AQAP suicide assault team hits Army headquarters in Aden

Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula has launched yet another suicide assault against Yemeni security forces. Today’s attack took place in the southern port city of Aden, and the target was the headquarters for the Yemeni Army’s 4th Division. From the BBC:

The army says a suicide bomber in a bomb-laden car tried to storm the main gate of the base in Aden.

Militants in a second vehicle attacked the HQ with rocket-propelled grenades and automatic weapons, they said.

Al-Qaeda-linked groups have launched a string of attacks on Yemeni army posts in the past two years.

Hospital officials said at least three assailants also died in the subsequent shootout. A 10-year-old boy was also among the civilian casualties.

AQAP has targeted security forces in Aden in the past. The last large-scale attack in Aden took place on Dec. 31, 2013, when AQAP fighters launched a complex suicide assault against a Security Department headquarters.

AQAP continues its campaign of suicide assaults and other attacks against Yemen’s security forces throughout the country. In the past two weeks, AQAP killed 20 soldiers in an ambush in Hadramout on March 24, and one soldier in a suicide attack on a military intelligence headquarters in Lahj on March 18.

Bill Roggio is a Senior Fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies and the Editor of FDD's Long War Journal.

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