Suicide bombing rocks Yemen, scores killed
LONDON — Yemen was rocked by its worst terrorist bombing in years Monday when a suicide attacker disguised as a Yemeni soldier blew himself up in the midst of a military parade rehearsal near the presidential palace in Sanaa, the capital. The Yemen Defense Ministry said more than 90 people were killed and hundreds wounded.
News reports described scenes of horrific carnage on the parade grounds. Suspicions of responsibility immediately fell on an Al Qaeda affiliate in Yemen, the Middle East’s most impoverished country, which has endured months of protests and insurgency since the first stirrings of the Arab Spring revolts last year.
‘‘This is a real massacre,’’ a soldier identified as Ahmed Sobhi was quoted by The Associated Press as saying. ‘‘There are piles of torn body parts, limbs and heads. This is unbelievable.’’
The parade rehearsal bombing coincided with other news reports that Al Qaeda gunmen had fired on US Coast Guard instructors in the Yemen port city of Hodeida, with at least one American wounded. But the Coast Guard disputed the reports, saying it had no staff in Yemen. It was unclear if the suicide bombing and shooting were related.
The suicide bombing in Sanaa, which appeared to catch the Yemen defense forces by surprise, was easily the bloodiest in years and presented a new challenge to President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi. He took power in February from former President Ali Abdullah Saleh, the longtime autocratic ruler whose unwillingness to cede power had long been an underlying cause of the mayhem in the country.
News reports said the attacker looked like a soldier participating in the drill and that he detonated a suicide belt just before the defense minister, Mohammed Nasser Ahmed, and his immediate subordinates had been expected to greet the troops. The BBC said most of the casualties were members of the Central Security Organization, a paramilitary force commanded by Yahya Saleh, a nephew of the former president.
The violence came at a particularly delicate time with Yemen drawing increased concern in the United States that it is unable to curb the influence of Islamic militants after the months of political instability.
Last week, the Yemeni government said it had intensified efforts to take back southern towns from Islamist insurgents with airstrikes and ground assaults that left dozens of people dead, including some civilians, according to officials and witnesses on the ground.
The escalation came shortly after John O. Brennan, President Barack Obama’s counterterrorism adviser, visited Sanaa, and less than a week after the disclosure of a foiled plot by Al Qaeda’s Yemen-based affiliate, Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, to smuggle a suicide bomber aboard a jetliner bound for the United States.
The United States has also stepped up drone strikes in Yemen in recent days.
The spread of Islamist control in southern Yemen has deeply embarrassed the Yemeni government and is seen by analysts as a source of grave concern to the United States and Saudi Arabia, the two chief targets of the local Al Qaeda affiliate. A group of donors known as Friends of Yemen is scheduled to meet Wednesday in Riyadh, the Saudi capital.
The Boston Globe