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The United States have decided to retreat 100 Special Forces troops from Yemen, more than 24 hours after suicide bombers killed at least 142 people in Sanaa, the capital of the country.

Hundreds of people were injured in the attacks, which targeted two mosques in the Yemeni capital Sanaa, during Friday prayers. The coordinated attacks were claimed by Islamic State.

By doing this the Islamic State group is seeking to exploit the chaotic situation in Yemen. Suicide bombings targeted two mosques frequented by members of the Shiite Huthi militia in control of the Sanaa. More than 351 people were wounded and at least 142 died in what is considered to be the deadliest extremist attacks in Yemen’s history.

The Islamic State warned it was “the tip of the iceberg” for Yemen. On the other hand, AQAP, the country’s Al-Qaeda branch, announced in a statement that it avoided “targeting mosques and markets”.

The attack in Yemen came just a few days after another IS carnage which took place in Tunisia, at the National Bardo Musem. 21 people died, mostly foreign tourists lost their lives in that attack.

According to experts, the extremist is trying to show that it has the capacity to launch a coordinated campaign of attacks.

The situation in Yemen is chaotic since 2012, when the longtime leader Ali Abdullah Saleh was ousted. Huthi militiamen entered the capital unopposed last year.

The Huthis surrounded the presidential palace in Sanaa and forced President Abedrabbo Mansour Hadi to leave the capital. The militia has met a tough resistance from AQAP and Sunni fighters, after it tried a push into central Yemen.

AQAP, a group considered by the United States to be the one of the most dangerous jihadist organisations, was formed in 2009. It is responsible for a high number of bloody attacks on Yemeni security forces in recent years.

AQAP claimed responsibility for the heinous January 7 attack in Paris on satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo, after the French journalists published cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed.

IS is challenging AQAP in Yemen. The Islamic State seized patrs of Syria and Iraq last year and is now expanding into other Muslim countries, like Egypt and Libya. and also Nigeria, Yemen and Tunisia.

“Since the Huthi militiamen took control of the capital and a good part of the country, Al-Qaeda lost credibility, having been unable to defend even Sunni provinces,” said for the Daily Mail Mathieu Guidere, an expert in Islam at the University of Toulouse.

Image Source: Business Insider

E-cigarettes are banned for people under the age of 18 in 41 states, but a new study found out that the smoking devices can easily be bought online by minors.

Sales of e-cigarettes are on the rise in recent years in the US, after first being available in the country in 2007. A new study shows that only five out of 98 online websites that sell e-cigarettes require the buyer to prove his age.

The online shops usually asks the client to click a box or to enter a birth date in order to show he or she is not a minor.

According to the paper published in JAMA Pediatrics, most vendors lack a proper age verification software. The problem is, the e-cigarettes online stores are not required to use them as there are no federal regulations for the sales of this product.

The researchers supervised teens aged between 14 and 17 as they attempted to make e-cigarettes purchases online. They succeeded 75 times out of 98 tries. In 18 cases the failure was caused by payment processing or website failures.

Use of e-cigarettes has doubled among teenagers from 2011 to 2012, who find them more appealing than traditional cigarettes. The authors of the study blame the regulatory vacuum in this field and the vendors lack of effort in preventing sales to minors.

Harold Farber, a pediatric pulmonologist from the Texas Children’s Hospital in Houston, blames the current situation on e-cigarettes marketing that targets teens, by creating flavors like cotton candy, grape or bubble gum.

He also warns that e-cigarettes can easily lead to young people addiction to nicotine, and could lead to the use of regular tobacco products.

Dr. Rebbeca S. Williams, the main author of the study, says that online e-cigarette vendors don’t want to decrease their profits by spending money to verify underage buyers.

Electronic cigarettes sales are on the rise in the United States, becoming a $1 billion market in 2013.

The e-cigarettes bought online are delivered by various postal services, like DHL Worldwide Express, FedEx Corp or U.S. Postal Services, who do not ship regular cigarettes. None of those companies attempted to check the age of the buyer and just left the package at the front door.

Photo source: Piercepioneer

US Evacuating Special Forces From Yemen After Deadly Attack

US Teenagers Can Buy E-cigarettes Online, Study Warns

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