Daesh’s Yemen branch has attacked both main sides in the country’s civil war in recent months, targeting the Shiite Houthi militia in mosques in the capital Sanaa as well as Saudi-led forces and a local grouping of anti-Houthi fighters, with suicide blasts in Aden in September.
Daesh said in a statement it had killed nearly 50 soldiers in the attack, many more than the number cited by local officials, and just one of its fighters was killed carrying out a suicide bombing using a car in the assault.
Fighting was still going on in the area after the initial attack by militants between the towns of Shibam and Al-Qatn, the security source said. Daesh said it had targeted three separate army posts.
Unverified footage on social media purporting to show the attack included a large blast followed by a big plume of smoke, and the sound of shooting as well as distant voices shouting.
Although AQAP has controlled the southern Hadramawt city of Mukalla and surrounding areas most of this year, it has not attacked army positions elsewhere in the province for months.
In Hadramawt, hundreds of miles east of the main battlefronts that are separated by a broad stretch of desert, the army is loyal to President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi, whose government Saudi Arabia wants to restore.
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