FOUR Yemeni soldiers and five assailants were killed in an attack on a military base in the southern province of Abyan today, a security source said. 

A car rigged with explosives carrying five men pulled up to a military base in the district of Mudiya in Abyan, the source told AFP on condition of anonymity.

Four men wearing explosive belts ran out of the car and towards the base, and were all shot dead. 

The vehicle then exploded outside of the base, killing the driver and three soldiers from a UAE-backed contingent in the Yemeni army. 

Yemen’s southern provinces, including Abyan, are the site of a long-running US drone war against Al-Qaeda’s Yemeni branch.

Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula has flourished in the chaos of Yemen’s civil war, which pits the Saudi-backed government of President Abedrabbo Mansour Hadi against Shia Houthi rebels.

The United States, the only government to operate drones over the impoverished country, considers AQAP to be the radical group’s most dangerous branch and backs the UAE-trained contingent in southern Yemen.

The United Arab Emirates is a key component of a Saudi-led military coalition that intervened in the war to support Hadi’s government in 2015. 

More than 8,600 people have since been killed, according to the World Health Organisation. – AFP, October 23, 2017.