15 soldiers killed in Yemen car bombing
Aden Jan 30 (IANS) Fifteen newly-recruited Yemeni soldiers were killed in a suicide car bombing at a military checkpoint in Shabwa province on Tuesday an official said.
"The suicide assailant died on the spot after detonating his explosives-laden car at a military checkpoint in Nokhan area of Shabwa province killing 15 soldiers " the local government official told Xinhua news agency.
He said the targeted checkpoint was manned by a special Yemeni Army unit backed by the United Arab Emirates (UAE).
No group has claimed responsibility for the attack but the government officials blamed it on the Yemen-based Al Qaeda branch.
Al Qaeda militants are intensifying drive-by attacks on security checkpoints in Yemen s southern provinces as UAE-backed government forces tighten military operations against their hideouts.
In the past months government forces and the UAE armed forces operating in Aden province launched an anti-terror offensive to root out Al Qaeda militants from their strongholds in the neighbouring province of Abyan.
The UAE-backed anti-terror campaign has dislodged Al Qaeda militants from several villages in Abyan and in the neighbouring Shabwa province with more than 50 of them arrested and imprisoned in Aden.
--IANS
soni/bg
