SANAA: A suicide bomb attack on a mosque in Yemen’s capital, Sanaa, has killed at least 25 people, sources say.
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A Saudi-led coalition air strike on rebels in a residential area of the Yemeni capital on Tuesday killed at least 21 people including civilians, witnesses and medics said.
The suicide bombings took place early morning in downtown Sanaa near police headquarters when worshipers were coming out of the mosque after Eid al-Adha prayers, according to witnesses.
In a separate statement, the jihadist group also said it was behind a similar attack on a Shia mosque in neighbouring Yemen on Friday, which injured about a dozen people.
The Houthi rebels have seized several regions of Yemen including Sanaa which they overran a year ago.
He fled Aden in late March as Houthi rebels advanced on the city, triggering air strikes by a Saudi-led coalition.
A former army general and vice president, Hadi assumed office in 2012 under a Gulf-brokered transition plan following “Arab Spring” protests which ended over three decades of rule by his predecessor, Ali Abdullah Saleh.
So far, no body has claimed responsibility of the attack which officials say was well planned and executed.
Shiite fighters, known as Houthis, inspect the damage to the al-Balili mosque after two suicide bombings at the mosque during Eid al-Adha prayers in Sanaa, Yemen, Thursday, September 24, 2015. Sana, the capital, is still under the control of the Houthi rebels who drove him out, and other major cities are torn by fighting or are dominated by Sunni extremists.
Terrorist groups, including Islamic State and al Qaeda in the Arabia Peninsula, have thrived in Yemen in recent months, taking advantage of its deteriorating security situation.
It has distanced itself from Daesh’s tactics, saying that it avoids targeting mosques to protect “innocent Muslims”.
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The United States has waged a longstanding drone war against AQAP, which it regards as the network’s most unsafe branch.
