SAN'A, Yemen - Three mortar rounds apparently meant for the U.S. Embassy crashed into a high school for girls next door Tuesday, killing a Yemeni security guard, an Interior Ministry official said.

A statement from the ministry said the shells fired by unidentified attackers in the downtown San’a district of Sawan also wounded five soldiers and 13 school girls. Three of the girls were described as in serious condition and were being flown to Jordan for treatment.

The statement did not mention the death of the guard, which was reported by a ministry official who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk to the press.

“The ministry will arrest those terrorists as fast as it can and bring them to justice,” the ministry statement said.

The embassy issued a statement in Arabic saying none of its employees was injured, adding that “we pray for the victims and their families.” The embassy closed for the rest of the day.

Troops sealed off roads and prevented journalists from approaching the school, which is attended mostly by Yemeni students.

'Directed against our embassy'
In Washington, the State Department said U.S. Embassy officials in Yemen had concluded that the attack was “directed against our embassy.”

Washington “will be looking to work with Yemeni authorities as they investigate this incident,” said State Department spokesman Tom Casey.

The Interior Ministry official initially suggested the attack might be linked to a dispute between a teacher and school administrators. The school had received a warning just two days earlier from the teacher’s family, the official said.

The U.S. Embassy in Yemen, which is the ancestral homeland of al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden, has been the focus of violence before.

In March 2002, a Yemeni man lobbed a sound grenade into the embassy grounds a day after Vice President Dick Cheney made a stop for talks with officials at the San’a airport. The attacker, who allegedly sought to retaliate against what he called American bias toward Israel, was sentenced to 10 years in prison but the sentence was later reduced to seven years.

In March 2003, two people were fatally shot and dozens more were injured as police clashed with demonstrators trying to storm the embassy when tens of thousands rallied against U.S.-led invasion of Iraq.

In 2006, a gunman opened fire outside the embassy but was shot and arrested by Yemeni guards. The gunman, armed with a Kalashnikov rifle, claimed he wanted to kill Americans.

Al-Qaida has an active presence in Yemen despite government efforts to destroy it. The group was blamed for the 2000 bombing of the USS Cole destroyer in the Yemeni port of Aden that killed 17 American sailors and an attack on a French oil tanker that killed one person two years later.

Also Tuesday, a security official said three soldiers were injured in an explosion at a police station in Yemen’s Abyan province. The building had been attacked in November by al-Qaida members seeking to free others detained there."

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23687188/



Wonder if many muslim country emabssies are bombed within the western worlds ?
Not that I know of.

"AN al-Qaeda-linked Islamist group which claimed responsibility for a deadly attack on the US embassy in Yemen has threatened more strikes against Western interests in the poverty-stricken nation.

A Yemeni security source said 25 suspects had been arrested over yesterday's car bombing and rocket attack on the highly-fortified US mission in Sanaa which killed six soldiers, four civilians and six assailants.

The Organisation of Islamic Jihad said it was demanding the release of militants being held by the Yemeni authorities, which have been battling a wave of attacks by al-Qaeda extremists over the past few years.

"We, the Organisation of Islamic Jihad, belonging to the al-Qaeda network, repeat our demand of (Yemeni President) Ali Abdullah Saleh to free our detained brothers within 48 hours," said a statement signed by 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 al-Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden, who remains at large seven years after the September 11 attacks of 2001.

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 on the planet.

A Yemeni security source said the 25 suspects were rounded up in Sanaa in a manhunt launched yesterday that continued through the night.

"The security services tracked down all the suspects," the source said.

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.

Last month, the authorities said they arrested 30 al-Qaeda suspects 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," US President George W Bush said.

Witnesses said a fierce firefight erupted yesterday 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, they said, adding that the force of the bomb blast hurled pieces of flesh 100 metres.

State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said the strike bore "all the hallmarks of an al-Qaeda attack."

The US mission said yesterday that both the embassy and consular sections were closed after the attack, but it was not immediately known if they were now open. "

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,24368384-12377,00.html



If they are so poor, how do they afford bombs  ??
I guess it is a question of priorities.

How do you know those who detonated the bomb are poor?
Just because the nation is mentioned as being generally poverty-stricken doesn't mean every single person is poor. Or is that your view of other countries? That everyone's poor and can barely feed themselves?

Besides I don't think Yemen is that poverty stricken anyway