Yemeni security officials say a suicide attacker set off a massive auto bomb in the southern city of Aden, killing 25 pro-government troops who had been preparing to travel to Saudi Arabia to fight in Yemen’s northern border area.
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The agency, affiliated with the IS, claimed that the attack conducted by a jihadist fighter killed about 60 new recruits.
“Security services are still evacuating the dead and wounded” from the site, the security official said.
In another major attack back in May, a suicide bomber killed 40 army recruits and injured 60 others at another compound in Aden.
Yemen’s Army, supported by a Saudi-led coalition, is training young recruits to join its nationwide war against Shiite Huthi rebels and their allies, as well as Sunni jihadists.
Aden has seen a wave of bombings and shootings targeting officials and security forces.
“So it was easy for al-Qaida or Daesh to pull off such an act”, he added, using a different name for IS.
Most of the recruits are men in their early 20s, unemployed, according to the officials, and mostly from the southern provinces of Abyan, Dhale, and Lahj. But on July 20, four policemen were killed in a bombing attack in Aden that was claimed by IS.
More than 6,600 people, mostly civilians, have been killed in Yemen since March 2015 and more than 80 percent of the population has been left needing humanitarian aid, the United Nations says.
UN-mediated peace talks in Kuwait were suspended earlier this month with no signs of progress.
Aden is the temporary base of Yemen’s internationally recognized government, which was forced into exile after Iran-backed insurgents seized Sana’a and other parts of the war-torn country.
The Saudi-led campaign against the Houthis has pushed them out of southern Yemen, but has failed to dislodge them from the capital and the rest of the north.
The latest hostilities come amid ongoing failed attempts to launch peace talks in Yemen.
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They additionally briefed al-Jaafari about their recent decision to form a political council with the party of Yemen’s former president.
