Blast at Qaeda-looted ammo plant kills 76

A huge fire and blasts killed more than 75 people at an ammunition factory looted by Al-Qaeda yesterday, officials said, as parts of south Yemen eluded government control amid mounting protests.

A security official said the explosions rocked the plant as dozens of residents were inside helping themselves to whatever ammunition and guns were left after Sunday’s raid by suspected Al-Qaeda fighters.

Al-Qaeda militants had lured the civilians into a “lethal trap,” charged a spokesman for the restive southern province of Abyan, where he said a series of blasts set off a blaze which destroyed the plant.

The blasts were triggered by explosive powder left behind by Al-Qaeda, according to the unnamed official quoted on the defence ministry newspaper’s 26sep.net website.

Another local official, Nasser al-Mansari, said earlier that between 75 and 80 people were killed. Many victims were burnt beyond recognition and reduced to bone by the blasts and fire at the factory near the city of Jaar.

Around 20 women and several children were among the dead. In keeping with Islamic tradition, several of the victims were buried within hours.

An Abyan health department official, Khedr al-Saidi, said 54 wounded were taken to hospital in Jaar, 10 kilometres away, and 30 others for treatment in the main southern city of Aden.

He said a wounded woman later died in Aden hospital of her injuries, raising the overall death toll to 76. Rescue operations had ended at the site and an inquiry opened into the causes of the disaster.

Yemen is a country where carrying firearms is a national passion and guns outnumber the 24-million population by nearly three to one.

With the district falling into the hands of Al-Qaeda militants on Sunday, around 30 armed and hooded gunmen looted the factory and made off in four vehicles with cases of weapons, witnesses said.

The incident, two months into a nationwide revolt against President Ali Abdullah Saleh, came as a security official said suspected Al-Qaeda militants had seized control of Jaar and surrounding villages.

Lawless regions of southern Yemen have turned into a base of operations for Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), the network’s franchise in the Arab world’s poorest nation, despite its proximity to oil-rich Saudi Arabia.