Suicide bomber kills at least 49 army conscripts in Yemen's Aden

A suicide bomber killed at least 49 army conscripts in the southern Yemeni port city of Aden on Sunday, officials there said, a week after an attack killed 50 troops nearby.

Militants linked to Islamic State have claimed responsiblity for the attack, making it the group's second deadly bombing in less than a week.

The officials said the soldiers were queuing to collect salaries near a military base in the Khor Maksar district when the attacker blew himself up. At least 60 other troops were wounded, they said.

The conscripts had been queuing in front of the house of General Nasser al-Anbouri, head of the armed forces in Aden, when the bomber struck on Sunday morning.

Local news site Aden al-Ghad reported that thousands of soldiers and army conscripts had been waiting in the area at the time of the blast. 

Military leaders and Interior Minister Hossein Mohammed Arab were on the scene of the attack within a few hours. 

The officials promised an investigation into the attack, which came just days after an earlier bombing claimed by Islamic State killed 50 soldiers in an area nearby.

Aden is the temporary capital of the government of Abd Rabbuh Mansour Hadi, who is operating from exile in neighbouring Saudi Arabia. However, the administration has struggled to establish its control in the city as militants have launched dozens of attacks against its forces.

Al-Qaeda and Islamic State have exploited nearly two years of war in the impoverished country to carry out assassinations and bombings, mostly in lawless southern Yemeni areas nominally controlled by the government.

Saudi Arabia and its allies in a mostly Gulf Arab military coalition have been bombing Yemen's dominant Houthi movement in parts of the country under its control since it drove the government from power in March 2015. They have failed to dislodge the group from the capital, Sanaa.