Two Shias Killed in Yemen In Bomb Attacks and Shootings

Two Shia Houthimen were killed in Sanaa on Tuesday in a series of bomb attacks and a drive-by shooting, a medic and witnesses said.

Two Shiite Houthi men were killed in Sanaa on Tuesday in a series of bomb attacks and a drive-by shooting, a medic and witnesses said.



Five small bombs hit the center of Sanaa, which has been mostly controlled by the Shiite fighters since September, killing one of them and wounding two others, a medic said.



The first explosion went off in the old quarter of Sanaa when one of the Houthis, tried to defuse a bomb discovered underneath the car of a judge. He died in hospital, according to the medic.



Several houses and some cars were damaged from the explosions.



Another four bombs planted in garbage containers in the same Bustan Al Sultan neighbourhood then exploded within intervals of about five minutes, an eyewitness said.



One of the bombs was placed near the home of Ismail Al Wazir, a professor at Sanaa University, Saba quoted the Director General of the Sanaa police, Brigadier General Abdelrazzaq Al Mo’ayad, as saying. Wazir, who is close to the Houthi group, escaped an assassination attempt in April when gunmen opened fire on his vehicle, killing two of his security guards.



No one has claimed responsibility for the April attack or Tuesday’s bombings, but the Houthis have been fighting the Al Qaeda and allied tribesmen since its gunmen captured Sanaa in September.



In a separate attack on Tuesday, a prominent Houthi figure, Faisal Sherif, was shot dead by two gunmen riding a motorcycle near the University of Sanaa, witnesses said.



The blasts occurred early in the morning when only a few people were on the streets, witnesses said. One said he saw a man on a motorbike place the bomb outside his house and it exploded almost immediately.