SANA, Yemen — An Islamic State-claimed car bomb exploded outside a mosque in Yemen’s capital Saturday, killing at least two people and wounding six amid the country’s raging civil war, authorities said.
The bomb targeted the Qabat al-Mahdi mosque in Sana’s old city, where Shiite rebels known as Houthis and others pray, security officials said. The Islamic State claimed the attack on a Twitter account associated with the terrorist group, saying it targeted Shiite Houthis, whom the Sunni terrorists view as heretics.
The security officials, who gave the casualty figure, spoke on condition of anonymity as they weren’t authorized to brief journalists.
This is the second Sana attack claimed by the Islamic State’s affiliate in Yemen this week. On Wednesday, a series of Islamic State-claimed bombings in the capital killed at least four people and wounded 60.
In March, just before a Saudi-led coalition began its airstrike campaign against the Houthis, the Islamic State affiliate in Yemen claimed responsibility for a series of suicide bombings in Sana targeting Shiites that killed at least 137 people and wounded 345.
The Houthis seized control of Sana in September and continue their advance across the country despite the Saudi-led airstrikes. Yemen’s conflict pits the Houthis and their allies against an array of forces, including southern separatists, local and tribal militias, Sunni Islamic militants and loyalists of exiled President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi.
Yemen’s exiled government under Hadi and the Houthis have failed to come to terms on even a temporary cease-fire.
