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Dozens killed, wounded in Yemen mosque blast |
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Written by News Editor
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Friday, 02 May 2008 |
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At least six people were killed and 35 wounded in Yemen on Friday when a when a bomb hidden in a motorcycle exploded outside a mosque in Yemen's volatile northern city of Saada, site of a Shiite rebellion, officials and witnesses said.
Rescue workers were still helping people at the scene, and medical sources told Reuters around 100 people had been taken to two hospitals in the area.
It was not known who planted the bomb near the door of the mosque, but the northwestern province has been rocked by sporadic violence since a conflict broke out in 2004 between government forces and rebels loyal to Abdul-Malik al-Houthi.
The blast came as hundreds of Muslim faithful were leaving the Bin Salman mosque after Friday prayers, the witnesses said.
A local police official told AFP that the initial toll stood at eight dead and 45 wounded.
Witnesses earlier spoke of dozens of casualties as ambulances rushed to the scene of the attack. Some said the target may have been the mosque's imam, or prayer leader, an army officer who adheres to the rigorous Salafi school of Sunni Islam. Witnesses said he was not hurt.
Military personnel are among the faithful who usually pray at the Bin Salman mosque, which like others in Yemen caters for both the majority Sunni community and Zaidis, a Shiite offshoot.
The renewed violence comes despite recent efforts to implement a peace deal between the government and the rebels brokered by Qatar in June 2007.
The agreement, under which the rebels would lay down their arms, was revived during a meeting between the two sides in Doha in February.
The rebels have been fighting to restore the Zaidi imamate, which was overthrown in a 1962 republican coup in Yemen, one of the world's poorest countries.
The rebels reject President Ali Abdullah Saleh's regime as illegitimate, although Saleh himself is a Zaidi.
The Zaidis are a minority in mainly Sunni Yemen but form the majority in the northwest. |
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