25 held over embassy attack in Yemen

• Last Updated: September 18. 2008 9:22PM UAE / September 18. 2008 5:22PM GMT

Burned out cars near the United States Embassy in San'a on Sept 17 2008 after attackers armed with automatic weapons, rocket-propelled grenades and at least one suicide car bomb killed 16 people. Yemen TV / AP

Yemeni authorities have rounded up 25 suspects over a deadly attack on the US embassy in Sana'a claimed by an al Qa’eda linked group, a security source said today.

The Organisation of Islamic Jihad said it was behind yesterday’s car bombing and rocket attack on the highly fortified US mission that killed six soldiers, six assailants and four others, including an American and her Yemeni husband.

It said it was demanding the release of militants being held by the Yemeni authorities, which have been battling a wave of attacks by al Qa’eda extremists since before the September 11 2001 attacks in the United States.

“We, the Organisation of Islamic Jihad, belonging to the al Qa’eda network, repeat our demand of (Yemeni President) Ali Abdullah Saleh to free our detained brothers within 48 hours,” said in a statement signed by the self-proclaimed leader Abu Ghaith al-Yamani.

The group vowed it would continue attacks “against Western interests,” Yemeni public figures and the Saudi embassy in the capital.

It also called for the closure of the US and British missions in the Arabian peninsula republic, the ancestral homeland of the al Qa’eda chief Osama bin Laden, who remains at large seven years after the September 11 attacks.

The US embassy bombing was the second strike on the compound in six months, and the latest in a spate of attacks against Western interests and oil installations in the country, one of the poorest in the world.

In a statement on Wednesday, Islamic Jihad said it would “pursue a series of explosions according to our pre-established plan” and threatened to blow up the embassies of Britain, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates if its “brothers” were not freed from Yemeni prisons.

A Yemeni security source said the 25 suspects were rounded up in Sana'a in a manhunt launched on Wednesday which continued through the night.

“The security services tracked down all the suspects,” the source added.

Last month, the authorities said they arrested 30 suspected al Qa’eda members in a crackdown on the network.

“This attack is a reminder that we are at war with extremists who would murder innocent people to achieve their ideological objectives,” the US president George W Bush said.

Witnesses said a fierce firefight erupted after gunmen raked Yemeni police guarding the embassy compound, before a suicide bomber blew up a car at the entrance, setting off a fireball.

A series of explosions followed as the compound came under rocket and small arms fire.

The US mission said on Wednesday that both the embassy and consular sections were closed after the attack.

The State Department announced on today that Susan el-Baneh, from Buffalo, New York was killed in the attack and that her husband, a Yemeni, also died. It gave no details.

State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said the strike bore “all the hallmarks of an al Qa’eda attack.”

In October 2000, al Qa’eda attacked the American warship the USS Cole off the southern port of Aden with a small boat packed with explosives, killing 17 American sailors.

In April, rockets were fired on a residential complex housing American oil workers and other foreigners in Sana'a. The US embassy ordered the evacuation of non-essential diplomatic staff after the strike which was claimed by al Qa’eda’s Jund al-Yemen Brigades.

The Brigades has also claimed deadly attacks on Belgian and Spanish tourists in the past two years.

*AFP