Yemen

Twin bomb attacks claim dozens of lives in western Yemen

390808_Yemen-Attack

Dozens of people have been killed or wounded after two car bombs targeting the positions of Shia Ansarullah fighters went off in the western Yemeni city of Hudaydah, security sources say.

A Yemeni security official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the first car bomb went off near the headquarters of the Ansarullah fighters belonging to Yemen’s Houthi movement in Hudaydah on Thursday.

A second bomb also detonated close to another position of the Ansarullah fighters west of Hudaydah University, not far from the site of the first explosion, according to the Yemeni official.

On Wednesday, Ansarullah fighters managed to take full control of Hudaydah after they first entered the country’s second-largest port city in October.

The Thursday attacks took place after similar twin bomb explosions claimed the lives of more than 30 people, including 20 children, in the town of Rada’ in Yemen’s central province of al-Bayda.

Local security sources accused al-Qaeda militants of being behind the attacks in Rada’.

Ansarullah’s recent gains pose a serious challenge to the Yemen-based al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), which has for long destabilized the impoverished Arab country.

Over the past months, al-Qaeda militants have frequently carried out attacks on Yemen’s security forces and have been also locked in deadly battles with Ansarullah fighters.

Yemen’s central government has so far failed to confront the terrorist threats. Ansarullah fighters, however, have intervened to fill the vacuum and driven al-Qaeda militants out of many areas in the country.

The Shia revolutionaries also played a major role in the ouster of Yemen’s former dictator, Ali Abdullah Saleh, in 2012.

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