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Governor of Aden in Yemen killed in explosion, say officials Isis claims responsibility for assassinating governor of Aden
(about 3 hours later)
The governor of Aden has been killed in a car bomb attack claimed by Islamic State in Yemen’s southern port city, where President Abd Rabbu Mansour Hadi has returned to oversee a war against Iran-allied Houthis. Islamic State militants have claimed responsibility for the assassination of the governor of the southern port city of Aden in Yemen, one of the highest profile attacks by the terror group’s affiliate in the war-torn country.
A local official and residents said at least six members of Gen Jaafar Mohammed Saad’s entourage also died in the attack, which targeted the governor as he was travelling to work. Several other people were wounded. The killing of the governor in a car bomb attack in the city, which is under the control of a coalition led by Saudi Arabia to restore the rule of the elected president, Abd Rabbu Mansour Hadi, is a stark reminder of a brutal conflict that has raged for nine months and left in its wake a security vacuum that is being filled by both al-Qaida and Isis.
Isis, in a statement posted on a messaging service, said it had detonated a car laden with explosives aimed at Saad’s convoy in Aden’s Tawahi district and promised more operations against “the heads of apostasy in Yemen”. “Islamic State fighters were able on Sunday morning to assassinate the governor of Aden, Maj Gen Jaafar Mohamed Saad,” a news service associated with Isis said in a statement. “[Isis] fighters had parked a car filled with explosives in the Tawahi district and detonated it as the governor’s convoy passed which led to his death along with ten of his companions.”
A local official and residents said earlier on Sunday a suicide bomber had rammed his vehicle into the governor’s car. Related: UK appears to put weapons sales above lives of Yemen's children, says charity
The group’s local branch has stepped up operations since the outbreak of civil war in Yemen, emerging as a forceful rival to al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), the main militant group in the country in recent years. The attack was the most serious security breach in Aden, the country’s southern capital and Hadi’s hometown, which has been under coalition control for months and is a redoubt for pro-government forces battling to restore the president’s rule.
It has launched spectacular attacks on security bases and on mosques run by Houthi forces who control the capital, Sana’a. The Houthis, who follow the Zaydi branch of Shia Islam, have been fighting a coalition of mainly Gulf Arab forces, which began airstrikes against them in March. “It is clear that the government is internally busy fighting and the only ones working or taking over in Yemen now are Isis and al-Qaida in the Arab Peninsula (AQAP),” said Farea al-Muslimi, a Yemeni scholar at the Carnegie Middle East Center in Beirut.
The attack came one day after assailants killed a senior army officer and a judge who had presided over the trial of militants suspected in the bombing of the US warship USS Cole in Aden in 2000, in two separate attacks in the city. A coalition led by Saudi Arabia and including an array of Sunni Arab states launched the Yemen war in March, after Iranian-backed rebels known as the Houthis overthrew Hadi’s government. The president fled house arrest to Aden and then went into exile in Saudi Arabia. The Houthi coup was seen as further evidence of Tehran’s encroachment and growing influence in the region.
In October, four suicide bombers detonated car bombs at a temporary Yemeni government headquarters and two Arab coalition outposts, killing more than a dozen people. The coalition established a beachhead in Aden in late July and early August, and pro-government troops backed by ground forces from the Gulf states have pressed ahead in an attempt to retake Taiz, Yemen’s third city, on the road to the capital, Sana’a.
“Foot-dragging in implementing security measures paves the way for hardliners to carry out such attacks,” said Ashraf Ali Mahmoud, a local activist. Related: MSF accuses Saudi-led coalition of bombing clinic in Yemen
Sunday’s explosion could be heard about seven miles (10km) away, residents said. Photos posted by local news websites showed a car in flames with a plume of smoke rising from it. Diplomatic efforts to end the conflict have so far borne little fruit, instead turning the conflict into a humanitarian catastrophe that has abetted the rise of extremist groups.
The victims were taken to the Jumhouriya hospital, the main state medical facility in Aden which Saad had reopened in a ceremony two days earlier. UN officials estimate that 80% of the Yemeni population, 20 million people, are in need of humanitarian assistance in a conflict that has battered the Arab world’s poorest country and has killed over 5,000 people.
Security has been a main concern for Hadi and his Arab allies since he returned to Aden last month to oversee an offensive to drive the Houthis from the strategic city of Taiz. The war has also allowed Isis, which until earlier this year had no known presence in Yemen, and AQAP, one of the most powerful branches of al-Qaida’s terror network, to gain prominence. Isis has claimed responsibility for multiple attacks in Yemen before and after the start of the conflict, particularly against Houthi targets, whereas AQAP last week took control of two Yemeni cities including Zinjibar, the capital of Abyan province.
In October, the government of the prime minister, Khaled Bahah, was forced to relocate to Saudi Arabia after four coordinated suicide bombings by Islamic State killed at least 15 people, including four Emirati soldiers. Related: Yemen is shattered and peace seems a long way off. The world can’t just watch on | Farea Al-Muslimi and Rafat Al-Akhali
Saad had been a general in the army of the former southern Yemen before the Marxist state merged with northern Yemen in 1990. He was appointed governor in October. “The assassination of Jaafar Saad underlines the failure of the Yemeni government and the Saudi-led coalition’s forces to resolve the deep power vacuum in Aden,” said Adam Baron, a journalist formerly based in Yemen and co-founder of the Sana’a Center for Strategic Studies, a recently established Yemen-focused thinktank. “In the absence of strong, coherent efforts to bolster the city’s security, incidents like this will inevitably continue.”
Local officials said Saad, who fought in the 1994 civil war for southern forces against the northerners, had lived in exile in Egypt and Britain before he returned earlier this year at Hadi’s request. The past few weeks have been marked by an escalation of attacks against humanitarian workers in Yemen. A hospital and clinic belonging to the international charity Médecins sans Frontières were bombed by the coalition in the past two months. In September, two staff members with the International Committee of the Red Cross were shot dead.