Yemen car bomb kills dozens near Sanaa police academy

SANAA, Jan 7 (agencies): At least 33 people have been killed and 62 others injured by a car bomb blast outside a police academy in Yemen's capital, Sanaa, officials say.
The vehicle exploded beside dozens of cadets and people standing in line to enrol at the academy. Some unconfirmed reports said it was a suicide attack.
Afterwards, body parts and debris from the car were strewn across the street.
There has so far been no claim of responsibility, but an offshoot of al-Qaeda has carried out similar attacks.
Yemen has experienced a wave of violence in recent months, with militants from al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) battling Shia Houthi rebels who have taken control of the capital.
Wednesday's bombing took place early in the morning in a central part of Sanaa near the central bank and the defence ministry building.
The explosion was heard across the city and a large plume of smoke was seen rising from the scene.
The victims included many cadets at the police academy and people who had been waiting in line to enrol, as well as passersby, officials said.
"We were all gathering and... [the car] exploded right next to all of the police college classmates," Jamil al-Khaleedi told the Associated Press. "It went off among all of them."
A paramedic at the scene described the situation as "catastrophic".  "We arrived to find bodies piled on top of each other," he told Reuters news agency.
The US embassy in Yemen condemned the attack, saying it "reveals the nihilistic vision and depravity of terror groups operating in Yemen".
Yemeni security forces personnel have been targeted many times by AQAP in the past four years. A suicide bomber killed more than 90 people in 2012 at a military parade in the capital and an assault on a military hospital a year ago left more than 50 dead. The jihadist group has exploited the chaos and instability that has resulted from the uprising that forced longtime President Ali Abdullah Saleh from power in 2011.
Unstable and impoverished Yemen has been hit by a wave of violence in recent months, with a powerful Shiite militia, known as Huthis, clashing with tribal forces and the country's branch of Al-Qaeda.
Witness Khaled Ajlan said the early morning blast targeted a group of about 60 "new students who were registering at the police academy".
The charred remains of the dead, mostly young men, were piled on the sidewalk outside the academy alongside blood-soaked documents they had been carrying.
The wreckage of a car-presumably the one used in the attack-sat nearby, with little remaining but mangled metal and the steering wheel.
Rescue workers loaded bodies into the back of ambulances, which pushed their way through gathered onlookers, many taking pictures of the carnage with their mobile telephones.
The health ministry issued alerts to Sanaa residents urging them to "donate blood at government hospitals to help the wounded".
It was not immediately clear who was behind the blast but Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), the jihadist network's powerful affiliate in Yemen, has claimed responsibility for previous such attacks on security forces.
Speaking to AFP at the scene, a member of the unofficial Huthi security forces accused "radicals belonging to Al-Qaeda" of carrying out the attack.
The interior ministry said registration at the academy would be suspended for a week.
Many of the potential recruits had travelled from other parts of the country to the academy and the ministry said that in the future it would register them locally to avoid another such gathering being targeted.
Yemen has been dogged by instability since an uprising forced longtime strongman Ali Abdullah Saleh from power in 2012.
Unrest grew after the Huthis, also known as Ansarullah, overran Sanaa unopposed on September 21.
The militia have since expanded their presence in central and western Yemen, meeting fierce resistance from Sunni tribes and Al-Qaeda militants.
The increasing violence has raised fears of Yemen-a key US ally that shares a long border with oil-rich Saudi Arabia-becoming a failed state fuelling regional instability.
A suicide bomb attack on Huthi supporters in central Yemen last week killed 49 people.