Yemen bomb blast kills 12 civilians in botched attack on military

A roadside bomb killed twelve people in southern Yemen on Monday when a blast targeting a military car hit a civilian vehicle instead, a security source said.

Yemeni special forces - trained by key ally the UAE and backed by the US - launched a major operation in the southern Shabwa province against Yemen's al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) this month.

"The bomb was planted on a road in the Qaataba district of Daleh and hit a civilian vehicle instead," a security source said on condition of anonymity.

Two other people, including a solder, were killed in separate attacks in southern Yemen.

The soldier was shot dead by masked gunmen on a residential street in the oil-rich Hadramaut province, east of Daleh.

An attack in the town of Loder in Abyan injured General Ahmad al-Shbeili of the 115th brigade and killed his son.

A source in the brigade told AFP that al-Qaeda gunmen were behind the deadly ambush.

Daleh, together with most of southern Yemen, is controlled by government forces close to President Abd Rabbo Mansour Hadi, who is allied with a Saudi-led Arab military alliance in a war against Houthi rebels who control the capital.

AQAP has exploited years of conflict between the government and Houthi rebels to expand its presence in southern Yemen, and are thought to have moved further south into the Abyan province.

Last week, an al-Qaeda suicide bomber killed five Yemeni soldiers and wounded 20 others in an attack on an army base in Loder.

Since March 2015, a Saudi-led coalition of states - including the UAE - has conducted an aerial and ground campaign to support Hadi against Houthi rebels.

More than 10,000 people have been killed in the past two years and tens of thousands wounded in the war in Yemen, according to UN figures. Cholera has meanwhile swept through the country, killing hundreds.