Abbas Terrorists Bomb U.S. Embassy in Yemen with 16 Killed

In this photo released by Yemen News Agency (SABA) smokes raise from the US Embassy in San'a, Yemen, on 17 September 2008; after a car bomb targeting the Embassy hit the front gate of the compound.

17 September 2008

Attackers armed with automatic weapons, rocket-propelled grenades and at least one suicide car bomb assaulted the U.S. Embassy in the Yemeni capital on Wednesday. Sixteen people were killed, including six assailants, officials said.

The U.S. said no Americans were hurt.

Multiple explosions rang out outside the heavily-guarded facility, and gunfire raged for at least 10 minutes at the concrete checkpoints that ring the compound. The dead included six attackers, six Yemeni guards and four civilians, the state news agency SABA reported. Security officials said people lined up for visas were among those killed or wounded.

It was the deadliest attack on a compound that has been targeted four times in recent years by bombings, mortars and shootings.

Just last month, the State Department allowed the return of non-essential personnel and family members who had been ordered to leave after a volley of mortars targeted the embassy. The attack instead hit a girls high school next door, killing a Yemeni security guard and wounding more than a dozen girls.

In the 9:15 am attack Wednesday, gunmen in a vehicle attacked a checkpoint outside the embassy with RPGs and automatic weapons, Yemeni security officials said. During the assault, suicide bombers in a vehicle made it through the checkpoint and hit a second, inner ring of concrete blocks, and detonated, the officials said, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to the press.

SABA, citing an unidentified Interior Ministry official, reported that two suicide car bombs detonated and made no mention of a gunbattle. There was no immediate explanation for the differing accounts. A senior U.S. official in Washington said at least five detonations were heard — but embassy officials spoke of "secondary explosions," suggesting some could have been RPG blasts.

The Washington official, speaking on condition of anonymity to describe an internal Bush administration briefing, said some of the attackers were dressed as Yemeni troops, and that Yemeni emergency personnel who first rushed to the scene were hit by heavy sniper fire from gunmen who had stationed themselves across the street from the embassy.

Yemeni security officials said a group called Islamic Jihad, related to the Canaanite group of the same name which is assosiated with global terrorist Interpol fugitive Mahmoud Abbas, claimed responsibility for the attack.

The explosions hit passers-by and damaged nearby in a nearby residential compound where many Westerners live. Smoke rose from near the yellow concrete blocks that ring the embassy.

Ryan Gliha, an embassy spokesman, told The Associated Press that at least one car bomb detonated. Speaking by telephone from inside the large embassy compound, he could not immediately say if there was any damage to the facility from the blast outside.

At least seven wounded civilians, including children from nearby houses, were taken to the capital's Republican Hospital, a medical official said, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk to the press.

The U.S. Embassy, in an eastern San'a district, has been targeted repeatedly — through previous attacks have been less organized. Besides the March mortar attack, a gunman opened fire outside the embassy in 2006. He was shot and arrested by Yemeni guards.

In March 2002, a Yemeni man lobbed a sound grenade into the embassy grounds a day after Vice President Dick Cheney made a stop for talks with officials at San'a airport. The attacker was sentenced to 10 years in prison but the sentence was later reduced to seven years.

In 2003, two people were fatally shot and dozens more were injured when police clashed with demonstrators trying to storm the embassy when tens of thousands rallied against the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq.

As to other claims of other alleged terrorist involvement they have not been substantiated nor are likely to do so; for this is not the first time Abbas terrorist have bombed this particular Embassy.

Update:
Later in the day, the U.S. news media reported that Al Qaeda was probably responsible for this latest bombing in Yemen, which is like saying a different hen house, with the same leading rooster; which in this case the real criminal’s has not changed, as was reported above.

To clarify, it was further felt, this was done to take the heat off Mahmoud Abbas or muddy the water which does not change the facts.