IS claims suicide attacks that killed 15 in Yemen

THE Islamic State (IS) group has claimed responsibility for attacks on the government headquarters and positions of the Saudi-led coalition that left 15 dead in the Yemeni port city of Aden yesterday.

In a statement online, the Sunni extremist group said it had carried out the four suicide bombings, contradicting accounts from officials that the attacks involved rockets fired by Iran-backed Shia rebels.

IS said two attacks targeting the government headquarters at the AlQasr hotel were carried out using bomb-laden vehicles driven by members it named as Abu Saad al-Adani and Abu Mohammed al-Sahli.

The jihadist group, which controls large parts of Iraq and Syria and has affiliates elsewhere in the region, said soldiers were killed in these attacks, without saying how many.

Prime Minister Khaled Bahah, who escaped the attack on the AlQasr, wrote on his Facebook page that two rockets hit the hotel while other rockets fell elsewhere.

IS said a third suicide bomber, Aws al-Adani, drove a bomb-laden armoured vehicle into the “central operations headquarters of Saudi and Emirati forces, killing dozens”.

Abu Hamza al-Sanaani had blown up a UAE-held military position using another armoured vehicle.

The Emirati WAM news agency reported that the attacks were carried out by the Iran-backed Huthi rebels and their allies.

The rebels “targeted the government headquarters and several military positions (and) left 15 Arab coalition and Yemeni resistance martyrs”, said WAM.

The news agency said four Emirati soldiers were among the coalition forces who were killed and that several others were wounded.

The coalition said, in a statement published by the Saudi SPA news agency, that the attacks killed three Emiratis and one Saudi soldier.

It said that Katyusha rockets had been used, and that coalition forces “responded to the source of fire and destroyed the vehicles” used to launch the assaults.

There was no immediate comment from the coalition on the claim by IS.

Yesterday’s claim is the first from IS for an attack against the Saudi-led coalition that has been bombing Iranbacked Shia rebels since March.

Previously, it claimed attacks only against Shia mosques in Yemen, the poorest country in the Arab world.

The UAE and Saudi Arabia are among other Arab states taking part in a US-led coalition pounding IS in Syria and Iraq.

On September 4, a rebel missile attack in the eastern Yemeni province of Marib killed 67 coalition troops including 52 Emirati soldiers.