Suicide car bombing kills 3 Yemeni soldiers

A suicide car bomber attacked the security headquarters in Yemen's southern city of Aden at dawn on Tuesday, killing at least three soldiers, police said. The car exploded as it rammed into the front gate of the Aden security offices in the Khormaksar district, a police official said. Several other soldiers were wounded in the blast. Another police source said that two other attackers in an explosives-laden car attempted to ram through the gate after the first bombing, but their bid was aborted by security forces. The two "terrorist elements" are being questioned, he said. Two police centres in the Muala and Mansura neighbourhoods simultaneously came under attack with rockets, a third source said, adding that there were no casualties. The assailants are suspected of belonging to Al-Qaeda, whose Yemen branch is considered by Washington as the most dangerous affiliate of the global network. Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula took advantage of the weakening of the central government in Sanaa during a 2011 uprising, seizing swathes of territory in the south before being driven back in June 2012. The group is still active in southern and eastern Yemen, and stages frequent attacks on security forces. It claimed responsibility for the brazen daylight attack on the defence ministry complex in the capital on December 5, in which 56 people were killed, among them foreign medical staff. But the group’s military chief, Qassem al-Rimi later apologised for the civilian death toll, blaming in a video message one of the assailants for disobeying orders to avoid the medical centre of the complex.  Source: AFP