Two suicide car bombs set off a series of explosions outside the heavily fortified US embassy in Yemen on Wednesday, killing 16 people including six attackers, a Yemeni Interior Ministry official said. The US State Department said the dead included one Yemeni security guard and civilians waiting to get into the embassy in the capital Sana'a. All the dead were Yemeni, with the exception of one Indian woman who was walking past when the attack happened, the official said. Islamic Jihad in Yemen, which is unrelated to the Palestinian group with a similar name, claimed responsibility and threatened attacks on other embassies including those of Britain, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates. It had threatened in a previous statement on Tuesday to launch a series of attacks unless the Yemeni government met its demands for the release of several members from jail. “We, the organisation of Islamic Jihad in Yemen declare our responsibility for the suicide attack on the American embassy in Sana'a,” the group said in a statement on Wednesday. “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,” said the statement signed by Abu Ghaith Al-Yamani. In Washington, President George W. Bush was briefed about the attack, White House spokesman Gordon Johndroe said. “This attack is a reminder of the continuing threat we face from violent extremists both at home and abroad,” Johndroe said. The embassy and its consular section have been closed indefinitely following the attack. At least seven wounded civilians, including children from nearby houses, were taken to the capital's Republican Hospital, a medical official said, Just last month, 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 embassy. The attack instead hit a girls high school next door, killing a Yemeni security guard and wounding more than a dozen girls. In the 9:15 A.M. attack Wednesday, gunmen in a vehicle attacked a checkpoint outside the embassy with RPGs and automatic weapons, Yemeni security officials said. During the assault, suicide bombers in a vehicle made it through the checkpoint and hit a second, inner ring of concrete blocks, and detonated, the officials said without making any mention of the second suicide car bomb. A senior US official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the bombings were carefully orchestrated, with sniper fire and some attackers apparently dressed as soldiers. He said that as many as five explosions struck the embassy and that the first Yemeni emergency personnel to arrive on the scene were hit by heavy sniper fire from gunmen who had stationed themselves across the street from the embassy. State Department spokesman Sean McCormack told reporters that the embassy's security upgrades, combined with the response of security officials, were effective in stopping attackers armed with automatic weapons, rocket-propelled grenades and at least one suicide car bomb. Yemen has grappled with a spate of Al-Qaeda attacks this year, including one on the US embassy, another near the Italian mission and others on Western tourists. Islamic Jihad in Yemen has been involved in previous attacks on Western targets in Yemen including a US hospital. The leader of the group was executed in 1999 for the kidnapping of 16 Western tourists, four of whom died in a botched army attack to free them.
