Two suicide car bombs exploded outside the the U.S. Embassy in Yemen's capital on Wednesday, killing six guards and four civilians outside, Yemeni officials said. No Americans were reported hurt.
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| No Americans hurt in attacks on US Embassy in Yemen |
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The bombing was the deadliest attack on a facility that has been targeted four times in recent years by bombings, mortars and shootings. Yemen, the ancestral homeland of Osama bin Laden, has struggled to put down al-Qaida-linked Islamic militants, often to the frustration of U.S. counterterrorism officials.
The blasts came just a month after the State Department allowed the return of non-essential personnel and family members who had been ordered to leave after a volley of mortars targeted the facility but hit a girl's high school next door, killing a Yemeni security guard and wounding more than a dozen girls.
In Wednesday morning's coordinated attack, the two blasts went off at a security checkpoint that witnesses said was about 40 meters (yards) from the embassy gates. Several gunmen also battled the embassy's Yemeni guards for 10 minutes, a Yemeni security official told The Associated Press, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk to the press.
The state news agency SABA reported that the blasts were carried out by suicide bombers in two explosives-packed vehicles. The explosions hit passers-by and the guards and damaged nearby houses. Footage on Arab TV stations showed clouds of smoke rising from near concrete blocks painted yellow. The embassy is protected by two rings of these blocks, according to San'a residents familiar with the area.
Six attackers were killed, along with six Yemeni guards, three Yemeni civilians and an Indian national, SABA reported, citing an unidentified Interior Ministry official.
Ryan Gliha, an embassy spokesman, told The Associated Press that two explosions went off, at least one by a car bomb. He did not know the cause of the second. Speaking by telephone from inside the large embassy compound, he could not immediately say if there was any damage to the facility from the blast outside.
The embassy said in a statement only that the facility had been attacked by "armed terrorists," with a number of explosions "in the vicinity" of the main gate that killed an injured a number of guards and Yemeni citizens waiting to enter the embassy.
At least seven wounded civilians, including children from nearby houses, were taken to the capital's Republican Hospital, a medical official said, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk to the press.
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