Attack Against U.S. Embassy In Yemen Blamed on Al-Qaeda

Video

Blasts Target U.S. Embassy in Yemen

At least 10 people are hurt after a pair of bombs targeted the U.S. Embassy in Yemen.

» LAUNCH VIDEO PLAYER

The country has been a launchpad for al-Qaeda attacks on American interests at least since the assault on the USS Cole, a destroyer that was in Yemen for refueling. Seventeen sailors were killed.

Since then, the Bush administration has pushed President Ali Abdullah Saleh to do more against al-Qaeda. U.S. officials have frequently charged that the government allowed al-Qaeda to use Yemen as a base as long as the group's fighters launched no attacks in the country.

In 2007, after learning that the government had allowed Jamal al-Badawi, the organizer of the Cole attack, to go free on his own recognizance, the United States suspended $20 million in aid.

What the Bush administration saw as a "tacit non-aggression pact" between al-Qaeda in Yemen and Yemeni security forces began to break down about 2006, according to Gregory D. Johnsen, a researcher at Princeton University who has studied the group.

He said a new, less-compromising generation of al-Qaeda leaders emerged, many of them moving into action after escaping from a Yemeni prison that year, he said. They regard the older generation's nuanced relationship with Saleh's U.S.-allied government as "a treaty with tyrants," Johnsen said.

The new leaders have found followers among al-Qaeda fighters returning from Iraq. "The quieter it is in Iraq, the more inflamed it is here," as Yemeni fighters travel back and forth, said Nabil al-Sofee, a former spokesman for a Yemeni Islamist political party who is now an analyst.

One of the new leading figures was Hamza al-Quyati, born to a Yemeni family in Saudi Arabia, who helped found a splinter group known as the Soldiers' Brigade of Yemen.

Yemeni authorities blamed the group for a series of attacks that appeared to break whatever truce had existed between Yemeni forces and al-Qaeda. A 2007 suicide bombing killed seven Spanish tourists and two Yemeni drivers, and a subsequent attack killed two Belgian tourists. Those incidents, and the others this summer, have all but destroyed Yemen's economically crucial tourism industry.

Yemeni officials also blamed Quyati for the March mortar strike targeting the U.S. Embassy.

On July 25, Quyati's group took the fight to Yemeni security forces, launching an explosives-laden vehicle into a police station in the town of Sayun, killing one policeman.

Yemeni security forces retaliated Aug. 10, surrounding an al-Qaeda safe house in the eastern city of Tarim with tanks and killing five fighters inside, including Quyati.

U.S. and British officials, eager for a sign that Saleh's forces were becoming more engaged against al-Qaeda, have hailed the August attack. U.S. Assistant Secretary of Defense Michael G. Vickers, visiting Sanaa on Sunday, gave Yemen rare public praise for its cooperation against al-Qaeda.

"Al-Qaeda ramped up their action . . . there's increasing pressure from the U.S. and Britain . . . and the Yemeni government is reacting to both of these things," Johnsen said.

Wednesday's attack shouldn't be seen as "indicating the strength or weakness of Qaeda" here, Sofee added. "It's about the strong conflict between security agencies and al-Qaeda now."

Since Aug. 19, the Soldiers' Brigade has issued promises to avenge Quyati's death, along with other hints of coming action, Johnsen said. "There were a lot of warning signs something like this was coming."

Staff writer Glenn Kessler and staff researcher Robert E. Thomason in Washington contributed to this report.