Suicide attack kills scores of soldiers in Yemen
December 18, 2016, 11:01 am

The two-year conflict has killed more than 8.000 people, mostly civilians, and displaced three million, the UN says [Xinhua]

Security sources said the bomber was dressed as a soldier and slowly made his way into the throng to cause maximum fatalities.

Although the government is entrenched in a vicious war with Houthi rebels based in the capital Sanaa, suicide attacks are the hallmark of the local affiliate of the Islamic State.

Two weeks ago, a suicide attack claimed by the Islamic State killed more than 50 soldiers at an army base near Aden’s airport.

In January 2015, the Houthis – who are Shia – seized the presidential palace and forced then leader Abdu Rabu Mansour Hadi to resign. They have since sought to consolidate their hold on the country.

Hadi, who was placed under house arrest, eventually escaped and fled to Aden, the former capital of South Yemen.

He then declared Aden the new temporary capital of the entire country, but the Houthis pursued him there and captured that city as well.

The fall of Aden prompted the Saudis and some of their allies to mount military operations to rout out the Houthis, who they accuse of acting as Iranian proxies.

The fight between the Houthis and the government, which was formed in November 2014, has created a security and political vacuum that has been used by Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, as well as the more militant ISIL, to grow their strength and influence.

It also terminated a Yemeni military campaign, which was beginning to bear fruit, against AQAP.

The Sunni AQAP say they are sworn enemies of the Shia Houthis – both groups have clashed several times in the past year.

Government forces recaptured the city of Aden in August 2015; some government officials soon returned there to administer rebuilding the war-battered country.

The capital of Yemen was then relocated to Aden as Houthi rebels continue to hold Sanaa as their main base of operations.

Yemeni Prime Minister Ahmed Obeid Bin Daghr and seven ministers from his cabinet arrived in the country’s temporary capital of Aden in September, asserting that their return was “final”.

Their arrival comes amid a pan-Arab effort to strengthen the government’s hold on provinces in the south of the country.

But Pan-Arab efforts to dislodge the Houthis from Sanaa have so far failed.

The two-year conflict has debilitated Yemen’s health sector leaving hundreds of thousands of children at risk of starvation and death.

The BRICS Post with inputs from Agencies