ADEN: The militant Islamic State (IS) group claimed a major attack on Yemen’s government bastion of Aden on Sunday which killed at least 15 people, wounded 18 others and sparked a hostage crisis.

IS and its extremist rival Al Qaeda have taken advantage of the war between Yemen’s Saudi-backed government and the country’s Shia Huthi rebels, who are allied with Iran, to bolster their presence across much of the south.

While Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) has for years been the stronger presence in southern Yemen, IS has recently come forward to claim attacks on both the army and the country’s Shias, whom it considers heretics.

IS claimed Sunday’s attack on the criminal investigations unit in an online statement released by its “Aden and Abyan province”, which said clashes were “still ongoing”.

Security officials in the southern province of Aden, where the Yemeni government is based, said an explosives-rigged car blew up outside the investigations unit, killing six officers on the spot along with the driver.

Around 30 gunmen then stormed the unit and freed around 50 detainees from their holding cells, some of whom took up arms to fight alongside the militants, according to a high-ranking official.

The security officials said a total of four suicide bombers blew themselves up during the attack, one of them targeting the convoy of Yemen’s chief of security.

The gunmen also took an unknown number of people hostage inside the unit on Sunday afternoon. Two policewomen were killed execution-style by the attackers, the official said. By late afternoon, security officials said four policemen — among them a colonel — had been freed.

Earlier in the day, Yemeni security sources had said they suspected Al Qaeda militants were behind the well-coordinated attack.

Published in Dawn, November 6th, 2017