Monday 16 May 2016

Bombs kill 47 Yemen police in former Qaeda bastion


A suicide bombing claimed by the Islamic State group and a second attack killed 47 police on Sunday in the Yemeni port of Mukalla where a year of al-Qaeda rule was ended just last month, medics said.It was the second attack in days claimed by ISIS in the city of 200 000 people which was recaptured by government forces from the rival jihadists of al-Qaeda with US backing.The suicide bomber killed at least 31 police recruits on the southwestern outskirts of the city, which is the capital of Hadramawt province, medics said.The bomber detonated an explosives belt as he joined a line of men at a police recruitment centre, a provincial official said. More than sixty people were also wounded in the attack in Fuwah district, a medical source said.
Hadramawt's security chief, General Mubarak al-Oubthani, who was at the recruitment centre at the time of the attack but was not hurt, was the target of a second bombing when he headed to the centre of Mukalla afterwards, a security official said. The bomb went off as Oubthani walked out of his office killing six of his guards but leaving him with only minor injuries, the official said. An ISIS statement posted online claimed the suicide attack, the second but rare intervention by the jihadist group in an area known as a stronghold of rival al-Qaeda.

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