SAN’A, May 2: A motorcycle bomb exploded amid a crowd of worshippers leaving a mosque after Friday prayers in a mountain rebel stronghold in northern Yemen, killing at least 18 people and wounding about 45, government officials said.

Most of the victims were filing out of the Bin Salman mosque in central Saada when explosives rigged to a motorcycle went off next to the building, a local official said. A security official said at least 18 people were killed and about 45 wounded.

Both men spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorised to talk to the media.Ambulances rushed to the mosque and ferried bodies to nearby hospitals.

Worshipper Mohammed Abdel Bari said he was inside the mosque when he heard a strong explosion.

“I saw crowds of people and two charred vehicles,” Abdel Bari said. “I saw scores of people laying on the ground.”

Saada is nestled in a remote, mountainous area on the Saudi Arabian border, about 200 kilometers (124 miles) north of Yemen’s capital, San’a.

Thousands of people have been killed in the area since a Shiite rebellion erupted there in June 2004. The rebels accuse the Yemeni government of corruption and say it is too closely allied with the West, while the government accuses rebel leader Abdel-Malek al-Hawthi of sedition, forming an illegal armed group and inciting anti-American sentiment.—AP