Time reports: The doctor’s trembling hands were still wrapped in blood-stained surgical gloves. Outside the gate of the Yemeni capital’s police academy, Dr. Ahmed Idrees was speaking to a crowd of cameras and microphones about the latest assault on Sana’a. Two hours earlier, an assailant later identified as Mohammed Nasher al-Uthy, 20, hurled an explosive into a crowd of cadets leaving the academy for a weekend at home. Ten were killed and fifteen wounded. Al-Uthy himself lost several limbs in the blast, dying in a hospital an hour after the attack. Noting similarities with an incident in May, Idrees said, “The characteristics of this attack are the same we saw in Saba’een Street.” The suicide attack on Saba’een had been massive: 96 soldiers were killed while rehearsing for a military military parade commemorating Yemen’s unification. In both cases, Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), the Yemen-based franchise of the terrorist organization, claimed responsibility.

After the Yemeni army’s lighting campaign forced Al-Qaeda from its strongholds in the south of the country, AQAP is striking at the heart of the government. Assaults in Sana’a are on the rise. In the space of less than two months, five bombings have been attempted by Al-Qaeda-affiliates. The first was Saba’een Street. Weeks later, a bomber wearing an explosive belt panicked moments before blowing himself up in a post office, throwing his belt over a wall and fleeing. Early this month, Colonel Mohammed Al-Qudami of Yemen’s Political Security was killed by a car bomb as he drove through the capital. Two days later a Sana’a police chief, Saleh Al-Mustafa, watched his car explode minutes after getting out. The police academy is only the latest target in a wave of attacks Al-Qaeda has vowed to keep up.