ISIL Yemen Branch Claim Responsibility For Mosque Blast

The Yemen branch of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) has claimed responsibility for a car explosion outside a Shia mosque used by Houthi rebels in the capital, Sanaa. The statement came through Twitter accounts of ISIL supporters shortly after Monday night’s attack that killed at least five people at the Moeed mosque – close to the house of one of the Houthi leaders. Aljazeera reports:

The group said it was targetting a Houthi “den in their stronghold in the al-Jarraf neighbourhood in Sanaa”. It was not immediately clear if Ihab al-Kuhlani, the rebel leader, was at home at the time of the attack and whether he was affected by the bombing that damaged the gate of his house.

“There was about four or five martyrs after the explosion as well as around four wounded,” said Walid Al Sarmi, an eyewitness.

“A couple of bodies were torn apart from the explosion, they may have been the bodies of the bombers themselves.”

The Houthi-controlled Saba news agency later reported that at least eight people were wounded in the blast, including children.