Smoke is seen billowing outside the U.S. embassy in Sanaa September 17, 2008. A car bomb set off a series of explosions outside the heavily fortified embassy in Yemen on Wednesday and a Yemeni security source said at least 16 people, including six attackers, were killed. Collapse
(Yemen News Agency, via Reuters)

U.S. Embassy in Yemen Attacked

By Ellen Knickmeyer, Washington Post Foreign Service, Wednesday, September 17, 2008

SANAA, Yemen, Sept. 17 — Attackers exploded a vehicle bomb outside the main gate of the U.S. Embassy in Yemen on Wednesday in what appeared to be a well-coordinated assault that triggered more explosions and heavy gunfire around the compound.

Yemen’s official Saba news agency said 16 people died in the incident, including six Yemeni soldiers, four civilians and six attackers. One of the civilians was an Indian woman at the embassy on business.

There were no immediate reports of American casualties. The embassy is located in the center of Sanaa, Yemen’s capital, but the building is set far back from an outer security wall.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility.

Yemen is the ancestral home of Osama bin Laden. Al Qaeda has maintained a steady presence here, especially as fighters from the militant group return from Iraq.

The first explosion, at 9:15 a.m., resounded for miles and sent a plume of black smoke over the city.

“It shook everything in my home,” said Saddam Hussein, a Yemen man living about 200 yards from the embassy. “One big explosion, then smaller explosions, and gunfire.”

The vehicle bomb exploded at the main gate, said embassy spokesman Ryan Gliha. There did not appear to be any major damage to the embassy building, Gliha said.

U.S. officials still were trying to determine the nature of several explosions that followed the vehicle bomb, Gliha said. Hussein and other nearby residents said the secondary blasts sounded much smaller, like grenades.
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The intermittent explosions and heavy gunfire continued for about 10 minutes after the first blast, as scores of Yemeni forces rushed to the scene.

A half-hour after the blast, intermittent gunfire still crackled. Helicopters circled the embassy. Ambulances painted in green camouflage carried injured to the city’s military hospital.

The Yemen embassy has been the target of numerous attacks since 2002. In the most recent assault, three mortar rounds hit a nearby school for girls in March, killing a security guard and injuring about 20 girls and others. Other attacks include one in 2006, when a man armed with an automatic weapon opened fire outside the embassy, saying he wanted to kill Americans. Security forces shot him and captured him, without other injuries.

Yemen was also the scene in 2000 of the deadly suicide attack against the USS Cole.