'Blood was running like a river' - 137 killed, 345 injured in suicide attacks on Yemen mosques

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137 killed, 345 injured in suicide attacks on Yemen mosques

ADEN, Yemen (AP) — A group claiming to be a Yemeni branch of the Islamic State group says it carried out a string of suicide bombings in the Yemeni capital, Sanaa, that killed a total of 137 people and injured 345 others. 

The group posted an online statement saying that five suicide bombers carried out what it described as a "blessed operation" against the "dens of the Shiites." 

The bombers attacked the Badr and al-Hashoosh mosques, located across town from each other, during midday Friday prayers. 

The claim, posted in an online statement, could not immediately be independently confirmed and offered no proof of an IS role. It was posted on the same website in which the Islamic State affiliate in Libya claimed responsibility for Wednesday's deadly attack on a museum in Tunisia. 

From the Independent:

More than 120 people died and hundreds were injured as four suicide bombers attacked two mosques in Yemen’s capital city. 

So many people were killed or injured that hospitals in Sanaa struggled to cope with the emergency and public pleas were made for blood donors to come forward. 

Many of the worshippers in the mosques were supporters of the Shia Houthi fighters who control the capital, and responsibility for the carnage was claimed by Isis which regards all Shia as heretics – though it was impossible to immediately verify this and some analysts were sceptical. 

The final death toll was uncertain last night, with sources giving varying accounts, at least one putting it at 137 with a further 350 people injured. But the authorities warned that with so many of the wounded suffering critical injuries the toll is sure to rise. 

After the blasts the wounded were loaded on the back of pick-up trucks and were taken to hospitals where, as they waited for treatment, they lay side by side with the dead. 

Among the dead was, according to Al Jazeera and Houthi-owned television, the imam of the Badr mosque, the prominent Houthi cleric al-Murtada bin Zayd al-Mahatwari. 

Two senior Houthi leaders, both members of the Zaidi Shia sect and named as Taha al-Mutawakkil and Khalid Madani, were reported to have been seriously wounded. 

“Dozens of people have been injured or killed. We will understand the exact numbers of [the] dead and wounded soon. These are two very central and commonly used mosques,” the editor-in-chief of the Yemen Post newspaper, Hakim Almasmari, told reporters.