The British ambassador in Yemen narrowly escaped a suicide attack Monday morning, when a young man in a school uniform detonated his explosives belt near his armored car at a poor neighborhood of Sana'a, officials said. A British Embassy spokeswoman said the ambassador, Timothy Torlot, was unhurt, but the attack underlined the precarious security in Yemen. The Yemeni officials said the ambassador's vehicle was passing through a poor neighborhood in the eastern part of Sana'a when an explosion went off nearby. They said they believed the attacker was wearing an explosives belt and that he was killed in the explosion. There was no claim of responsibility for the attack, but it bore the hallmarks of Al-Qaeda. Witnesses said the attacker was a young man who wore a school uniform, apparently as a disguise. The officials said the poor Noqm neighborhood where the attack took place was popular with militants. The Foreign Office in London said the embassy has been closed to the public and warned all British nationals in Yemen to “keep a low profile and remain vigilant.” “We can confirm that there was an incident in Sana'a this morning. There was a small explosion beside the British Ambassador's car. He was unhurt. No other embassy staff or British nationals were injured,” the Foreign Office said in a statement. “We are working urgently with the Yemen authorities to investigate what happened,” it added. Security was visibly tightened around the US and British embassies following the attack. The area of the explosion was sealed off as Yemeni and British officials inspected the scene of the attack. Meanwhile, the government has received increased foreign counterterror aid, aiming to fight the group. Yemeni troops have been deployed in remote areas where Al-Qaeda is known to have set up strongholds, and they carried out a series of U.S.-backed raids against militant hideouts at the beginning of the year.
