Sunni Islamist radicals have blown up a mosque housing the shrine of a Sufi scholar in the Yemeni city of Taez.

The gunmen were led by a Salafist local chief named Abu al-Abbas. Sufism is a mystical movement of Islam that is frowned upon by conservative Salafist Muslims. Images of the site before the destruction show a white, single-storey structure topped by a large central dome.

Yemen's Commission for Antiquities and Museums has condemned the attack, saying the 16th-century mosque was one of the city's biggest and most beautiful religious sites.