Local Editor
A suicide bomber on a motorcycle killed six southern separatist fighters on the outskirts of the Yemeni city of Aden on Friday, witnesses said, part of a surge of violence that has complicated a near five-year-old war and undermined U.N. peace efforts.
Islamic State claimed responsibility for the attack on a patrol of Security Belt forces, a separatist front fighting forces loyal to the resigned regime of Abd Rabbu Mansour Hadi for control of the port city.
The separatists and the Hadi forces are both part of a Saudi-led coalition battling Yemen’s Houthi movement.
But the separatists broke with the resigned regime this month, accused it of ties to Islamists and seized its temporary base of Aden on Aug. 10.
The fighting since then has exposed deep rifts in the coalition - the Saudis back the government while the United Arab Emirates, the alliance’s second-biggest backer, funds and arms Security Belt and other southern separatist forces.
Militant groups have also sought to take advantage of the turmoil. Islamic State has claimed responsibility for a series of attacks during the war, though there was no independent confirmation of its involvement in Friday’s blast.
The suicide bomber struck in Aden’s northern Dar Saad neighborhood a day after the UAE raised the stakes by carrying out air strikes against government forces in southern Yemen.
The UAE said it had carried out “precise and direct” strikes on Thursday on what it called terrorist militias which it said had attacked Saudi-led coalition forces fighting at Aden’s airport.
The Hadi regime condemned the strikes which it said had killed and wounded more than 300 of its forces and a number of civilians.
Other parts of Aden were largely quiet on Friday after days of heavy fighting, with shops, restaurants and bakeries reopening and people attending Friday prayers.
The Saudi-led coalition intervened in Yemen in March 2015 against the Houthis.
Divisions have spread in the war.
“The recent escalation of violence in Aden is a clear indication that once more, political and military interests are overriding the well-being and safety of the Yemeni people,” Jason Lee, Acting Country Director of Save the Children in Yemen, said in a statement.
Source: News Agencies, Edited by Website Team
