A Yemeni affiliate of the Islamic State group has claimed responsibility for Tuesday’s attack on an Arab coalition base that killed at least 15 troops, including four UAE soldiers.
The group made the claim through its affiliated accounts on Twitter on Tuesday, posting a series of photos depicting the bombings and pictures of the suicide attackers involved, Al Jazeera reported.
“Four martyrdom operations targeted a gathering of Saudi, Emirati, and Yemeni offices,” a statement released by the group said.
The names of the attackers in the pictures suggested those involved were all Yemeni in origin.
Al Jazeera’s Hashem Ahelbarra, who has reportedly extensively from Yemen, said the claim of responsibility by IS marked the start of “strange scenario” in Yemen.
“On the one hand, we have government forces and the Saudi-led coalition fighting the Houthis, and now you have IS fighting the government and Houthi forces,” he said.
“You’ll have the [southern] secessionists fighting al-Qaeda, and IS fighting al-Qaeda at the same time ... It will be a complete nightmare scenario in the near future.
“In 2014 IS emerged saying that they were there to defend Sunnis who had been undermined by the Shia ... they were present in the capital Sana’a, but now they’re trying to build a platform in the south.”
