Nearly 150 people were killed and 350 wounded in a triple suicide bombing in Yemen on Friday, with a previously unknown faction of Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (Isil) claiming responsibility for the attack.
In one of the country’s bloodiest ever days of terrorist violence, bombers struck at three mosques just as worshippers were crowding in for Friday morning prayers. Witnesses spoke of blood running “like a river” at one mosque, and such was the carnage that health officials in the capital, Sana'a, had to issue public appeals for blood donations.
Responsibility for the atrocity was claimed by a previously unheard of branch of the Islamic State, which is seeking to expand beyond its core turf in Syria and Iraq, and which also laid claim to Tuesday’s massacre of tourists in Tunisia.
In an online statement, a group identifying itself as the Sana'a branch of Islamic State claimed the killings were “just the tip of the iceberg”. The veracity of the claim could be verified, however, with security officials pointing out that Yemen is best known as a stronghold of the rival al-Qaeda militant group.
The bloody result of another sectarian suicide bombing - this time in Yemen (Reuters)
Friday’s suicide bombings came as the country’s low-level civil war stepped up a gear, with the Shia Houthi rebel movement that seized control of Sana'a last year mounting aerial bombing raids on a palace that is the headquarters of Yemen’s Western-backed president, Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi.
Clashes between the two factions have taken on a Sunni-Shia dimension, which was also present in the attacks on the mosques, all of which were being used by Houthi worshippers and militiamen.
The online claim responsibility for the attack referred to the Houthis as agents of Iran, whose Shia religion the Islamic State regards as a corruption of Islam.
“Infidel Houthis should know that the soldiers of the Islamic State will not rest until they eradicate them... and cut off the arm of the Safavid (Iranian) plan in Yemen,” the statement said.
The Houthis, who are thought to have backing from Iran, forced President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi to flee from Sanaa last month and take up residency in the port city of Aden.
They have also allied with forces loyal to Ali Abdullah Saleh, the country’s Machiavellian former president, who was ousted as a result of Yemen’s brief 2011 Arab Spring uprising.
On Thursday, Mr Saleh, who once described ruling Yemen as like “dancing on the heads of snakes”, ordered his private force of fighter jets to bomb the palace in Aden that has become Mr Hadi’s headquarters-in-exile.
Aides said Mr Hadi was not there at the time and was safe. Mr Saleh’s forces also tried to seize control of the main airport in Aden, but troops loyal to Mr Hadi fended the attack off. The fighting, which left 13 people dead, marks a major escalation in the long-running conflict between the two men.
On Thursday, Mr Hadi offered his resignation in a letter to the country’s parliament, saying Yemen was in “total deadlock”.
Huthi militants react in the aftermath of the blast at the mosque (Reuters)
A security official also said that a top Yemeni officer linked to the Houthis had escaped an assassination bid near Aden overnight.
The growing chaos across the country has alarmed Western diplomats, who have already been forced to pull out of Sanaa, and who fear Yemen is sliding towards a state of all-out lawlessness that will allow terrorists free rein.
While events there in the last year have received little attention in the outside world, it is a stark reminder that Iraq and Syria are not the only Arab nations now in serious turmoil.
The country is already home to an active and capable jihadist faction, al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, which claimed responsibility for the terrorist attack on Charlie Hebdo magazine in Paris in January.
Saudi Arabia, whose Sunni monarchs see Shia Iran as their arch-enemy, is also anxious about Yemen falling increasingly into the grip of the Houthis, whom they regard as a proxy of Tehran.
That could in turn fuel an increase in sectarian atrocities like Friday’s mosque bombings.
One witness at the al-Hashoosh mosque, located in Sanaa’s northern district, spoke of the carnage that the blast had left.
“The heads, legs and arms of the dead people were scattered on the floor of the mosque,” said Mohammed al-Ansi. “Blood is running like a river.”
The Houthi-linked Al-Masirah television channel showed young men in traditional Yemeni clothes carrying lifeless bodies, some dripping with blood, from the blast sites.
A third suicide bomber tried to blow himself up in a mosque in the northern Houthi stronghold of Sadaa province. But the bomb went off prematurely, killing only the bomber.
