Car bomb explodes outside police college in Yemen

Ambulances were transporting casualties away from the blast, which appeared to target a group of students outside the college, some of whose bodies were later visible lying in the street, eyewitnesses said.

The blast was heard across the city and a large plume of smoke was visible in the area of the college.

Photographs purporting to be of the aftermath of the explosion, distributed on Twitter, showed the mangled wreckage of a vehicle and bloodied people lying prone on a pavement, but the pictures could not be immediately verified.

Security in Yemen has diminished since a 2011 popular uprising that led to a change of government and splits in the army. Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), one of the movement's most active wings, has staged a growing number of bombings and shootings across the country.

Western and Gulf Arab countries fear that further instability could further weaken the country's government, giving AQAP more space to plot attacks outside Yemen's borders.

(Reporting By Mohammed Ghobari; Writing by Angus McDowall; Editing by Jeremy Laurence)