A Yemeni car bomber detonated his payload near a military convoy in the southern port city of Yemen today, killing at least 10 soldiers and wounding over 20 others. The attack came as the troops were heading to the Abyan Province.
The Abyan Province has been virtually entirely taken over by militant factions for the past several months, with a group calling itself Ansar al-Sharia taking the provincial capital of Zinjibar.
The Yemeni military has been attempting to reconquer the province, along with a number of others which have fallen out of regime control, but at the same time are facing a growing militant presence in nearby Aden, a much more important city.
And the attempts to reconquer the province, despite US air support and claims of gaudy death tolls in recent offensives, all seem to be failing miserably. This has many concerned that the military is not going to fare particularly well if the insurgent factions make a move on Aden or elsewhere in the region. The vulnerability of the convoy in today’s offensive certainly points toward that being a significant problem.