As many as 40 people have been killed and several injured in a car bomb attack on a Shia procession in the northern Yemeni province of Saada, reports said on Friday.
Official figures available with Yemen's Interior Ministry said nine people have been injured in the blast.
The deadly blast was the second to rock the impoverished nation in the past three days. At least 16 people, including the alleged attackers, died in a car bomb explosion on a Shia convoy in northern al-Jouf province on Wednesday.
Friday's incident occurred while followers of Houthi Shia rebels were proceeding in a convoy to the funeral of Bader al-Deen al-Houthi, a Houthi spiritual leader, who died on Thursday aged 86.
Bader is the father of Abdul-Malik al-Houthi, the Saada-based rebel commander who has been waging a war against Sanaa.
An unnamed local resident told media that the Shia followers hailed from neighboring Marib province, southwest of Saada.
However, no one has claimed responsibility for the attack so far.
The Houthi rebels belonging to the Shia Zaidi sect based in the north-western Saada district had been carrying out insurgent attacks for more than 5 years before recently agreeing to suspend hostilities. Earlier the Ali Abdullah Saleh administration rejected a truce deal offered by the rebels on several occasions as the authorities doubted their willingness to lay down arms.
Close to 250,000 residents were displaced from the region as a result of the conflict.
Besides the conflict with the Houthi rebels, Sanaa is engaged in a war with separatists demanding an independent state in the south as well as fighting militants loyal to al-Qaeda.
Western intelligence agencies have warned that Yemen was fast becoming a hub for Islamist insurgents including those from al-Qaeda, despite the Yemeni government's efforts to snuff out religious extremism.
The growing emergence of Islamist insurgency in the country was further revealed when the young Nigerian accused of trying to blow up an American airliner on Christmas day said he received training and indoctrination from militant leaders in Yemen.
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May 08, 2026 15:50 ET Manufacturing and services sector survey results and labor market data from main economies were the highlight on the economics news front this week. Factory orders and jobs report dominated the news flow in the U.S. Similarly, industrial production data from German garnered attention in Europe. In Asia, purchasing managers’ survey results from China and the central bank decision from Australia were in focus.