SANAA, YEMEN | A suicide bomber detonated his explosives amid a crowd of Yemeni police cadets as they were leaving their academy on Wednesday, killing at least 10 people, a security official said.
Ambulances could be seen rushing to the site of the attack in the capital, Sanaa. The official said dozens more were wounded, including several critically.
There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the blast, but al Qaeda’s Yemen branch frequently targets security forces.
Twelve suspects have been arrested in connection with Wednesday’s attack, according to security officials. The officials said the bomber was from the province of Amran, about 45 miles northwest of Sanaa. They provided no other details.
The capital was on high alert after the attack, with security forces setting up checkpoints around the city and searching cars. Security also was increased around embassies.
The attack came after the army last month recaptured several militant-held towns in the country’s south, following a monthslong campaign to retake territory the militants seized during political turmoil that swept the country last year.
Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, considered the global terror movement’s most dangerous offshoot, has struck back against the military’s offensive with deadly attacks in the south and a May 21 bombing at a parade ground in Sanaa that killed 96 Yemeni soldiers.
Security officials said 55 people have been arrested in connection with that attack, among them al Qaeda militants accused of plotting to attack the U.S. Embassy.
Last week, Yemeni state TV aired several of the detainees’ purported confessions, with one of the accused saying he had orders to carry out an attack against the U.S. Embassy and other foreign embassies. He did not elaborate.
Earlier Wednesday, the government announced that two al Qaeda militants who had tunneled out of a prison last month had been rearrested in a southern province. An Interior Ministry statement said one of the two, Nasser Ismail Ahmed Muttahar, was detained for taking part in an attack on the U.S. Embassy in Sanaa in 2008.
The attack on the embassy’s gate, carried out by gunmen and vehicles packed with explosives, killed 19 people, including an 18-year-old American woman and six militants. None of those killed or wounded was a U.S. diplomat or embassy employee. It was the deadliest assault on a U.S. embassy in a decade.
The two militants who had escaped prison were captured in al-Dhali province on Tuesday. The ministry statement said they were among five militants who escaped from a prison in the western province of Hodeida on June 26.
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