ADEN/SANAA – A suicide bomber drove a booby-trapped car into an army checkpoint outside Yemen’s southern port city of Aden yesterday, killing at least nine soldiers and wounding 21 others, officials and medical sources said.
The attack, which the government blamed on al- Qaeda’s Yemen-based wing, comes weeks after the army deployed security forces to surround the coastal city, which lies east of a shipping strait where some 3 million barrels of oil pass daily.
The military has been trying to stop militants from slipping into Aden, after they seized several areas in the neighbouring province of Abyan in recent months and presented a rising challenge to military control.
Unrest in the south has erupted as protests seeking to end President Ali Abdullah Saleh’s 33-year rule drag into a sixth month, setting off sporadic clashes across the country. – (Reuters)