Mosque attack survivor says that ‘blood was running like a river’
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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 at least 142 people and injured 351 others.
The group posted an online statement saying 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 prayers yesterday.
The claim 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.
The mosques in Sanaa were controlled by Shiite rebels, known as Houthis, and the attacks were the deadliest in the capital since the rebels seized control six months ago.
Both mosques were also frequented by Sunni worshippers.
The rebel-owned Al-Masirah TV channel said hospitals in the area were urging citizens to donate blood.
It also reported that a fifth suicide bomb attack on another mosque was foiled in the northern city of Saada — a Houthi stronghold.
The first bomber at the Badr mosque was caught by militia guards searching worshippers at the mosque entrance and detonated his device at the outside gates.
Amid the ensuing panic, a second bomber was able to enter the mosque and blow himself up among the crowds, according to the official news agency SABA.
Survivors compared the explosions to an earthquake and said some of those who survived the original blasts were then injured by shattered glass falling from the mosque’s large chandeliers.
Another pair of suicide bombers attacked the al-Hashoosh mosque, according to the state news agency.
One witness from that attack said he was thrown 2 meters away by one of the blasts.
“The heads, legs and arms of the dead people were scattered on the floor of the mosque,” said Mohammed al-Ansi.
He told The Associated Press, that “blood was running like a river.”
Al-Ansi recalled running for the door along with other survivors and hearing one man screaming, “come back, save the injured!”
Another survivor from the Badr mosque, Ahmed al-Gabri, said: “I fell on the ground and when I regained conscious I found myself sleeping on a lake of blood.”
Two worshippers who were standing next to him were killed by the blast and a third man died when a chandelier fell on him, al-Gabri said.
A third survivor from the Badr mosque attack, Sadek al-Harithi, described the scene as “an earthquake where I felt the ground split and swallow everyone.”
The television channel aired footage from inside the al-Hashoosh mosque where screaming volunteers were using bloodied blankets to carry away victims.
The dead included a small child, and corpses were lined up on the mosque floor and carried away in pick-up trucks.
The channel said that a senior Islamic scholar named al-Murtada al-Mahtouri was killed in the attack while two senior Houthi leaders were seriously injured.
The Shiite Houthis’ power grab, which began as a small insurgency in northern Yemen, has fanned fears of a sectarian conflict and full-blown civil war. Yemen’s majority population is Sunni while the Shiite Zaydi sect represents a third of the nation.
The attacks come a day after intense gun battles in the southern city of Aden, between rival troops loyal to Yemen’s former and current president left 13 dead and forced closure of the city’s international airport.
The Shiite rebels swept down from their northern strongholds and seized the capital in September.
Allied with ousted former Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh, they now control at least nine of Yemen’s 21 provinces.
Earlier this year they put Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi, the Western-backed president, under house arrest.
Hadi has since fled to the southern city of Aden, where he established a provisional capital and maintains he is still the legitimate president.
If it is confirmed that the Islamic State group affiliate carried out the bombings, it would be the group’s first major attack in Yemen‚ where the rival Islamic militants of al-Qaida have long been a powerful force.
The rebels’ attempts to extend their control into other areas have been met by deadly resistance from Sunni tribes and al-Qaida.
Yemen‘s top security body blamed al-Qaida for a car bomb in January that killed 40 people and wounded dozens more at a police academy in Sanaa as recruits lined up to register.
But a leader of the jihadist network denied responsibility at the time.
The Houthis are sworn enemies of Yemen’s powerful al-Qaida branch — al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula — which is regarded by Washington as the world’s most dangerous and active al-Qaida affiliate.
Yemen, a frontline in the US war on al-Qaida, has descended into chaos since the 2012 ousting of longtime strongman Ali Abdullah Saleh, who had been accused of backing the Houthis.
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