ADEN: Militants, including suicide bombers, killed at least 15 Yemeni troops outside the southeastern port city of Mukalla on Thursday, the army said, in attacks claimed by extremists.
An army official spoke of three suicide bombings and held Al-Qaeda responsible, but the rival Daesh said one of its militants was “martyred.”
It was a rare intervention by Daesh in the city which was held by Al-Qaeda for a year until they were driven out by government troops last month.
“A knight of the knights of martyrdom, brother Hamza Al-Muhajir ... was able to detonate his explosives-laden car at a post of the apostates of the militia of the government,” Daesh said in a statement posted online.
Several soldiers were also wounded in the attacks on the eastern outskirts of the Hadramawt provincial capital, the official said.
The deadly assault came shortly before Prime Minister Ahmed bin Dagher arrived in Mukalla with several ministers on a one-day visit aimed at reviving government institutions in the city, a local official said.
One suicide bomber rammed a vehicle packed with explosives into the gate of a base in the Khalf district, followed immediately by a second who blew up a car in the center of the camp, the military official said. Terrorists clashed with soldiers outside the base immediately after the bombings, with the army saying at least 15 soldiers had died in the bombings and gunfight.
Meanwhile, Daesh killed at least 17 Iraqi soldiers with suicide truck bombs on Thursday near Ramadi. Its members, including two suicide bombers, took lives of four Libyan soldiers and wounded 24 in their latest foray into territory controlled by the UN-backed government.
Yemen attack kills 15 troops
Yemen attack kills 15 troops
