Attack on US embassy in Yemen

NY Times:

Heavily armed militants opened fire on the United States Embassy in Sana, Yemen on Wednesday and detonated a car bomb at its gates, killing at least 16 people, Yemeni officials said.

No Americans were killed or injured in the blast, said a Yemeni official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the matter.

Yemeni security officials and witnesses said the death toll was at least 16, including four bystanders, one of them an Indian woman. The other dead were six attackers and six security guards, the Yemeni officials said, speaking in return for anonymity because they were not authorized to brief reporters.

Ryan Gliha, an embassy spokesman, said via e-mail that the attack took place at 9:15 a.m. The embassy would remain closed for now, he said, but gave no further details.

It was the deadliest attack in years on an American target in Yemen, a poor south Arabian country of 22 million where militants aligned with Al Qaeda have carried out a number of recent strikes.

The attack began when a car raced up to the heavily fortified embassy compound. Several attackers got out and began firing rocket-propelled grenades and automatic rifles at the guards who returned the fire, the Yemeni official said.

A second car then drove into the compound’s gate and exploded in what appeared to be a suicide bombing, the official said.

The attack was especially shocking to many Yemenis because it came during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.

Yemen has long been viewed as a haven for jihadists. It became a special concern for the United States in 2000, after Al Qaeda operatives rammed the U.S.S. Cole in Aden harbor, on Yemen’s southern coast, killing 17 American sailors.

After the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, Yemen actively pursued a counter-terrorism partnership with the United States, and its American-trained forces have had some important successes in fighting militants.

But over the past two years, jihadists claiming allegiance to Al Qaeda appear to have reorganized, releasing more propaganda material on the Internet and carrying out attacks.

In July 2007, suicide bombers killed eight Spanish tourists in eastern Yemen, and there were two unsuccessful attacks on oil installations.

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The Washington Post story is here. A photo of the front of the embassy is here.

The July 2007 attack appeared to be coordinated with the London 7-7 attacks. Al Qaeda is clearly attempting to operate in Yemen, but its operations do not appear to be very effective and this failed attack shows how degraded al Qaeda operations have become since the African embassy bombings during the Clinton administration. In those attacks powerful truck bombs were used to kill hundreds and destroy the embassies.

Here they were left to use a car bomb and a few operatives firing RPGs and small arms. That is usually not going to be enough fire power to take a defended position. These type of attacks may work against undefended market places where the objective is mass murder of non combatants, but they are rarely effective against a hardened and guarded position.

CNN has more details on the attack.

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Yemeni officials said the first car contained people in police uniforms who exchanged fire with Yemeni security forces, the officials said.

The second car exploded after it passed an outermost gate to the Embassy but before it reached a second protective barrier, the officials said.

But al-Basha said there were two cars packed with explosives involved in the attack.

The heavily fortified compound in the capital of Yemen -- the ancestral home of al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden -- has previously been targeted in attacks.

A U.S. official told CNN the attackers initially opened fire outside the embassy's security gate, then there was the main explosion followed by a secondary explosion.

At some point, snipers positioned across the street from the embassy opened fire on Yemeni first responders as they arrived on the scene, the official said.

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This is what is called a complex attack using various elements in the al Qaeda arsenal. Note the phony uniforms which are a violation of the Geneva Conventions. The story does not indicate what happened to the attackers, but it is probably that several were killed. That may explain discrepancies in casualty reports.

Arab News reports that all of the attackers were killed. Hopefully Yemen will investigate their support network. That is something the government was reluctant to do after the Cole bombing.