IS claims killing of Aden governor after UN envoy visits Yemen

A car bombing claimed by the Islamic State group
Sunday killed the governor of Yemen’s second
city Aden, a day after the UN’s envoy visited to
press for long-delayed peace talks.
A statement posted on Twitter by the jihadist
group said it was behind a blast that hit the
convoy of Jaafar Saad in the Tawahi
neighbourhood of the major port, killing him and
eight bodyguards.
In a statement carried by the official Saba news
agency, Aden security chief General Mohamed
Mussad confirmed Saad’s death and said six of
his guards were also killed.
Images circulated on social media after the attack
showed a wrecked car on fire on a main road in
the southern city.
Saad was only recently appointed governor, and
was known to be close to President Abedrabbo
Mansour Hadi who returned to Aden last month
after several months in exile in Riyadh.
Pro-Hadi forces, aided by a Saudi-led coalition,
have battled Iran-backed rebels in Yemen since
March, after the insurgents overran the capital
Sanaa and advanced south, forcing the
government to flee to Saudi Arabia.
Fighting between the Huthi rebels and loyalist
forces has plunged the impoverished nation into
chaos, which jihadist groups have exploited to
make sweeping gains, particularly in southern
regions.
Aden’s Tawahi district has become a known
hideout for jihadists, including Al-Qaeda
militants.
IS has claimed a string of attacks in Yemen,
including the bombing of Hadi’s government
headquarters in October and multiple suicide
attacks on mosques in Sanaa attended by Shiite
worshippers that killed 142 people.
It also claimed the killing of 50 soldiers in a
November ambush in southeastern Hadramawt
province.
Its statement on Sunday threatened further
attacks.
– New blow to Hadi –
Saad’s killing represents another blow for Hadi,
who has struggled to secure the city since his
forces and allies launched a widespread
operation in July to retake five southern
provinces — including Aden — from the Huthis.
The counterattack has stalled around Taez, a
strategic city in southwest Yemen under siege by
the rebels and their allies.
The car bombing came a day after Yemen’s UN
envoy held talks with Hadi in Aden aimed at
kickstarting peace talks between the warring
sides.
Ismail Ould Cheikh Ahmed met Hadi to seek his
agreement to convene negotiations with the
rebels in Geneva next week, an official close to
the president told AFP.
But the mission was “difficult”, said the source,
accusing the rebels of dragging their feet on
implementing UN Security Council Resolution
2216 which calls for them to withdraw from
occupied territory.
And Foreign Minister Abdel Malak al-Mekhlafi
told AFP: “The putschists are refusing to lay down
their arms or to allow the government to carry
out its duties” from Sanaa.
“They have not announced their list of
negotiators” for the talks “and are trying to
escalate the situation on the ground by bombing
residential districts of Taez”.
In a protest sent to the United Nations, Yemen’s
minister in charge of human rights, Ezzedine al-
Isbahi, condemned the “massacres and atrocities”
allegedly committed in Taez by the rebels that he
said had killed 33 civilians last week, including
four children.
The United Nations says that more than 5,700
people have been killed in Yemen, almost half of
them civilians, since the Saudi-led air campaign
began in March in support of the government.
In Aden on Saturday, gunmen shot dead the
presiding judge of a terrorism court, Mohsen
Mohamed Alwan, and four of his bodyguards, a
security source said, and police Colonel Al-
Khadher Ali Ahmed was gunned down in a
separate attack.