Yemen Attack Shows Spreading Threat

By Hakim Almasmari and Asa Fitch,

Bombers attacked two mosques controlled by Houthi rebels in the Yemeni capital San’a.

Suicide bombings at two mosques in Yemen’s capital killed more than 100 people Friday, the deadliest terror attacks in the country’s history and a sign, just days after an attack in Tunisia, of the spreading jihadist threat across the Middle East.

A group that said it was affiliated with Islamic State claimed responsibility for the attacks on the two mosques in San’a, where suicide bombers detonated explosives just after noon as people gathered for midday prayers, local security officials said. When survivors fled, a second pair of bombs exploded outside the mosques, killing more people. By evening, the official death toll had risen to 135.

San’a Province, a previously unknown Islamic State affiliate, claimed the attacks. They came just a day after Islamic State claimed responsibility for Wednesday’s attack on a museum in the capital of Tunisia that killed 21 people, including 18 foreign tourists. None of those claims could be independently verified.

Kurdish officials said they suspected Islamic State for twin suicide bombs that exploded late Friday among crowds gathered for Kurdish spring celebrations in the northeastern Syrian city of al-Hasakah late Friday, leaving at least a dozen dead and many more injured.

A group claiming loyalty to Islamic State also claimed responsibility for the beheading of 21 Egyptian Coptic Christians in Libya last month, raising the specter of the extremist group’s spread outside its base in Syria and Iraq to challenge other Sunni terrorist groups that have pledged allegiance to al Qaeda.

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