A gunman opened fire on a US security team as it trained Yemeni soldiers in the south of the country, the Pentagon and a security official said on Friday, both denying reports from an Islamist group that a CIA officer was killed in the assault.
In the north of the country, a bomb blast hit an anti-US protest, injuring at least 22 people, a rebel group that controls much of the region said.
Fighting with northern “Houthi” rebels and southern militants are among a list of challenges facing new Yemeni President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi, a man Washington was hoping could end a year of turmoil in the country, which is near key oil shipping routes.
Photo: Reuters
Ansar al-Sharia, a Yemen-based Islamist group linked to al-Qaeda, said it had attacked and killed a US officer in the south on Thursday.
“The mujahidin killed a CIA officer on Thursday while he was in Aden Province, after tracking him and determining he was cooperating with the Sana’a government,” it said in a text message sent to journalists in Yemen.
A Yemeni security official in Aden, speaking on condition of anonymity, said a gunman fired on a US security team on Thursday, but the shots had hit their armored vehicle without injuring anyone.
In Washington, a Pentagon spokesman confirmed that a gunman fired several shots at an armored vehicle carrying a US security team in Yemen and that no one was injured.
A bomb exploded during a protest against US involvement in Yemen on Friday, injuring 22 people in the north of the country, the leader of Shiite Muslim rebels that control the area said.
In a statement, the leader of the Houthi movement — Shiite rebels that Yemen’s military tried to crush in campaigns from 2004 to 2009 — said the US ambassador in Sana’a was personally responsible for the bombing in Saada, near the Saudi border.
“The one behind this attack is the US ambassador and his agents,” Houthi leader Abdel Malek al-Houthi said. “It targets our rejection of foreign interference from the ambassador, such as interfering in the structure of the army ... and his Satanic efforts to change its creed.”
The region has seen fighting in recent months between the Houthis and Sunni Muslims espousing puritanical Salafi doctrines influential in Saudi Arabia that cast Shiites as heretics. The Houthis have accused Riyadh of arming their foes.
Southern secessionists have rejected the transition deal that put Hadi in power, saying they want nothing to do with a process involving a united Yemen.
In other developments, a suicide bomber blew up a vehicle at an elite Republican Guard camp southwest of the Yemeni capital yesterday, days after al-Qaeda claimed a similar attack that killed 26 soldiers, military sources said.
There were “casualties” in the blast at the base in Bayda, 170km from Sana’a, the sources added, without giving any immediate breakdown.
Witnesses said the bombing devastated the three-story building.
The explosion hit at 6am and was probably carried out by multiple assailants, a military official said.
The blast was followed by an exchange of fire between gunmen and Republican Guard troops, who are led by Ahmed Saleh, son of Ali Abdullah Saleh.
Bayda borders Abyan Province, an al-Qaeda stronghold in the south.
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