Skip to footer

IS claims responsibility for Yemen car bombs on the eve of Ramadan

At least two people were killed and 60 others wounded when four car bombs hit mosques in Sanaa, Wednesday night.  

|
Hani Mohammed/AP
A man inspects the wreckage of a car at the site of a car bomb attack in Sanaa, Yemen, Thursday. A series of Islamic State-claimed bombings in Yemen's rebel-controlled capital killed several people and wounded dozens Wednesday night amid the country's raging war.
  • By Mohammed Ghobari Reuters

| Sanaa

Four car bombs which struck mosques in Sanaa and the headquarters of Yemen's dominant Houthi movement on Wednesday killed two people and wounded 60 others, a medical source told state news agency Saba on Thursday.

Coming on the eve of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, the bombings were claimed by Islamic State and contributed to a sense of fear in the capital, which was again hit by air strikes targeting Houthi-allied military sites on Thursday.

A Saudi-led coalition has been launching air raids against the Iran-allied Houthis for almost three months.

The campaign aims to restore Yemen's government in exile and fend off what Saudi Arabia sees as growing Iranian influence in the Arabian Peninsula, but the coalition has yet to reverse the Houthis' control over the capital and upper hand in battles against opponents nationwide.

The sectarian-tinged conflict, pitting the Shi'ite Muslim Houthis against mostly Sunni tribes and militias in the country's south and east, has given Sunni militant groups al Qaeda and Islamic State greater space to maneuver.

United Nations-backed peace talks in Geneva are struggling to bring together rival Houthi and government delegations, and U.N. envoy Ismail Ould Cheikh Ahmed has been conducting shuttle diplomacy between the two sides.

Delegates reported that little progress had been made toward a hoped-for ceasefire, and talks were due to conclude on Friday or Saturday.

A humanitarian crisis continues throughout the country as many areas are caught in clashes between the warring sides. A near blockade imposed by the coalition have cut off supplies of food, fuel and medicine.

Medical sources in the frontline southern city of Aden said around 20 people, including a doctor, died of dengue fever in the Crater district on Wednesday, amid a spreading outbreak caused by poor sanitation and lack of water.

The U.N. agency OCHA said on Wednesday that 19 of Yemen's 22 provinces were faced a food crisis or an emergency.

"Yemen desperately needs a pause in fighting, increased access and funding for humanitarian assistance, and an immediate large-scale resumption of commercial imports," OCHA said.

More than 2,600 civilians and combatants have been killed since the conflict began in late March. (Writing by Noah Browning; Editing by Dominic Evans)

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.
editor@csmonitor.com
Subscribe
Mark Sappenfield
Editor

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

Subscribe to insightful journalism

QR Code to IS claims responsibility for Yemen car bombs on the eve of Ramadan
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/World/Middle-East/2015/0618/IS-claims-responsibility-for-Yemen-car-bombs-on-the-eve-of-Ramadan
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe