The suicide bombings in the Yemeni capital Sanaa that killed more than 126 people during Friday prayers at two mosques used by supporters of Shi'ite Houthi fighters who now control the capital, has been claimed by ISIS.
The attacks were the deadliest in a years long campaign of militant violence in the country, where Washington has been waging a drone air war against a powerful local branch of the Sunni Muslim militant group al Qaeda.
Four bombers wearing explosive belts targeted worshippers in and around the crowded mosques.
Hospitals were overwhelmed by the dead and wounded, appealing for blood donors to help treat the large number of casualties.
A Reuters journalist at the Badr mosque counted at least 25 bloody bodies lying in the street and inside the building.
One man carried a child in his arms. Medical sources gave the death toll of 126 and said at least 250 other people were wounded.
Al Qaeda and Islamic State, the al Qaeda offshoot that now controls swathes of Syria and Iraq, consider all Shi'ites to be heretics.
They have now rallied against the Houthis in Yemen, giving them the same enemies as the U.S.-backed government in a complex, multi-sided conflict in the Arab world's poorest country.
"Let the polytheist Houthis know that the soldiers of the Islamic State will not rest and will not stay still until they extirpate them," the group said in a statement posted by supporters on Twitter, claiming responsibility for the attacks.
"God willing, this operation is only a part of the coming flood."Television pictures showed young men in traditional Yemeni clothes carrying lifeless bodies, some dripping with blood, out of the mosque.
