At least 50 Yemeni soldiers are dead after a suicide bomber blew himself up at the entrance of an army base in the city of Aden, according to local security officials.

Officials said the bomber detonated himself in a crowd of hundreds of soldiers who had lined up to collect their salaries near the entrance of the Solban base along the outskirts of the city.

The attack, which was later claimed by the Islamic State terrorist group, left around 70 other soldiers wounded.

Islamic State jihadists have attacked military troops before in Aden, which is still under the control of Yemen’s exiled government.

Saudi Arabia, which took in Yemen’s exiled president, intervened in the Yemeni civil war in 2015 to combat the Iran-allied Houthi fighters who seized Yemen’s capital city of Sanaa the previous year.

The Houthi forces were removed from Aden last summer, but repeated attacks carried out by Islamic State and al-Qaida militants has made it difficult for government forces to control the area.

Since the beginning of the conflict nearly two years ago, at least 10,000 people have been killed.