Suicide attacker kills 10 police recruits in Yemen
Xinhua, May 15, 2016 Adjust font size:
A suicide bomber detonated his explosive belt Sunday morning among police recruits in Yemen's southeastern province of Hadramout, leaving 10 people killed and 14 others injured, a military official told Xinhua.
The bloody attack occurred as a suicide bomber mingled with a group of new recruits in a police base near the presidential compound in the coastal city of Mukalla, Hadramout's provincial capital, the official said on condition of anonymity.
Meanwhile, witnesses told Xinhua that the commander of Hadramout's police forces Brig. Mubarak Obthani escaped a roadside bomb near his office in Mukalla.
On Thursday, three suicide bombers launched coordinated attacks by explosive-laden cars against a key military base in eastern outskirts of Mukalla, killing about 16 soldiers.
Over the past few weeks, Yemeni government forces and the Saudi-led coalition have been conducting well-planned and unprecedented attacks on key bastions of the al-Qaida terrorist group in the country's southern and eastern regions.
Hundreds of Yemeni soldiers newly trained by the Saudi-led coalition and supported by UAE (United Arab Emirates) special troops managed to recapture the coastal city of Mukalla in April after intense fighting and air raids on al-Qaida positions.
No group has yet claimed the latest suicide bombing, although the Yemen-based al-Qaida offshoot is believed to be behind most such attacks in the past, which usually targeted security and government officials.
Yemen, an impoverished Arab country, has been gripped by one of the most active regional al-Qaida insurgencies in the Middle East.
The Yemen-based al-Qaida offshoot, also known as Ansar al-Sharia, emerged in January 2009. It had claimed responsibility for a number of attacks on Yemen's army and government institutions.
It took advantage of the current security vacuum and the ongoing civil war to expand its influence in Yemen's southern regions.
The fragile security situation in Yemen has deteriorated since March 2015, when a war broke out between the Shiite Houthi group, supported by former President Ali Abdullash Saleh, and the government backed by a Saudi-led coalition.
More than 6,000 people have been killed in ground battles and airstrikes since then, half of them civilians. Endit