ADEN, Yemen, March 13 (Xinhua) -- Six soldiers were killed on Tuesday in a suicide car bombing near a security center of the newly-recruited Yemeni troops in the southern port city of Aden, local police said.
A source of the Interior Ministry in Aden confirmed to Xinhua that the explosion was caused by a suicide car bombing near a security center in Aden's neighborhood of Mansourah.
Another police official said that a suicide bomber driving an explosive-laden car blew it up next to a building used to store food and meals for the Yemeni forces in Aden.
Forces backed by the United Arab Emirates were sent to the area after the explosion and a search operation was launched.
Witnesses told Xinhua that the suicide bomber killed himself on the spot and an exchange of gunfire was heard in the area.
A number of ambulances rushed to the bombing site to send the injured people to nearby hospitals.
No group has claimed responsibility for the bombing yet. Both the Yemen-based al-Qaida branch and the Islamic State (IS) group have carried out several terror attacks in Aden.
Aden is considered as Yemen's temporary capital and the Saudi-backed Yemeni government has based itself there since 2015.
During the past two years, the al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) and other terrorist groups including the IS have had an active presence in Yemen's southern part.
The impoverished Arab country has been mired in a civil war since the Iranian-backed Shiite Houthi rebels overran much of the country militarily and seized all northern provinces, including capital Sanaa, in 2014.
Saudi Arabia led an Arab military coalition that intervened in Yemen in 2015 to support the government of President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi after Houthi rebels forced him into exile.
The United Nations has listed Yemen as the country of world's number one humanitarian crisis, with 7 million Yemenis on the brink of famine and cholera causing more than 2,000 deaths.
