Islamic State warns of more attacks after car bomb kills governor of Aden

The governor of Aden was killed in a car bombing on Sunday, with Islamic State claiming responsibility for the attack. Gen Jaafar Mohammed Saad died alongside six members of his entourage in the explosion in the southern port city in Yemen. He was killed when a vehicle laden with explosives was detonated as he drove to his office in the Tawahi district of the city. Islamic State claimed responsibility for the attack, describing Gen Saad as a tyrant and warned the “heads of the infidels” in Yemen that it would carry out “operations to chop off their rotten heads".

Foot-dragging in implementing security measures paves the way for hardliners to carry out such attacks

Yemeni activist Ashraf Ali Mahmoud

The attack came a day after the killing of a senior army officer and a judge who presided over the trial of militants suspected in the bombing of the U.S. warship USS Cole in Aden in 2000. Sunday’s explosion could be heard about 10 km (seven miles) away, residents said. Photos posted online showed a car in flames with a plume of smoke rising from it. The victims were taken to the Jumhouriya Hospital, Aden’s main state medical facility, which by Gen Saad had re-opened in a ceremony two days earlier. Yemen is locked in a debilitating civil war in which president Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi has returned to Aden to oversee fighting against Iran-allied Houthis.

Despite the suffering and wounds, our hands are always outstretched for peace based on national and humanitarian responsibilities toward our people

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