A powerful car bomb ripped into an army base in southern Yemen today, killing the two attackers in the car and one Yemeni soldier, Reuters reported. Following the blast, militants and soldiers engaged in a gun battle, according to AFP.

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"The explosion was very loud and took place in Dar al-Nasr, which is a military site of the Republican Guard," said a website describing the blast, according to Reuters. "Residents of the town were frightened by the force of the blast, which was felt more than two kilometers away and damaged dozens of neighboring houses and blew their windows out."

The Republican Guard base was targeted in the Al Bayda province, in the restive south which is home to both secessionist movements and a growing number of Al Qaeda supporters. Yesterday, gunment shot at American security trainers as they instructed Yemeni soldiers.

Saturday's bomb "devastated" a three-story building.

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Yemenis have criticized the remaining appointment of Ahmed Ali, son of former president Ali Abdullah Saleh, to the top Revolutionary Guard position. Protests against his appointment rocked the base earlier this year. A suicide bombing hit a Republican Guard outpost on the day Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi, the new Yemeni president, was sworn in. Twenty-six were killed in that attack.