Suicide bomber wounds five soldiers in Yemen attack-local official

ADEN - 17 July 2017: A suicide car bomber wounded five soldiers outside a government army compound in eastern Yemen on Monday, said a local security official who blamed the attack on militant group al Qaeda.

The attack in the Ain BaMaabad area was the second by al Qaeda in two days in Shabwa province, where Yemen's liquefied natural gas plant and export facilities are located.

Five soldiers were killed and four were wounded in a raid on Sunday when suspected al Qaeda militants attacked an army outpost guarding a gas pipeline which transports LNG from Marib to the export facility at Balhaf.

Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula has exploited a civil war between the Western-backed government of President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi and the Iran-aligned Houthis to try to expand its influence in Yemen.

The group, regarded by Washington as one of the most dangerous branches of the network, regularly attacks government forces and facilities as part of a campaign to keep the country in chaos.

Oil and gas once accounted for most of Yemen's state revenue before a civil war and military intervention led by Saudi Arabia halted their export and unleashed a humanitarian crisis.