A suicide bombing claimed by the Takfiri group ISIL and a second attack killed 37 police on Sunday in the Yemeni port of Mukalla, medics said.

 

A suicide bombing claimed by the Takfiri group ISIL and a second attack killed 37 police on Sunday in the Yemeni port of Mukalla, medics said.

It was the second attack in days claimed by ISIL in the city of 200,000 people which was recaptured by government forces from the Takfiris of Al-Qaeda with US backing.

The suicide bomber killed at least 31 police recruits on the southwestern outskirts of the city, which is the capital of Hadramawt province, medics said.

The bomber detonated an explosives belt as he joined a line of men at a police recruitment centre, a provincial official said.

More than sixty people were also wounded in the attack in Fuwah district, a medical source said.

Hadramawt's security chief, General Mubarak al-Oubthani, who was at the recruitment centre at the time of the attack but was not hurt, was the target of a second bombing when he headed to the centre of Mukalla afterwards, a security official said.

The bomb went off as Oubthani walked out of his office killing six of his guards but leaving him with only minor injuries, the official said.

An ISIL statement posted online claimed the suicide attack, the second but rare intervention by the Takfiri group in an area known as a stronghold of rival Al-Qaeda.

"Brother Abu al-Bara al-Ansari... detonated his explosives belt at a gathering of the apostates of the security forces," it said.

On Thursday, 15 Yemeni troops were killed in Takfiri attacks on army positions outside Mukalla. ISIL said one of its militants blew up a vehicle packed with explosives in an army base in Khalf district on the city's eastern outskirts.

The attacks included a suicide bombing that targeted the residence of the commander of Hadramawt's second military region, General Faraj Salmeen, but he escaped unharmed, officials said.