Sanaa, Yemen – Islamist militants attacked the US embassy in the Yemeni capital Sanaa with a car bomb and rockets, leaving 16 people dead, in the second strike on the high-security compound in six months.
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The toll included six Yemeni soldiers, six attackers and four civilians, including an Indian, the interior ministry said.
Witnesses said gunmen raked a Yemeni police detachment outside the heavily fortified embassy compound before a suicide bomber blew up a car right by the entrance, setting off what one described as a fireball.
A series of explosions followed as the compound came under rocket as well as small arms fire.
A group calling itself Islamic Jihad in Yemen said in a statement that it carried out the attack and threatened similar strikes against the British, Saudi and United Arab Emirates missions in the Yemeni capital.
Briton Trev Mason told CNN from Sanaa that he heard at least three big explosions around the embassy from his nearby residential compound.
“We heard the sounds of a heavy gunbattle going on. I looked out of my window and we saw the first explosion going off, a massive fireball very close to the US embassy,” he said.
“The gunbattle went on for a further 10 to 15 minutes followed by two further loud explosions,” he said.
After a rocket attack against a residential compound used by US oilmen in April, the US State Department ordered the evacuation of non-essential diplomatic staff, but the order was lifted last month.
“We are very aware that there is a continuing threat here and that we are continuously reevaluating our security status and making sure we are doing the things we need to do make this embassy safe and … the interests of our American citizens,” US embassy spokesman Ryan Gliha said.
In March, a schoolgirl and a policeman were killed and 19 people wounded in a hail of mortar fire that US diplomats said targeted the embassy.
“Embassy employees are not authorised to travel outside of Sanaa and have been advised to avoid hotels, restaurants, and tourist areas and to strictly limit their exposure in public places until further notice,” said an embassy statement posted in April.
It called on Americans in Yemen to “exercise caution and take prudent security measures, including maintaining a high level of vigilance, avoiding crowds and demonstrations, keeping a low profile, varying times and routes for all travel.”
Yemen is awash with weapons, with roughly three firearms for every citizen, and has become a major focus of the US “war against terror”.
oops there goes another
mr . oops . i hope your kids are never caought up in such a cross fire. hashem yerachem on people like u
This is why we need to Vote for
McCAIN for President
Lock & Load
“Lock & Load” is what got us here in the first place. Obama-Biden ’08!
im a republican BUT all along after 9/11 i heared that osama bombed our embassies and clinton didnt do anything and thats how we got to 9/11 now since 9/11 there were no attacks ( which didnt surprise me these guys take their time) but now that we did respond and real harshly in Afghanistan as they should have whom will we republicans blame for this attack??? i know that in a war both sides shoot but according to what hannity and all of them say 9/11 was a result of the clinton administration failing to act on the cole attack etc. so whats the reason for this attack today in Yemen?
And no I wont vote for Obama, I like McCain and I think he deserves it he gave much more for this country then lots of others. And Palin was a great choice I would love her to represent me she communicates masterly and she will probably get them to drill in her home state, DRILL HERE DRILL NOW!!!
to drill here: the point is that these days the attacks take place on yemenite soil, we moved from being on the defence to the offence, we moved the battle field from being on American soil to the muslim, teror harboring countries, thats the point.
gefilte fish refresh your memory and there was already a attack there in the 90’s as i mentioned in my post and thats the whole point what changed?
what? after 7 years we are still not safe from these type of attacks that people loooove to blame on bill clinton????
I’ll try to refresh my memory and try to remember if we had any terrorist attacks on American soil since we started the war on terror. Do you want to help me remind myself? I cant…
gefilte fish first of all yes there was a minor one when the arab taxi driver drove into a crowd of students. and i wont help you remind yourself ill rather tell you something, al kaeida or however they spell their weird name dosent attack only when they have a well detailed plan and usualy it takes them like 10 years or so for these big attacks (based on what i understand from reading about them) dont kid yourself i wish we are safe here but we are not the borders are wide open there are underground tunnels that we probably dont know of since we only caught one, and basicaly i dont see the difference from now and the clinton years now that we were attacked again in the same country as last time during clinton, we were attacked then overseas and within our borders and we were attacked now overseas and hopefully never again on our soil. considering with this major offensive overseas this one attack is probably worse then the few attacks during the clinton years. its really scary if you think about it i dont see what can stop them with open borders even if we are on the offence, do you?
Gefilte, and how many were there prior?
i hope some day the word terrorist doesnt exsist