Aden: A suicide bomber killed at least 30 Yemeni soldiers on Sunday when he detonated his explosives at a gathering in the southern city of Aden, military officials and medics said.
Many others were wounded in the attack that targeted a crowd of soldiers gathered to collect their salaries at a base in northeastern Aden, the sources said.
The attacker mingled with the soldiers before setting off the blast at Al Sawlaba base, in Al Arish district, a military official said.
The attack comes eight days after a similar bombing in Aden claimed by Daesh killed 48 soldiers and wounded 29 others.
Yemeni authorities have for months pressed a campaign against militants who remain active in the south and east of the war-torn country.
Daesh and Al Qaida have taken advantage of a conflict between the government and Yemen’s Houthi rebels, who control the capital Sana’a, to bolster their presence across much of the south.
The two extremist groups have carried out a spate of attacks in Aden, Yemen’s second city and headquarters of the internationally recognised government whose forces retook the port from Iran-backed Al Houthis last year.
But Al Qaida has distanced itself from the December 10 attack, claiming that it tends to avoid “the shedding of any Muslim blood” while focusing on fighting the “Americans and their allies.”
Al Qaida has long been the dominant militant force in Yemen but experts say Daesh is seeking to supplant its extremist rival.
In August a Daesh militant rammed his explosives-laden car into an army recruiting centre in Aden, killing 71 people in the deadliest attack on the city in over a year.
A Saudi-led coalition has since March 2015 supported forces fighting Al Houthis.
The Arab coalition intervened after Al Houthi rebels allied with troops loyal to Yemen’s former president Ali Abdullah Saleh seized the capital Sana’a and overran other parts of the country.
More than 7,000 people, about half of them civilians, have been killed so far in the Yemen war.
