By Shukri Hussein

SANAA

Five Yemeni soldiers were killed in a suicide bombing late Monday in the southern Abyan province.

A bomber blew himself up at a military checkpoint in Shaqra town, killing five soldiers, eyewitnesses said.

“Four soldiers were also injured in the attack,” one of the sources, who preferred to be unnamed, told Anadolu Agency.

A medical source confirmed that four injured soldiers were rushed to hospital in Shaqra, including two critically.

There was no claim of responsibility for the attack, for which Yemeni authorities have yet to comment.

Yemeni government forces, backed by Saudi-led airstrikes, have been battling al-Qaeda militants in Abyan in an attempt to capture the province and its capital Zinjibar from the militant group.

Yemen has been ravaged by civil war since late 2014, when the Houthis overran capital Sanaa and a number of other provinces, forcing President Abd Rabbuh Mansour Hadi and his Saudi-backed government to temporarily flee to Riyadh.

In March of last year, Saudi Arabia and its Arab allies launched a massive military campaign in Yemen aimed at reversing Houthi military gains and restoring Hadi’s embattled government.