University bomb kills gardener, injures two students

May 24, 2016 2:15 PM

Islamist militants have exploited Yemen's 14-month civil war which has pitted the Iran-allied Houthis against supporters of President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi, who is backed by a Saudi Arab coalition, to strike at both sides at will.

Yemen university bomb kills gardener, injures two students

A bomb at Sanaa University killed a gardener and wounded at least two students on Tuesday, police and medical sources said, in a relatively rare attack on the Houthi-ruled Yemeni capital.

A police official at the scene said the explosion appeared to have targeted an exhibition organised by the Houthi's Ansarullah group, which controls most of northern Yemen.

No one has claimed responsibility for the bombing.

Islamist militants have exploited Yemen's 14-month civil war which has pitted the Iran-allied Houthis against supporters of President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi, who is backed by a Saudi Arab coalition, to strike at both sides at will.

The warring parties, pushed by the common threat posed by the emboldened Islamist militants, have been trying to resolve their differences at U.N.-sponsored peace talks in Kuwait.

Despite the conflict, there have been relatively few recent attacks in Sanaa. Islamic State said it carried out an attack on a mosque in Sanaa last October that killed seven people.

Officials at the main hospital in Sanaa said the gardener, who they did not name, died of injuries sustained in the explosion.