SANAA: Sixteen people, including six policemen and six suspected Al-Qaeda militants, were killed in car-bomb attacks outside the US Embassy in Yemen’s capital Sanaa yesterday, police officials said.
The officials told Arab News that all the six attackers, including one wearing an explosive belt, were killed. A local security guard and three bystanders, including an Indian woman, were also killed, they added.
An Interior Ministry statement said two cars loaded with explosives were used in the attack.
“Security guards managed to explode the two vehicles away from the embassy’s building,” said the statement, carried by the official Saba news agency.
It condemned the bombing as a “disgraceful act of terrorism,” saying “security authorities would spare no effort to pursue those behind it and bring them to justice.”
Witnesses said that a car carrying armed men in police uniforms fired an RPG shell and drove into a roadblock around 100 meters outside the embassy’s compound followed by another car loaded with explosives.
They said the second car exploded near the compound’s main gate, sending smoke billowing over the area. Residents said heavy gunfire followed the two blasts.
The men in the first car then clashed with security forces guarding the fortified compound that also hosts the ambassador’s residence.
At least 13 people, mostly women and children in houses close to the embassy, were injured and taken to two hospitals, they said. Three policemen were also injured.
Officials said Al-Qaeda was to blame for the attack.
“This attack carries the hallmarks and style of an Al-Qaeda operation,” a senior government official told Arab News.
Police officers at the scene said no embassy staff was hurt in the attack.
This is the most deadly attack against the US interest after the October 2000 bombing of the USS Cole Navy destroyer in the southern Yemeni port of Aden that left 17 Marines dead and 32 injured.
The attack follows a mortar attack against the US Embassy in Sanaa on March 18. Three police officers and four girls in a neighboring school were injured.
On April 6, a similar attack targeted a residential compound housing US and Western citizens. No one was hurt in the attack.
Al-Qaeda claimed responsibility for both attacks.
The White House denounced the attack and offered condolences to the relatives of Yemenis killed in the strike.
“The US condemns this attack,” said spokesman Gordon Johndroe. “This attack is a reminder of the continuing threat we face from violent extremists both at home and abroad.”
