Daesh claimed responsibility for a car bombing that security sources said killed 10 people, including civilians, at a security post in Yemen’s government bastion of Aden on Tuesday.
The militant group claimed the attack in the southern port city via the encrypted messaging app Telegram, adding that a Yemeni suicide bomber had detonated the vehicle.
Aden’s security chief told AFP: “Eight members of the security forces and two civilians were killed in a car bombing in the central district of Abdul Aziz.”
“There are a large number of wounded, some of them in serious condition,” Brigadier Shalal Shaya said, attributing the blast to a car bomb.
Witnesses earlier told AFP they heard a loud explosion followed by gunfire at the main office of UAE-trained security forces in charge of guarding state-owned facilities.
The Zayed bin Sultan mosque, which is located near the security office and funded by the United Arab Emirates, was also damaged in the attack.
The United Arab Emirates, which has trained government forces in southern Yemen, is a key member of a Saudi-led military coalition.
The coalition intervened in Yemen in March 2015 with the aim of rolling back gains made by Houthi rebels and restoring the government of Abedrabbo Mansour Hadi to power.
But the mission has expanded to include operations against militant groups, both Daesh and Al-Qaeda, which have used the chaos of the war to gain footholds in government-held southern Yemen.
Daesh also claimed a major attack in Aden on November 5 that killed 35 people, sparking a hostage crisis in a city that had seen a period of relative calm in the war-torn country.
The Yemen war has killed more than 8,650 people, the majority civilians, and pushed the country to the brink of famine.
