Yemen suicide bombing kills at least 48

At least 48 soldiers were killed in Yemen on Sunday after a suicide bomber blew himself up in the country's second-largest city of Aden, officials said, revising earlier death tolls upwards. Dozens more were injured at the gathering near Solban army base in northeastern Aden, they said.

The base was already targeted by a suicide bomber just last week in an attack that killed 48 soldiers and wounded 29. That attack was claimed by a Yemeni affiliate of the "Islamic State" (IS) extremist group.

IS later said it was responsible for Sunday's bombing as well. Both IS and al Qaeda are active in the country. Al Qaeda, however, distanced itself from the December 10 bombing - claiming that it targets "Americans and their allies," while eschewing "the shedding of any Muslim blood."

The city has also been in the foreground of Yemen's civil conflict, which has seen rebel Houthis, allied with Iran, fighting forces loyal to President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi since 2014. Hadi, the country's internationally recognized leader, was forced to flee to neighboring Saudi Arabia. Riyadh has since launched an air campaign to root out rebel strongholds.

Aden is now run by a lose coalition of militias, jihadists and troops loyal to Hadi. It is the provisional center of government as Hadi's forces and their Saudi allies are still fighting to retake the capital, Sanaa. Around 7,000 people, nearly half of them civilians, have lost their lives in Yemen's civil war, which critics have said is a proxy war between Saudi Arabia and Iran as the regional rivals vie for influence.

es/tj (AFP, dpa)