Yemen authorities on high alert after Sanaa bomb blast

Yemen's president Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi Sanaa – Ali Rabea Yemeni security authorities are on high alert after one person was injured in bomb blast in the Shuub district of the capital Sanaa Thursday. Security sources confirmed the attackers had planted an Improvised Explosive Device (IED) in a military officer's car.
The wounded individual was named as Ahmed al-Motawakel.?
Special forces later diffused another explosive device near the parliament building in central Sanaa. Sources said police used sniffer dogs to search for other devices in and around the parliament.
The incidents come a day after the government issued an apology for the crackdown against southern separatists ?and Shiite Houthi rebels in the north, under the previous regime of president Ali Abdullah Saleh.
State officials had agreed to the apology, during the ongoing national dialogue conference in Sanaa, the last round of ?which would be completed in September.?
In a televised statement, the government said it wants to say sorry to the "sons of the southern governorates, the sons of Saada, and Harf Sufyan [district]," describing the conflicts as a "historical and moral mistake" which must not be repeated.
Meanwhile, six people were killed in fresh clashes between Houthi rebels and armed Salafists in the Dammaj district of the northern governorate of Saada.
A Salafist source in Dammaj told Arab Today: "Houthis shelled Dammaj with medium-sized ?weapons, and were centred in the surroundings areas, ready to besiege it."
Dammaj, home to a renowned Salafist school visited by people from around the world, has witnessed intense clashes between Salafists and Houthis for the last two years.
The official spokesman of the Salafist movement in Dammaj, Sorour al-Wadei accused the Houthis of waging war against the group, and destroying the homes of innocent civilians.
"The Houthis first attacked the village of al-Talol, then other areas of Dammaj. The fighting has not stopped, and they are destroying houses," he said.
Wadei claimed that the Houthis had cut off all roads leading to Dammaj, to prevent medical supplies from entering the region. He added that the district had been left isolated, and warned of an escalating humanitarian crisis.?
On Wednesday, Yemen's president Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi met tribal leaders in Sanaa and ordered them to bring an end to the confrontations between the two factions.