Monday, April 26, 2010

Al Qaeda in Yemen Narrowly Misses Taking Out British Ambassador With Suicide Bomber


The British Ambassador to Yemen narrowly missed being assassinated today by a suicide bomber from the ranks of al Qaeda in Yemen - the Ambassador's convoy was targeted and the explosion injured two Yemeni police escorts while the Ambassador escaped unharmed.

From the report at Times Online:



The British Ambassador to Yemen was attacked by a suicide bomber in the capital, Sanaa, today but escaped unharmed, officials said.

Tim Torlot, 52, a career diplomat who has served in the volatile Arab state since July 2007, was being driven in his armoured vehicle when his two-vehicle convoy was attacked by a suspected al-Qaeda suicide bomber wearing an explosives belt.

"The failed terrorist attack that targeted the British Ambassador in Sanaa carries the fingerprints of al-Qaeda," said the Yemeni Interior Ministry.

Two of Mr Torlot's Yemeni police escort and a bystander were injured in this morning's blast but the bomber — who, witnesses said, was dressed in a school uniform — was the only fatality.
Apparently the Yemeni Interior Ministry isn't as sure this is al Qaeda as I am - give me a break. This attack is just another remind of how chaotic Yemen continues to be and I can't, for the life of me, understand why a country like Britain would even have their embassy open in Yemen at this point in time.



'Suicide bomber' targets British Ambassador to Yemen


The British Ambassador to Yemen was attacked by a suicide bomber in the capital, Sanaa, today but escaped unharmed, officials said.

Tim Torlot, 52, a career diplomat who has served in the volatile Arab state since July 2007, was being driven in his armoured vehicle when his two-vehicle convoy was attacked by a suspected al-Qaeda suicide bomber wearing an explosives belt.

"The failed terrorist attack that targeted the British Ambassador in Sanaa carries the fingerprints of al-Qaeda," said the Yemeni Interior Ministry.

The British Embassy was closed briefly in January after Yemeni intelligence sources said that an al-Qaeda cell close to the capital was planning to attack it and the US Embassy. The Yemeni Army later attacked the cell and killed several of its members.

Two of Mr Torlot's Yemeni police escort and a bystander were injured in this morning's blast but the bomber — who, witnesses said, was dressed in a school uniform — was the only fatality.

Mr Torlot was reportedly about 600 yards away from the embassy in the new part of Sanaa, close to the heavily fortified US Embassy, when the attack happened. He usually travels in an armoured car with an escort vehicle of armed Yemeni police trailing him. The embassy itself is close to a main road, protected by razor wire and sandbagged machinegun posts manned by Yemeni security forces.

Witnesses said that the police escort vehicle was damaged in the explosion.

The Foreign and Commonwealth Office confirmed that the ambassador was unhurt. "We can confirm that there was an incident in Sanaa this morning," it said. "There was a small explosion beside the British Ambassador's car. He was unhurt. No other embassy staff or British nationals were injured."

"The embassy will remain closed to the public for the time being. We advise all British nationals in Yemen to keep a low profile and remain vigilant."

Security was tightened around the embassies in the capital and British and Yemeni investigators were at the scene of the explosion.

Al-Qaeda has been gaining ground in Yemen more than a year, with a new generation of terrorists forming a group called al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, which has mounted many attacks inside the impoverished southern Arabian republic and abroad, including a failed suicide attack on a Saudi prince in charge of fighting terrorism.

The group shot to prominence last December when a 23-year-old Nigerian who had allegedly tried to blow up a US airliner bound for Detroit on Christmas Day said that he had been trained in Yemen. Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab allegedly said that he had been given the explosives device, which was sewn into his underpants, after he ducked out of sight late last year while attending an Arabic-language school in Sanaa and attended an al-Qaeda training camp.

Before that Yemen had been the scene of many attacks, including the boat-borne explosion by suicide bombers against the USS Cole in the port of Aden in 2000, which killed 17 sailors. In 2008 a suicide bomb attack outside the US Embassy in Sanaa killed more than a dozen people, including an American student.

The Yemeni Government, under US and British pressure, has mounted an offensive against al-Qaeda, and the US has ramped up the military aid that it supplies to the country, fearing it could become a new front on the war on terror. Senior clerics in the deeply conservative tribal society have threatened to declare a jihad, or holy war, if foreign troops are deployed inside the country.

The Government of President Saleh is more concerned with fighting a Shia rebellion in the north, which has already dragged Saudi forces into the fray, and a resurgent secessionist movement in the south, once a British colony, than it is with tackling the terrorists.

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