CAIRO — Dozens of people were killed on Friday when suicide bombers attacked two Zaydi Shiite mosques in Yemen’s capital, Sana, during weekly prayers, raising fears of a growing shift toward sectarian attacks in the country’s increasingly violent civil conflict.
At least 35 people were killed in the bombings, at the Badr and Hashoush mosques in Sana, according to medical officials and witnesses. The attack was the deadliest on civilians in the capital since January, when a car bomb killed more than 30 people outside a police academy.
There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the bombings. In recent months, Sunni extremists, including militants linked to an affiliate of Al Qaeda in Yemen, have carried out a number of deadly attacks against supporters of the Houthis, a Zaydi Shiite rebel group that took control of Sana in September and became Yemen’s most dominant political and military force.
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The Sunni extremists consider the Zaydis, who make up a third of the population in the Sunni-majority country, to be heretics.
The bombings in Sana came a day after rare and deadly factional clashes in the southern port city of Aden, marking a violent new stage in Yemen’s seven-month political crisis.
Two suicide bombers attacked the Badr mosque during Friday Prayer, witnesses said, with one detonating his explosives outside the mosque and the other inside the building during the sermon. Children were among the victims, witnesses said.