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4 Yemeni soldiers killed in suicide blast near Aden's airport

Xinhua, April 17, 2016 Adjust font size:

Four soldiers were killed on Sunday when a suicide car bombing hit an army checkpoint near the main gate of the international airport in the southern port city of Aden, Yemen's temporary capital, a security official told Xinhua.

"A suicide attacker detonated his explosives-laden car and targeted the army troops positioned around Aden's International Airport, killing himself along with four soldiers at the scene, " the local security official said on condition of anonymity.

"The army soldiers succeeded in stopping the suicide bomber from reaching the main gate of the airport.The car bomb went off at the checkpoint outside the building," the security source said.

Meanwhile, a booby-trapped car containing a large mount of explosives was found near a military checkpoint in Aden's neighborhood of Khor Maksar just a few hours after the suicide blast near the airport.

A military official said that the army troops cordoned off the area after discovering the booby-trapped car, and experts are working on moving the vehicle to a save place and defusing the explosives.

Despite the car bombing in Aden, hundreds of pro-secession southern people marched on Sunday to the public squares in the city to organize massive anti-unity rallies demanding self-determination and independence for the southern regions.

The separatist demonstrations in Aden coincide with the a new round of UN-brokered peace talks between Yemen's warring parties due to begin on April 18th in Kuwait.

Yemen, an impoverished Arab country, has been gripped by one of the most active regional al-Qaida insurgencies in the Middle East and the affiliate of the Islamic State group.

The already fragile security situation in the country has deteriorated since March 2015 when an all-out war broke out between the Shiite Houthi group, supported by former President Ali Abdullash Saleh, and the government backed by a Saudi-led Arab coalition.

More than 6,000 people have been killed in ground battles and air strikes since then, half of them civilians. Endit