Yemen, car bomb targets army recruits. 71 dead
Rights — di Andrea Barolini
A suicide bomber driving a car blew himself up in Yemen's temporary capital, Aden, killing dozens of regular army recruits.
Yemen, car bomb targets army recruits. 71 dead
A suicide bomber driving a car blew himself up in Yemen's temporary capital, Aden, killing dozens of regular army recruits.
At least 71 people were killed in a new terrorist attack in the city of Aden, Yemen. The target of the suicide attack, in this case, was a group of young recruits from the regular Yemeni army, which is fighting both Shia rebels on one front and Sunni jihadist groups on the other. The Islamic State group claimed responsibility for the act, praising its perpetrators for what was described as "a martyrdom".
45 bodies and 60 wounded at the MSF hospital alone
According to local sources, a car bomb was detonated while the recruits were completing some administrative formalities, before joining a group of five thousand soldiers to be deployed to the north of the country. The suicide bomber at the wheel of the vehicle, some eyewitnesses reported, waited for a pickup truck to enter before launching himself at full speed towards the young soldiers.
The blast, a security forces official told the AFP news agency, "was so powerful that it caused the roof of a building to collapse," which in turn made the attack's toll even heavier. At the same time, nearly a hundred people were wounded: the Médecins Sans Frontières hospital in the city alone — Yemen's temporary capital — reported receiving 45 bodies and 60 wounded.
Yemen descending further into chaos
Yemen has been torn apart since 2014 by a conflict pitting Shia rebel groups from the northern regions against the government of Abd Rabbuh Mansour, who was driven out of the capital Sana'a. The guerrillas allied themselves with the partisans of former president Ali Abdullah Saleh, who has since been deposed. Meanwhile, the regular army has entrenched itself in the south of the Arab nation.
©Fayez Nureldine
In March 2015, Saudi Arabia organised a military coalition with the aim of halting the rebels' advance. In the meantime, Isis terrorists have multiplied their attacks across the country: the most recent, dated 20 July, claimed the lives of four police officers. The Aden attack, however, represents one of the worst attacks in recent months: the terrorists' aim is to exploit the general chaos in order to seize new territory.