A car bomb that rocked Yemen’s southern port city of Aden this week and killed a major general also took the life of his son, a junior military officer, and three guards, a media spokesman said Thursday.
The bombing on Wednesday targeted the convoy of Maj. Gen. Thabet Jawas, a senior commander in southern Yemen, who was killed. Initial reports said at least four others also died.
No one has so far claimed responsibility for the attack in Aden. The city has been rocked by several bombings in recent years blamed on local affiliates of al-Qaida and the Islamic State group. Yemen's Iran-backed Houthi rebels have also targeted the city with ballistic missiles and explosives-laden drones.
A security personnel walks near the wreckage of a vehicle at the site of a deadly car bomb attack in the port city of Aden, Yemen, Thursday, Mar. 24, 2022. A car bomb rocked Yemen's southern city of Aden on Wednesday, killing a senior military official and at least four others, officials said. (AP PhotoWail al-Qubaty)
On Thursday, Qaed Nasr, a military spokesman for Jawas' division, said that the major general's son, Nabil Jawas, a 26-year-old military officer who was accompanying his father, also died.
The two were driving home after attending a relative's funeral when a parked car exploded as Jawas' convoy passed near a fuel supply facility, according to security officials speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to reporters.
Three guards were also killed, the officials said, while five civilian passers-by who were wounded in the bombing are in hospital and getting medical treatment.
A security personnel stands next to the wreckage at the site of a deadly car bomb attack in the port city of Aden, Yemen, Thursday, March 24, 2022. A car bomb rocked Yemen's southern city of Aden on Wednesday, killing a senior military official and at least four others, officials said. (AP PhotoWail al-Qubaty)
Images from the scene showed fire with charred bodies on the ground. An investigation was underway.
Aden has been the seat of Yemen's internationally recognized government of President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi since the Houthis seized the country's capital, Sanaa, in 2014, triggering the country’s protracted civil war.
Hadi and his prime minister, Maeen Abdulmalik Saeed, mourned Jawas' death and denounced the bombing as a “terrorist attack.”
Security personnel stand near the wreckage of at the site of a deadly car bomb attack in the port city of Aden, Yemen, Thursday, March 24, 2022. A car bomb rocked Yemen's southern city of Aden on Wednesday, killing a senior military official and at least four others, officials said. (AP PhotoWail al-Qubaty)
JERUSALEM (AP) — Yemen's Houthi rebels on Saturday claimed shooting down another of the U.S. military's MQ-9 Reaper drones, airing footage of parts that corresponded to known pieces of the unmanned aircraft.
The Houthis said they shot down the Reaper with a surface-to-air missile, part of a renewed series of assaults this week by the rebels after a relative lull in their pressure campaign over the Israel-Hamas war in the Gaza Strip.
U.S. Air Force Lt. Col. Bryon J. McGarry, a Defense Department spokesperson, acknowledged to The Associated Press on Saturday that “a U.S. Air Force MQ-9 drone crashed in Yemen.” He said an investigation was underway, without elaborating.
The Houthis described the downing as happening Thursday over their stronghold in the country's Saada province.
Footage released by the Houthis included what they described as the missile launch targeting the drone, with a man off-camera reciting the Houthi's slogan after it was hit: “God is the greatest; death to America; death to Israel; curse the Jews; victory to Islam.”
The footage included several close-ups on parts of the drone that included the logo of General Atomics, which manufactures the drone, and serial numbers corresponding with known parts made by the company.
Since the Houthis seized the country’s north and its capital of Sanaa in 2014, the U.S. military has lost at least five drones to the rebels counting Thursday's shootdown — in 2017, 2019, 2023 and this year.
Reapers, which cost around $30 million apiece, can fly at altitudes up to 50,000 feet and have an endurance of up to 24 hours before needing to land.
The drone shootdown comes as the Houthis launch attacks on shipping in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden, demanding Israel ends the war in Gaza, which has killed more than 34,000 Palestinians there. The war began after Hamas-led militants attacked Israel on Oct. 7, killing 1,200 people and taking some 250 others hostage.
The Houthis have launched more than 50 attacks on shipping, seized one vessel and sank another since November, according to the U.S. Maritime Administration.
Houthi attacks have dropped in recent weeks as the rebels have been targeted by a U.S.-led airstrike campaign in Yemen. Shipping through the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden has declined because of the threat. American officials have speculated that the rebels may be running out of weapons as a result of the U.S.-led campaign against them and after firing drones and missiles steadily in the last months. However, the rebels have renewed their attacks in the last week.
A Houthi supporter raises a mock rocket during a rally against the U.S. and Israel and to support Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, in Sanaa, Yemen, Friday, April. 26, 2024. (AP Photo/Osamah Abdulrahman)
