil war.

Taiz, in the southwest, is the junction of two crucial highways: an east-west road leading to the coastal city of Mocha on the Red Sea, and another north-south, to Sanaa via Dhamar and Ibb provinces. It has been under Houthi blockade since 2016 as part of their war against the internationally recognized Yemeni government.

The country’s brutal war began in 2014, when the Houthis marched from their northern stronghold of Saada province and forced the internationally recognized government into exile.