 Yemen nabs 30 after embassy attack
(China Daily)
Updated: 2008-09-19 07:48 Yemeni authorities have arrested 30 people suspected of belonging to Al-Qaida following an attack on the heavily fortified US embassy in Sanaa, a security official said yesterday. Two suicide car bombs set off a series of explosions outside the embassy compound on Wednesday, killing 16 people including six attackers. The dead were all Yemeni apart from an Indian woman who was walking past. "The security authorities want to investigate whether the suspects are linked to Wednesday's attack," the security official said. A Yemeni security official said Washington would send investigators to Yemen to help the authorities. 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. The US State Department said on Wednesday the bombings bore "all the hallmarks" of an Al-Qaida attack but the United States had not yet concluded who was to blame. Threat against other missions A group calling itself Islamic Jihad in Yemen, which is unrelated to the Palestinian group with a similar name, claimed responsibility. It threatened attacks on other embassies, including those of Britain, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates, 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 on Wednesday. Yemeni security sources said special counterterrorism forces had been put in charge of defending the US embassy. Yemeni security forces set up check points in Sanaa, particularly around embassies and areas where foreign diplomats and business people live. The US embassy spokesman said the embassy would stay open after Al Jazeera television said it had closed after the attack. Ties with Al-Qaida Al-Qaida's history is intertwined with Yemen. Osama bin Laden's family came from Yemen. It was home to several Al-Qaida training camps in the late 1990s. The USS Cole bombing was one of Al-Qaida's most devastating attacks on a US target before the Sept 11 attacks. In June 2001, Yemeni authorities arrested eight Yemenis believed to be plotting to blow up the US Embassy in San'a. In 2002, an accidental explosion killed two Al-Qaida operatives. Later that year, three American missionaries were killed in a southern Yemeni town but it is unclear whether the alleged killer, a local Islamist militant, had any links to Al-Qaida, according to information compiled by the Council on Foreign Relations. The extent of Yemen's problem with extremists and the shortcomings of its counterterrorism efforts are underscored by the fact that Yemenis make up the largest population of detainees - at least 108 of 270 - held in the US Navy prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. The Bush administration has sought to return dozens of these prisoners to Yemen but has been unable to get assurances from the Yemeni government that they would be held or rehabilitated. Agencies (China Daily 09/19/2008 page12) |
