A car bomb exploded outside a police college in Yemen’s capital, Sana’a, yesterday, killing about 30 people and wounding more than 50, law enforcement sources said, underscoring the nation’s deteriorating security and a persistent al-Qaeda threat.
Sectarian conflict after a 2011 popular uprising that led to a change of government and splits in the army has worsened since September last year, when the Shiite Muslim Houthi militia seized Sana’a.
Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), one of the Sunni militant group’s most active wings, had staged increasing numbers of attacks across Yemen before the Houthi advance, and has carried out more bombings and shootings since.
Photo: Reuters
There was no immediate claim of responsibility for yesterday’s bombing. Al-Qaeda has in the past claimed responsibility for similar attacks.
The victims from the latest blast included students at the college and people waiting in line to enroll with the police, police sources said, as well as passers-by.
The explosion was heard across the city and a large plume of smoke was visible near the college in a heavily congested part of the capital near the central bank and the Yemeni Ministry of Defense.
“The situation is catastrophic. We arrived to find bodies piled on top of each other,” a paramedic at the scene said as ambulances took casualties away. “We found the top part of one person yelling, while his bottom half was completely severed.”
A policeman said that another car had been passing as the bomb went off and was set on fire, along with everyone inside.
The Yemeni Ministry of the Interior said it was halting registration at the police college, which takes place every year, for a week.
Western and Persian Gulf Arab nations fear that further instability could weaken the nation’s government, giving AQAP more space to plot attacks outside Yemen’s borders.
Yemen shares an extensive border with major oil exporter Saudi Arabia.
Yemen’s military has launched several concerted campaigns to dislodge al-Qaeda with the help of US drone strikes, but the exremists have proved capable of entrenching themselves in largely lawless parts of the Arabian Peninsula nation, where they have sympathy from some Sunni tribes.
On Thursday last week, a suicide bomber killed at least 26 people at a cultural center in the central Yemeni city of Ibb in an attack that appeared to target the Houthi Shiite Muslim militia that seized the capital in September last year and advanced into other areas.
Most attacks in the past four years have targeted the nation’s security infrastructure. A suicide bomber killed more than 90 people in May 2012 at a military parade, and a coordinated assault on a military hospital a year ago killed more than 50.
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