In the deadliest attack on civilians in Yemen in recent memory, more than 100 people were killed yesterday when suicide bombers attacked two Zaydi Shia mosques in the capital, Sanaa, during weekly prayers.
A group claiming to be the Yemeni division of the Islamic State militant group said it was responsible for the attack, raising fears of a shift toward sectarian violence in the country's civil conflict.
Hospitals in the capital made urgent appeals for blood to treat the hundreds injured in the explosions at the Badr and Hashoush mosques, which were apparently co-ordinated.
Another suicide bomber was detected before he could reach a mosque in the northern province of Saada, a stronghold of the Houthi rebel movement, which controls Sanaa and since September has been Yemen’s most dominant force.
An Interior Ministry official said at least 60 people were killed at each mosque, but the death toll is expected to rise.
The most recent attack on civilians in the capital was in January, when a car bomb killed more than 30 people outside a police academy. Sunni extremists, including the Islamic State fighters and militants linked to an affiliate of al-Qaeda in Yemen, have carried out a number of attacks against supporters of the Houthis, whose leaders are members of the Zaydi branch of Shia Islam and are considered heretics by the Sunni militants.
‘Unlawful’ attack
But bombings of mosques have been rare, and in a recent statement on “unlawful” killings, al-Qaeda’s affiliate in Yemen condemned such attacks. Instead, a previously unknown group affiliated with the Islamic State, calling itself
Sanaa Province
, claimed responsibility for yesterday’s bombings, raising the spectre of a destabilising new force in the conflict.
“This operation is but the tip of the iceberg,” the group said in an audio statement carried by the Site intelligence group. “Let the polytheist Houthis know that the soldiers of the Islamic State will not rest and will not stay still until they extirpate them.”
At the Badr mosque, the bombers maximized casualties by detonating their explosives inside, but also among the overflow of worshippers outside. Witnesses said 12 members of one family were killed.
Two suicide bombers also attacked the Hashoush mosque, with one hiding his explosives in a fake cast on his leg, which he detonated after he was stopped at a checkpoint about 65ft from the mosque entrance. The other bomber made it inside, as the prayers ended.
“Yemenis knew violence, but not this brutal,” said Farea al-Muslimi, a Sanaa-based political analyst. “There are no norms. It’s a very scary moment.”
Yesterday’s carnage came after days of fighting across Yemen, marking a violent new stage in a seven-month-old political crisis that is increasingly taking on the character of a civil war.
Country split
Yemen has been leaderless since January, when the Houthis tightened their grip on the capital and placed the president, Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi, along with his government, under house arrest. Hadi later fled to the southern port city of Aden and declared that he was still the country’s leader, splitting the country between competing centres of power.
On Thursday, violence spread to Aden in a day of rare, factional clashes, over control of the international airport and a security base.
Yemeni security officials have also reported al-Qaeda’s branch in the country has taken control of a southern city after security forces surrendered.
The officials said militants swept through the city of al-Houta, the capital of Lahj province. – (New York Times)