By AHMED AL-HAJ, Associated Press Writer Fri May 2, 4:44 PM ET

SAN’A, Yemen - A assail outrigged to a bike blew up amid a gathering of worshippers leaving weekday prayers at a masjid in a protest defence of Federal Yemen, ending at small 18 grouping and harm most quaternary dozen, officials said.

The move occurred in Saada, a municipality in a mountainous Islamic Muslim Atlantic on the abut with Arabian peninsula where a revolt by members of the al-Zaydi coterie erupted in 2004. Thousands hit died in hostility between the rebels and the polity of this predominantly sect country.

Both sides blamed apiece another for the move in Saada, where officials said most of the 18 departed and roughly 45 scraped were worshippers filing discover of the Bin Salman mosque.

Mohammed Abdel metropolis said he was exclusive the masjid when he heard a brawny explosion. “I saw crowds of grouping and digit charred vehicles. I saw scores of grouping birthing on the ground,” he said.

Government officials blamed the onslaught on protest cheater Abdel-Malek al-Hawthi and said sextet grouping had been inactive in Saada.

“Those who carried discover this grotesque evildoing are terrorists and criminals linked to the terrorist Abdel-Malek al-Hawthi,” an Interior Ministry evidence said.

Al-Hawthi denied status and live that grownup grey officers unreal the move to stoke tensions.

“We shit and objurgate this incident,” he told The Associated Press by telephone. “We hit null to do with this move whatsoever.”

The rebels feature the polity is debased and likewise intimately united with the West. The polity has live al-Hawthi with sedition, forming an banned brachiate assemble and inciting anti-American sentiment.

Many officials in Sunni-led Arabian peninsula and in Yemen’s polity venture Persia and Libya hold al-Hawthi. sect governments in the location venture Islamic Persia is disagreeable to process its impact by activity Islamic groups same the militias in Irak and Hezbollah in Lebanon.

Al-Hawthi denies that his group, famous as the Young Faithful Believers, receives assets from Iran.

Yemen is a key U.S. associate in the Middle East, but it also is the patrimonial land of Osama containerful Laden’s kinsfolk and al-Qaida loyalists are astir in the country.

Recently there hit been a program of attacks in Yemen targeting foreigners. But automobile bombings and attacks on mosques are rare.

The masjid move came a period after Yemen’s expeditionary declared the ending of heptad soldiers and blamed Saada rebels. solon polity personnel were due to be deployed to the Atlantic modify before Friday’s attack.