ADEN // More than 20 people were killed and dozens injured in three suicide car bombings claimed by ISIL in the southern Yemeni city of Aden on Friday night.
Casualties were still arriving at Al Naqeeb and Al Wali hospitals, officials said.
All of the casualties reported were from an attack on a security checkpoint near an electricity station in Aden’s central Mansoura district, which was targeted by an explosives-laden ambulance.
The two other bombs struck near checkpoints leading to a military camp belonging to the Saudi-led coalition that is supporting the Yemeni government against Shiite Houthi rebels and allied soldiers loyal to former president Ali Abdullah Saleh. Casualty figures from these attacks were not immediately available.
There was no claim of responsibility for the attacks.
A witness to the Mansoura bombing said the high number of casualties was because people were being stopped at the checkpoint by security forces after the previous two bombings.
“While cars were stopped at the checkpoint an ambulance approached. When it reached the checkpoint, the soldiers stopped it and then the explosion happened,” said Fawaz Al Hanshi, a journalist who had come out to cover the earlier blasts.
“It seemed that the suicide bomber wanted to pass the checkpoint towards the coalition military camp,” he said.
Militants from ISIL and the Yemen-based branch of Al Qaeda have staged a number of attacks in Aden recently, taking advantage of the ongoing war against the Iran-backed Houthis and their allies who seized the capital Sanaa in 2014.
The government of president Abdrabu Mansur Hadi based itself in Aden after the southern port was liberated from rebel forces last July with the help of the Saudi-led coalition, in which the UAE is playing a key role.
foreign.desk@thenational.ae
