-/AFP/GETTY IMAGES - Yemeni men inspect the scene where a suicide bomber driving a pickup truck targeted army personnel carriers at the entrance to a military camp in the main southern city of Aden, killing seven people Sunday.
ADEN, Yemen — A suicide bomber drove a booby-trapped car into an army checkpoint outside Yemen’s southern port city of Aden on Sunday, killing at least nine soldiers and wounding 21 others, officials and medical sources said.
The government blamed the attack on al-Qaeda’s Yemen-based wing.
Witnesses said they saw a car speed into a street cordoned off by armored vehicles. The car blew up, setting at least two of the vehicles ablaze.
“The car crashed into a military armored vehicle, which exploded and caught fire. The soldiers started shooting heavily,” a witness said.
The Defense Ministry said the attacker, who died in the explosion, hit a convoy that was headed to reinforce a military offensive in Zinjibar, the capital of the neighboring Abyan province. The army has been trying to recapture Zinjibar from militants for more than a week.
“The suicide attack by al Qaeda hit a convoy headed to Abyan . . . the attacker died and his limbs were scattered around the area,” the ministry said in a cellphone message sent to journalists in Yemen.
The attack outside Aden comes weeks after the army deployed security forces to surround the coastal city, which lies east of a shipping strait through which about 3 million barrels of oil pass daily.
The military has been trying to stop militants from slipping into Aden after they seized several areas in Abyan in recent months.
Unrest in the south has erupted as mass protests seeking to end President Ali Abdullah Saleh’s 33-year-old rule drag into a sixth month, setting off sporadic clashes across the fractious and impoverished country. Saleh is recovering in Saudi Arabia from wounds suffered in an attack on the presidential compound last month.
The bombing Sunday comes days after a car rigged with explosives blew up and killed a British ship surveyor in Aden. Officials called it a targeted attack against the longtime resident.
Abyan has descended into daily violence since militants seized at least two cities and a makeshift military base in the province, forcing 54,000 residents to flee to Aden.
A military source told Reuters that the Sunday attack would not deter the offensive in Abyan, in which dozens have been killed or wounded and little territory has been regained.
“The attack won’t stop the armed forces from going after the terrorists in Abyan,” he said.
— Reuters
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