Suicide bombers attack Yemeni army checkpoints, killing 10

Two suicide bombers tried to ram vehicles laden with explosives through two Yemeni military checkpoints near the government-held port city of Mukalla on Monday, killing at least 10 people, the army and medics said.

No one immediately claimed responsibility for the attacks near the capital of Hadramout province on the Gulf of Aden, the latest in a series of bombings since forces loyal to Yemeni President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi, backed by UAE troops, drove out al Qaeda militants from the city in April.

One soldier at the scene said security stopped the driver and asked for his ID before he detonated the explosives.

“The officer and soldier stopped a large vehicle at the checkpoint and asked the driver for his ID but he said he didn’t have it. At the checkpoint at the time there were some soldiers and then there was the blast. Around me I saw at least five dead and more than 15 wounded,” said Omar Mohammad.

The Yemeni army’s Second Military Command, which is based in Mukalla, said militants had used a booby-trapped bus at a checkpoint in Broom, southwest of Mukalla, and a booby-trapped car in al-Ghaber, to the west.

It said six soldiers had been killed and 18 wounded.

Medics said four civilians were also dead, and that 15 soldiers had been taken to hospital, five in serious condition.

Islamist militants from al Qaeda and its rival Islamic State have been building up their presence in the impoverished country, taking advantage of the chaos created by Yemen’s civil war, which began in 2014.

Al Qaeda’s Yemeni branch had built up a mini-state centred on Mukalla. It has tried to bomb several Western airliners and claimed responsibility for an attack on the offices of the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo in Paris last year.