There was no immediate comment from officials from the Saudi-led coalition.
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Local residents interviewed by an Anadolu Agency correspondent said that other shells fired by Houthis, from their position in al-Hawban area, east of Taiz, targeted Osifra power plant, which went up in flames.
In a statement posted online, Islamic State said it carried out the assault on the “apostate army”, in the group’s first known attack against the government since it emerged this year.
Plagued by chronic instability even before the latest civil war, Yemen is also home to the world’s deadliest branch of al Qaeda and a new offshoot of Islamic State.
Warships of a Saudi-led coalition fighting Yemen’s Houthi rebels were on Tuesday moving toward the key Red Sea port of Hodeida under the cover of airstrikes on the city, witnesses told dpa.
The EU condemned the attacks.
“All the parties to this conflict have displayed a ruthless and wanton disregard for the safety of civilians,” said Donatella Rovera, senior crisis response adviser at Amnesty worldwide.
Saudi Arabia and its coalition partners are facing yet another round of condemnation today after an airstrike against northern Yemen’s Amran Province killed 17 civilians, including 13 teachers and four children. Of those killed, at least 10 were children, they added, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to reporters.
About five months of escalating violence across Yemen has left over 80 percent of the country’s population, or more than 20 million people, in hunger and in need of emergency aid as the people have limited access to electricity, fuel, food, water and medicine since the civil war broke out in late March.
Human rights groups say airstrikes that were based on faulty intelligence, or that simply went astray, have killed hundreds of civilians since Saudi warplanes began bombing March 26.
The Houthis and Iran deny this.
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Southern Yemeni militias and loyalist army units have scored major gains against the Houthis in the last month and may soon advance toward their stronghold around Sanaa. “That’s one step away from starvation”.
