ISIS terrorists kill city governor and six of his bodyguards in Yemen car bombing
ISIS assassinated a top regional governor during a deadly suicide bomb attack in Aden, Yemen.
Aden province governor Jaafar Mohammed Saad was killed when a suicide bomber rammed his car into the governor’s convoy in the western part of the city and blew himself up.
At least six of Mr Saad’s entourage were also died in the attack, which occurred while the governor was heading to work. Several other people were also wounded in the bombing.
ISIS have claimed responsibility for the attack, posting a statement on social media.
Saad, a former general in the army of the former southern Yemen before the Marxist state merged with northern Yemen in 1990, was appointed governor in October.
Hadi returned to Aden from Saudi Arabia last month, nearly eight months after he fled to escape the Houthi advance. He has been trying to shore up security in the city and oversee fighting against the Houthis in the province of Taiz, north of Aden.
ISIS has claimed a string of attacks in Yemen, including the bombing of Hadi’s government headquarters in October and multiple suicide attacks on mosques in Sanaa attended by Shiite worshippers that killed 142 people.
It also claimed the killing of 50 soldiers in a November ambush in southeastern Hadramawt province and threatened more attacks in its statement today.
The United Arab Emirates, whose forces are playing a pivotal role in supporting Hadi and are present in Aden, condemned Saad’s killing.
‘Such crimes will not weaken our common determination to bring back security and stability to the Yemen,’ said the UAE’s State Minister for Foreign Affairs Anwar Gargash.
Saad’s killing represents another blow for Hadi, who has struggled to secure the city since his forces and allies launched a widespread operation in July to retake five southern provinces — including Aden — from the Huthis.
The counterattack has stalled around Taez, a strategic southwestern city under siege by the rebels and their allies.
The bombing came a day after the UN envoy to Yemen held talks with Hadi in Aden aimed at kickstarting peace talks.
Ismail Ould Cheikh Ahmed met Hadi to seek his agreement to convene negotiations with the rebels in Geneva next week, an official close to the president told AFP.
But the mission was ‘difficult’, said the source, accusing the rebels of dragging their feet on implementing UN Security Council Resolution 2216 which calls for them to withdraw from occupied territory.
Foreign Minister Abdel Malak al-Mekhlafi told AFP that ‘the putschists are refusing to lay down their arms or to allow the government to carry out its duties’ from Sanaa.
‘They have not announced their list of negotiators’ for the talks ‘and are trying to escalate the situation on the ground by bombing residential districts of Taez’.
In a protest sent to the UN, Yemen’s minister in charge of human rights, Ezzedine al-Isbahi, condemned the ‘massacres and atrocities’ allegedly committed in Taez by the rebels that he said had killed 33 civilians last week, including four children.
The United Nations says more than 5,700 people have been killed in Yemen, almost half of them civilians, since the Saudi-led air campaign began in March in support of the government.
In Aden on Saturday, gunmen shot dead the presiding judge of a terrorism court, Mohsen Mohamed Alwan, and four of his bodyguards, a security source said. Police Colonel Al-Khadher Ali Ahmed was gunned down in a separate attack.
And on Sunday, police colonel Antar al-Bakhshi was shot dead by gunmen in Inmaa district, west of Aden, a security official said.
Source: Daily Mail
