AFP, SANAA: At least 31 people were killed Wednesday and dozens wounded in five simultaneous bombings claimed by the Islamic State group at Shiite mosques and offices in the Yemeni capital, medics and witnesses said.Two car bombs targeted mosques, while a third hit the house of the head of the Huthi rebels' politburo, Saleh al-Sammad, witnesses and security officials said. The IS in a statement said the nearby politburo office was the target.
One of the car bombs targeted the house of Huthi leader Taha al-Mutawakel and the adjacent Al-Hashush mosque. The other car bomb hit the Al-Quba Al-Khadra mosque in the central Hayel district, which is frequented by Huthi supporters.Bombs also went off at two other mosques -- Al-Kibssi and Al-Tayssir in Al-Ziraa district, with all the attacks timed to coincide with Muslim sunset prayers. The IS statement claimed that the attack on Al-Kibssi was a car bomb.
Witnesses said the bombs were planted near the entrances to the mosques, and exploded as worshippers flocked in for the prayers, on the eve of the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan. IS, a Sunni Muslim radical group, said the attacks were in "revenge" against the Shiite Huthis, who have overrun Sanaa and much of the Sunni majority country and whom it considers to be heretics. The blasts come almost three months after IS carried out multiple bombings against Shiite mosques killing 142 people. At the time of the March bombings, an IS statement described the attacks as "just the tip of the iceberg." AFP adds from Geneva: Yemen's warring parties were on Thursday set to discuss the possibility of localised ceasefires, as stalled UN-brokered peace talks in Geneva showed no signs of moving towards an overall truce. UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon launched the high-stakes negotiations on Monday with an appeal for a badly-needed two-week humanitarian truce.
But with that looking increasingly unlikely, Thursday's morning session was to focus on the chance of ceasefires in separate small towns, a source close to the negotiations told AFP. But this too appeared to be an uphill task with the two sides taking diametrically opposing stands.
"We discussed the truce but the other side is setting unacceptable conditions," rebel delegation member Hassan Zeid told AFP late Wednesday, adding that the government was demanding a rebel retreat from Aden and Taez, where fighting is raging.
The negotiations, entering their fourth day, have been bogged down by the government's insistence that the Iran-backed rebels must withdraw from the vast territory they control, including the capital Sanaa. It has also protested the size of the rebel delegation which is more than double of the pre-agreed number of 10. Huthi rebels and their allies, troops faithful to ousted president Ali Abdallah Saleh, favour a truce but are refusing to withdraw as demanded by the government in exile, which is backed by Saudi Arabia.A Saudi-led Arab coalition launched aerial raids on rebel positions on March 26, which are still continuing. The Geneva talks were supposed to end Thursday but they have been extended by a day at least, both sides told AFP.
The UN special envoy for Yemen, Mauritanian diplomat Ismail Ould Cheikh Ahmed, has urged the warring sides to bend, stressing the dire situation inYemen where more than 2,600 people have been killed since March and about 21 million people are in severe need of humanitarian aid. But the belligerents' positions are so far apart that they are not sitting in the same room and the UN is holding separate consultations with them.
The exiled government's delegation meanwhile attracted controversy after Abdel Wahab al-Humayqani, who heads the hardline Islamist Al-Rashad party in Yemen, took part in the opening of the peace talks, where he was photographed with Ban Ki-moon. He figures on a US blacklist for being a suspected Al-Qaeda backer.