A blast in a booby-trapped car killed a Briton living in Yemen's southern port city of Aden on Wednesday, officials said, and the British government urged its citizens to leave the country. Opposition officials said one of their political leaders survived an assassination attempt in the capital Sanaa and warned of further unrest.
A security source told Reuters he believed militants were behind the blast that killed the long-time British resident of Aden, who was in his 60s, as he started his car. The victim was an independent surveyor working for marine and insurance companies in Yemen. A Western shipping source based in Aden said the Briton had just returned from surveying a tanker attacked in July by pirates off Yemen's coast.
"We tend to think that it was some kind of terrorist attack because he was well known," the security source said. Witnesses in Aden said the British victim's car blew up as soon as he turned on the engine, shattering windows in nearby buildings on Aden's Mualla Plaza. "He started the car and it immediately exploded and he was engulfed in flames," a witness said by telephone.
One passer-by was critically wounded in the blast which also damaged nearby buildings, a municipal official said. She said there was no indication who was behind the explosion.
A British Foreign Office spokeswoman confirmed the Briton's death and said the government was advising all British nationals against travelling to the whole of Yemen, a position which "couldn't be any firmer".
Aden had been relatively quiet in recent months, even as protests in other parts of the country erupted into sporadic violence. The neighbouring Abyan province has witnessed daily bloodshed since Islamists militants seized the city of Jaar in March and the provincial capital of Zinjibar in May.
The army, which says the militants are part of al Qaeda's Yemen-based wing, launched an offensive to retake Zinjibar five days ago but has yet to regain the city.