DUBAI (Reuters)
Yemeni authorities have arrested 30 people suspected of belonging to al-Qaeda following an attack on the heavily fortified U.S. embassy in Sanaa, a security source said on Thursday.
Two suicide car bombs set off a series of explosions outside the U.S. embassy in the Yemeni capital Sanaa on Wednesday, killing 16 people including six attackers and six Yemeni soldiers. No U.S. citizens were hurt.
Yemeni security sources said the attackers were disguised in military uniforms and had made their cars look like those driven by Yemen's security forces.
The gunmen in the car opened fire on embassy guards after they refused to open the metal outer gates of the compound. They had planned to use their disguises to get inside the compound to the main embassy building which is some distance from the gate.
Yemeni security sources said Washington would send investigators to Yemen to help the authorities.
The U.S. embassy in Yemen said on Thursday it was not closed due to the terrorist attack outside its compound a day earlier.
The U.S. State Department said the bombings bore "all the hallmarks" of an al-Qaeda attack but the United States had not yet concluded who was to blame.
A group calling itself Islamic Jihad in Yemen, which is unrelated to the Palestinian group with a similar name, claimed responsibility and threatened attacks on other European and Gulf Arab embassies in Yemen.
It threatened to launch a series of attacks unless Yemen freed several jailed members.
"We will carry out the rest of the series of attacks on the other embassies that were declared previously, until our demands are met by the Yemeni government," the group said in a statement after the attack.
Yemeni security sources said special counterterrorism forces had been put in charge of defending the U.S. embassy.
They set up check points in Sanaa, particularly around embassies and areas where foreign diplomats and business people live. |
