Two deadly car
bombs hit the capital Sanaa and a southern city in Yemen on Tuesday, state news
agency Saba reported, a day after air strikes and clashes killed almost 200
people nationwide.
ISIL in Yemen
claimed responsibility in a statement posted online for the Sanaa attack,
latest in a string of recent actions by the hardline Sunni Muslim group against
Shi’ite Houthis who run the capital.
One of the
explosives-laden cars detonated near a hospital in downtown Sanaa, which the
news agency controlled by Yemen’s dominant Houthi group said killed and injured
“numerous” people, while another killed around 10 people in Al Bayda,
capital of a province in the country’s battle-weary south.
Saudi-led coalition
air strikes and clashes killed at least 176 fighters and civilians in Yemen on
Monday, residents and media run by the Houthi movement said, the highest daily
toll since the Arab air offensive began more than three months ago.
The United
Nations has been pushing for a halt to air raids and intensified fighting that
began on March 26. More than 3,000 people have been killed since then as the
Arab coalition tries stop the Houthis spreading across the country from the
north.
The Iran-allied
Shi’ite Houthis say they are rebelling against a corrupt government, while
local fighters say they are defending their homes from Houthi incursions. Sunni
Saudi Arabia says it is bombing the Houthis to protect the Yemeni state.
As fighting has
raged across Yemen’s south, the conflict has taken on a sectarian tinge,
pitting the Shi’ite Houthis against local Sunni fighters who in many places
fight alongside hardline al Qaeda militants, who also revile the Houthis.
On Monday,
about 63 people were killed in air strikes on Amran province in the north,
among them 30 people at a market, Houthi-controlled state media agency Saba
said.
In the same
province, about 20 fighters and civilians were killed at a Houthi checkpoint
outside the main city, also named Amran, about 50 km (30 miles) northwest of
the Yemeni capital of Sanaa, local residents said.
Arab alliance
war planes also killed about 60 people at a livestock market in the town of Al
Foyoush in the south.
Also in the
south, residents reported a further 30 killed in a raid they said apparently
targeted a Houthi checkpoint on the main road between Aden and Lahj. They said
10 of the dead were Houthi fighters.
Tribal sources
in the central desert province of Marib said about 20 Houthi fighters and
soldiers fighting alongside them were killed in air raids and gun battles with
tribal fighters, who support Yemen’s president in exile Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi.
On Tuesday, UN
envoy to Yemen Ismail Ould Cheikh Ahmed continues meetings with Houthi
officials in Sanaa to try to broker a ceasefire to allow aid deliveries. One
Houthi official said Monday’s attacks had dealt a blow to peace efforts.
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