.
SANAA (Reuters) – Two explosions followed by heavy gunfire went off outside the U.S. embassy in Yemen, and smoke was seen rising from the heavily-fortified compound, witnesses said.
Al Arabiya Television said that the initial blast was caused by a suspected car bomb and that there were believed to be casualties.
Yemen, the ancestral home of Osama bin Laden, has grappled with a spate of al Qaeda attacks this year, including one on the U.S. embassy, another near the Italian mission and others on Western tourists.
An al Qaeda-affiliated group claimed responsibility in March for a mortar attack that missed the U.S. embassy in Sanaa but wounded 13 girls at a nearby school.
The United States ordered non-essential staff to leave Yemen in April, a day after an attack on a residential compound.
A checkpoint outside the US embassy in Sanaa (Sky News)
June 16, 2008 – Yemen’s defense minister told reporters that his country has expelled some 16,000 suspected al Qaeda members since 2005. If true, that’s an astounding and disturbing figure.
What are we to make of his claim? I see a couple possibilities:
1. Yemen is/was crawling with potential terrorists.
2. Yemen’s definition of who constitutes al Qaeda member is extremely broad.
3. Struggling to handle an influx of refugees from Somalia, Yemen finds it convenient to classify people as potential terrorists in order to deport them.
2007 – U.S. warplane hunting al Qaeda suspects killed many people in south Somalia
UNHCR – Irregular migration to Yemen has increased massively during the first months of 2008 compared to the same time last year. By March 1, a total of 182 boats carrying 8,713 people had arrived in coastal areas of Yemen and at least 113 people died making the perilous voyage. At least 214 others are missing, most of whom are presumed to have drowned.
Map Somalia-Yemen
KABUL, Afghanistan – Defense Secretary Robert Gates expressed “personal regret” for recent U.S. airstrikes that killed Afghan civilians, and pledged more accurate targeting in future.
Gen. David McKiernan, the commander of international forces in Afghanistan, said earlier that a shortage of U.S. troops in Afghanistan is forcing commanders to rely more on air combat, which can cause more civilian deaths. The attacks that have angered and embarrassed the U.S.-backed Afghan government.
McKiernan said he needs at least three more combat brigades, in addition to the one arriving in January. Without the additional troops, the war will be longer and deadlier, he said.
“The danger is that we’ll be here longer and we’ll expend more resources and experience more human suffering than if we had more resources placed against this campaign sooner,” McKiernan told reporters traveling with Gates.
He also said he knows he can only get more combat forces if troops are diverted from Iraq. The Army brigade arriving in Afghanistan in January was initially scheduled to go to Iraq, and it includes about 3,700 soldiers.
McKiernan said his Washington bosses had “validated” his request for the three additional brigades — or at least 10,000 more troops — and said he believes it is a question of when, not if, he will get those reinforcements. There currently are about 33,000 U.S. troops in Afghanistan.
McKiernan said that while he does not believe the U.S. is losing the war there, “we are winning slower in some places than others.”
"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."
