U.S. embassy in Yemen apparent target of attack that kills 16
Car-bomb explosions are followed by gunfire. The alleged attackers fail to break through security barriers, and no Americans are hurt.
BEIRUT -- Two car-bomb explosions and gunfire rocked the U.S. embassy in the Yemeni capital of Sana this morning, killing at least 16 people in the latest in a series of apparent attacks on U.S. diplomatic outposts in the Middle East,
No American personnel were reported hurt, and the embassy building itself was not struck, official sources said.
Details of the 9:15 a.m. attack remain sketchy. The Associated Press quoted a U.S. embassy spokesman as saying that a car filled with explosives attempted unsuccessfully to break through the front gate of the heavily guarded diplomatic outpost. A security official cited by Yemen's official Saba news agency said two explosives-laden vehicles tried to break through security barriers surrounding the embassy.
Among the dead were at least six Yemeni soldiers, six of the alleged attackers, four civilians, a security guard and an Indian national, Saba reported.
Eyewitnesses told Al Jazeera television that there were rocket-propelled grenade explosions and exchanges of gunfire between the alleged attackers and security forces for about 10 minutes after the car bombs went off.
One of the alleged assailants reportedly stepped out of a vehicle and blew himself up while others escaped, the report said.
Footage on Al Jazeera television showed fire and a plume of smoke rising from near the site of the embassy. Emergency vehicles were parked nearby. Yemeni soldiers riding pick-up trucks mounted with machine guns drove past an adjacent intersection.
Mohammad Qadhi, a freelance journalist, said he spotted a helicopter hovering over the site.
The attack adds to growing fears about instability in the impoverished and war-torn Arabian peninsula nation of 23 million. Yemen is perched aside a critical sea choke point through which nearly 5% of the world's crude oil passes every day.
U.S. Assistant Secretary of Defense Michael Vickers visited Yemen last weekend to discuss security cooperation between Washington and Sana, which is facing a renewed threat by Al Qaeda as well as sectarian war in the north and a separatist drive in the south.
Security forces staged an Aug. 12 assault against suspected Al Qaeda loyalists in the remote Hadramout district, killing five, including Hamza Kaaiti, who allegedly masterminded a March mortar attack on the U.S. embassy that killed one and wounded a dozen students at a nearby school.
"They promised in their statements following that they would take revenge for that," said Qadhi.
Nonessential staff members were ordered to leave the embassy in April after another attack on a residential compound housing Americans.
daragahi@latimes.com
