Yemeni authorities have arrested 19 people suspected of being connected to al-Qaeda and having links to Wednesday’s attack on the heavily fortified US embassy in Sanaa, Al-Arabiya television said yesterday.
Two suicide car bombs set off a series of explosions outside the US embassy in Yemen, killing 16 people, including six attackers. No US citizens were hurt.
The US State Department said the bombings bore “all the hallmarks” of an al-Qaeda attack, but the US had not yet concluded who was to blame.
A group calling itself 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 and Saudi Arabia.
It threatened to launch a series of attacks unless Yemen freed several jailed members.
“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,” the group said in a statement on Wednesday.
The sophisticated bombing plot carried out against the embassy brings increased urgency to fears that Muslim extremists are gathering strength in that nation and could make it a headquarters for terrorism.
The attack follows a March mortar attack on the embassy and two attacks against Yemen’s presidential compound in late April.
“There’s an ongoing issue with al-Qaeda and ... violent extremists and terrorism in Yemen,” State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said at a news conference on Wednesday.
The extent of Yemen’s problem with extremists and the shortcomings of its counterterrorism efforts are underscored by the fact that Yemenis make up the largest population of detainees — at least 108 of 270 — held in the US Navy prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
The Bush administration has sought to return dozens of these prisoners to Yemen, but has been unable to get assurances from the Yemeni government that they would be held or rehabilitated.
“Al-Qaeda senior leaders have called for increased pressure in Yemen and their northern territory is not under central government control,” a senior US military official said on Wednesday, on condition his name not be used.
Yemen has a history of being unable to hang onto terror suspects.
US officials complain about what they call lax detention policies.
Seventeen suspects in the USS Cole bombing that killed 17 US sailors were arrested — 10 of them escaped in 2003. One of the primary suspects, Jamal al-Badawi, escaped jail in 2004. He was taken back into custody last fall under pressure from the US government.
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