Word: yemen
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 2000-2009
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...Yemen U.S. Embassy Attacked A multipronged assault on the embassy in the capital, Sana'a, on Sept. 17 killed at least 16 people. No Americans were killed, security officials said, but Yemenis in line for visas, the assailants and Yemeni guards were among the dead. In addition to automatic weapons and rocket-propelled grenades being fired, a car bomb was detonated at the gates of the embassy. A State Department spokesman said the assault had "all the hallmarks of an al-Qaeda attack," although a group called Islamic Jihad claimed responsibility. The embassy has seen violence several times since...
...brazen, sophisticated attack sparked fears in counterterrorism circles that al-Qaeda is gaining ground in Yemen, a key front in the Bush Administration's war on terror. A major purpose of the attack may have been to undermine Yemeni President Ali Abdallah Salih. Yemeni officials believe it may have come in retaliation for recent raids by Yemeni security forces against al-Qaeda in which senior militant Hamza al-Quaiti was killed. Militants had also threatened more attacks if Yemeni authorities fail to free detainees. Says Yemeni journalist Nasser Arrabyee: "Al-Qaeda and the security forces are in a serious confrontation...
...embassy raid is a sign that Yemen's war against jihadists is far from over. "It's like those scary movies when you kill one [monster] and it makes two more," says the TIME source. "It means we have to work harder, hit harder, be more alert, and hopefully we'll get rid of them." Some Yemeni officials privately criticize the Bush Administration for demanding better results while withholding substantial aid that could help the impoverished country be more effective in the fight. "The U.S. should provide more assistance, more equipment, more training," a former senior government official tells TIME...
...officials, though, complain that while Yemen's government is a valuable ally against al-Qaeda, it has sometimes been too lax - for example, by sentencing hardened militants to short prison terms and freeing repatriated Guantánamo Bay detainees. Last May, an appeals court reduced from five to three years the prison sentence for Saleh al-Ammari, the Yemeni man who opened fire on the U.S. embassy in Sana'a in 2006. Still, U.S. officials acknowledge that the government faces a formidable challenge. The country is home to a large number of veterans of the anti-Soviet jihads in Afghanistan...
...Yemen is also the site of one of al-Qaeda's first, albeit little-known, international operations: an attack on two hotels in the port of Aden in 1992 that was aimed at U.S. troops bound for Somalia. Two people died, but neither was American. Better known was the group's strike in 2000 on the U.S.S. Cole in Aden's harbor, killing 17 U.S. servicemen. Three months before 9/11, Yemeni authorities arrested eight people in a plot to bomb the U.S. embassy in Sana'a. And only last March, there was a failed mortar attack on the embassy compound...