SANAA (AFP) — The US embassy in the Yemeni capital Sanaa was hit by a car bombing and rocket fire on Wednesday sparking a series of explosions around the heavily fortified compound, witnesses said.
The car was blown up in front of the entrance to the compound and gunmen in a second vehicle then opened fire on embassy security guards with rockets as well as small arms, one witness told AFP.
The witness said there were casualties among the Yemeni police detachment posted outside the embassy but he could not specify their number or condition.
It was the second attack on the embassy this year.
Briton Trev Mason told CNN television from Sanaa that he heard at least three big explosions around the US 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, adding: "We've heard there's lots of casualties."
A US embassy official declined to comment on the blasts. "I cannot confirm it. I cannot talk about it," the official said asking not to be identified.
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.
After another attack against a residential compound used by US oilmen in April, the US State Department ordered the evacuation of non-essential diplomatic staff.
Al-Qaeda said it carried out the rocket attack on the residential compound to avenge the capture of one its commanders in Yemen, Abdullah al-Rimi.
"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," an embassy statement said 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."
In recent years, militants have carried out a string of attacks in Yemen, the ancestral homeland of Al-Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden and one of the poorest countries on the planet.
In October 2000, Al-Qaeda attacked American warship the USS Cole off the southern port of Aden, using a small boat packed with explosives to blow a hole in the side of the vessel, killing 17 American sailors.
Al-Qaeda's local wing which calls itself Jund Al-Yemen Brigades has also claimed responsibility for deadly attacks on Belgian and Spanish tourists in Yemen in the past two years.
The country is awash with weapons, with roughly three firearms for every citizen.
It has become a major focus of the US "war against terror" and the US military has a major base across the Bab al-Mandab strait in Djibouti.
Yemen has also been shaken by a Shiite insurgency in its mountainous northwest that has claimed thousands of lives since 2004.
Last month, Yemeni security forces announced the arrest of 30 suspected Al-Qaeda members, saying they had dismantled an extremist cell as part of a crackdown on the jihadist network in the eastern part of the country.
On August 12, the ministry of defence announced the death of a local chief and four others belonging to Al-Qaeda after armed clashes that left two policemen dead.
Copyright © 2010 AFP. All rights reserved. More »
