ADEN – At least 11 people were killed on Tuesday in a suicide car bombattack on a checkpoint in southeastern Yemen run by local forces backed bythe United Arab Emirates, officials and residents said.
Residents said gunmen opened fire on the checkpoint after a suicide bomberdrove his booby-trapped car into the checkpoint northeast of Ataq, thecapital of the province of Shabwa.
Officials said 11 people died in the attack and three were wounded, whileresidents put the death toll at 12.
The attack came as southern separatists battled Yemeni government forcesfor control of the interim capital of President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi’sgovernment in Aden. The clashes risked a separate fight by a Saudi-ledcampaign against Iran-aligned Houthis in northern Yemen.
No one claimed responsibility for the attack, but it resembled previousoperations by Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), which operates inthe area.
The Shabwa Elite Force, which was set up and trained by the United ArabEmirates as part of its fight against Islamist militants, drove AQAPmilitants out of Ataq in a major military operation in August last year.
The UAE is part of the Saudi-led coalition that intervened in the Yemencivil war in 2015 to try to restore Hadi to power after the Houthisadvanced on Aden and forced him to flee into exile. – Agencies