17 People killed, dozens wounded as Houtis attacks Southern port city of Aden with rockets

At least 17 civilians has been killed while dozens wounded  after a rocket shot from Yemen's Shia Houthi rebels hit a residential district of the country's southern port city of Aden, sources told +Bloom Gist.


The Houthis and their allies early on Wednesday pounded the city's loyalist-held Mansoura district with 15 artillery rockets from their positions in the Dar Saad neighbourhood, loyalist forces spokesman Ali al-Ahmadi told the AFP news agency.

The attack came after a car bombing targeting Houthi leaders in the capital Sanaa, claimed by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), killed at least 28 people late on Monday.

The car bomb targeted two brothers, both rebel chiefs, during a gathering to mourn the death of a relative, a security source said.

Eight women were among the dead.

ISIL said in an online statement that it had organised the attack on a "Shia nest".

Mass jailbreak

Meanwhile, as the fighting continued, officials said about 1,200 prisoners, including al-Qaeda suspects, escaped during clashes in a jail in central Yemen on Tuesday.

The Houthis and their allies early on Wednesday pounded the city's loyalist-held Mansoura district with 15 artillery rockets from their positions in the Dar Saad neighbourhood

A security official told Yemen's Saba news agency that units in Yemen's army loyal to Ali Abdullah Saleh, Yemen's former president, allowed the prisoners to escape when "groups of al-Qaeda supporters" attacked the central prison in Taiz city.

"Heavy fighting took place near the central prison and the popular committees [militiamen] approached and seized control of the area, but Saleh's forces opened the prison doors," the official said.

"More than 1,200 of the dangerous prisoners escaped."