Yemen: Governor, 6 Bodyguards Killed; ISIS Claims Responsibility

It comes as the Islamist organisation claims responsibility for an explosion which killed the governor of Yemen’s southern Aden province, along with six bodyguards.

Gov. Jaafar Saad was visiting a branch of the Ministry of Telecommunication in the southern port city when the blast occurred, the officials said.

The group also posted what it said were photographs of the booby-trapped vehicle as a white van taking Saad drove past, subsequently two other pictures of a tremendous ball of fire which it said were required as the bomb burst.

“It’s likely going to get even worse, especially now that al-Qaeda has taken over in two cities just a few kilometers away from Aden”.

Saad, a former general in the army of the former southern Yemen before the Marxist state merged with northern Yemen in 1990, was appointed governor in October.

Violence came after the United Nations envoy to Yemen met President Abdrabbuh Mansour Hadi in Aden on Saturday in an effort to bring eight months of civil war to an end.

The city of Aden has been under Saudi-led coalition control for months, but there had been frequent fighting leading up to Saad’s death.

“But Aden has remained vulnerable to violence with jihadists carrying out regular attacks”.

Starting November, the Islamic State group in Yemen unleashed attacks against Shiite mosques, neighborhoods and rebel positions.

Yemen’s Houthi rebels overthrew the democratically-elected government in January and are now under siege from airstrikes and a ground campaign, led by Saudi Arabia, involving an global coalition of military personnel and equipment.

In another incident, residents said unknown assailants in the west of the city on Sunday shot and killed a field commander.

Speaking to Al Jazeera from Sanaa, Hisham al-Omeisy, a Yemeni political analyst, said the assassination of the governor fell in the patern of political killings in Aden in recent months.

For year the country has been beset by instability, lawlessness and poverty.