The attacks, which are yet to be claimed by any group, rocked the southern city on Monday, the same day Al-Qaeda's Yemeni branch announced the creation of an "Aden-Abyan Army" named after two provinces that will host the matches.
Al-Qaeda's offshoot in Yemen warned Tuesday it is setting up the “new army” to overthrow the country's president in response to his US-backed counterterrorism campaign and said it would fill its ranks with snipers and bomb makers.
“Run for your life,” the group's military chief warned President Ali Abdullah Saleh in an audio recording that surfaced on militant-affiliated websites.
The commander, Qassim Al-Raimi, did not reveal the size of the new fighting force, but said its ranks were already overflowing with so many volunteers — including some from abroad — that many had to be turned away.
Al-Raimi, speaking under the nom de guerre Abu Hurira Al-Sanani, said President Saleh would meet the same destiny as Pakistan's former President Pervez Musharraf, who also lost popular support for cooperating with the US in fighting Al-Qaeda's central leadership and the Taleban in northwest Pakistan. Musharraf stepped down in 2008 amid protests and after a heavy election defeat for his supporters.
“You are digging your own grave,” al-Raimi said. “Run for your life, Ali, because Pervez perished.”
Apart from Al-Qaeda, government forces are facing a separatist movement advocating the secession of Yemen's southern provinces, which joined with the north in 1990.
The bombs went off at Al-Wahda club in the Sheikh Othman area of Aden, the main city in Yemen's south, wounding 17 people, three of whom later died, according to medical officials. Two policemen were among the wounded.
Authorities attributed the blasts to the accidental explosion of an old bomb.
However, an official said Tuesday that 19 suspects, most of them believed to belong to Al-Qaeda, were arrested in connection with the double bombing.
Another official said, "This cowardly act cannot defeat (security) plans" that the authorities have put in place for the 20th Gulf Football Championship to be staged in the region between Nov. 22 and Dec. 5.
Security fears have risen in Yemen's south following a string of similar attacks, most recently on Sunday when assailants fired a rocket-propelled grenade at a police patrol, wounding one person.
And on Oct. 7, dozens of protesters invaded Aden's Al-Shoala sports club, where some of the football matches are to be held, and demanded the release of people arrested in common law cases.
Despite the attacks, President Saleh said government forces would be able to ensure the security and smooth running of the competition for the participants from Yemen, Iraq and six Gulf states.
The tournament "will take place, God willing, without incident," Saleh said in early October, after inspecting the security arrangements in place for the competition.
He announced that 30,000 soldiers and police would be mobilized to form "three belts of security around Aden, Abyan and Lahij," the latter being a nearby province.
"There is no cause for concern," he said, adding the uncertainty about security arrangements was "intended to instill fear" in the participants.
