At least 12 people were killed in a car bombing in the capital of Yemen on Tuesday, in what appeared to be an attack targeting the country's defense minister. The bombing came after a top Al Qaeda leader in Yemen, and six people traveling with him, were killed in what Yemeni officials said was an airstrike by an American drone.
As my colleagues Nasser Arrabyee and Alan Cowell reported, the car bomb exploded alongside a convoy of vehicles used by the minister, Maj. Gen. Mohammed Nasser Ahmed, on a street between the cabinet office and the state radio building in downtown Sana, th e capital. At least seven of the dead were bodyguards and five were civilians. The minister remained unharmed, government and hospital officials said.
Vehicle post-bombing outside Cabinet #Sanaa #Yemen http://t.co/ucyHU2PD
- The Yemen Times (@theyementimes) 11 Sep 12
In Twitter messages, journalists based in Yemen who quickly arrived at the site of the blast described the carnage.
Adam M. Baron, a freelance reporter in Yemen, wrote about a chaotic scene of casualties, with damaged storefronts and vehicles.
At bomb site. Broken glass, large crowds, scent of blood. #yemen
- Adam Baron (@adammbaron) 11 Sep 12
Joe Sheffer, a cameraman and journalist, wrote that clean-up crews scooped human remains into bags, and security forces tried to clear the area of onlookers by firing into the air.
A policeman starin g at a piece of flesh on the fence near the parliament. http://t.co/chpm3Me1
- Joe Sheffer (@JoeSheffer) 11 Sep 12
The clean up is in process… http://t.co/JTLnSYbk
- Joe Sheffer (@JoeSheffer) 11 Sep 12
While Yemeni authorities were quoted as saying there had been no immediate claim of responsibility for the car bomb on Tuesday, the killing of Saeed Ali al-Shihri, the second in command for Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, places the timing and target of the blast into context.
Witnesses in the region said Mr. Shihri escaped an initial drone attack and made off into the desert on Monday, but the remotely piloted aircraft tracked him down, Mr. Arrabyee and Mr. Cowell reported.
Two senior American officials confirmed Mr. Shihri's death, The Associated Press reported, but not any involvement in it. Reuters reported there were conflicting versions of his death: that he was killed W ednesday in a drone strike or on Monday in a Yemeni Army operation.
Mr. Shihri spent six years at the American military prison at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, before being released to Saudi Arabia in 2007 and later making his way to Yemen. As my colleague Robert F. Worth wrote in a story about the complications of his release, American officials suspected his involvement in the 2008 car bombings outside the American Embassy in Sana that killed 16 people, including six attackers.
Reporters raised the possibility that Tuesday's bomb attack was in retaliation for Mr. Shihri's killing and assessed the significance of the two events for Yemen and for Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula.
Looks like a classic AQAP suicide bombing.
- Joe Sheffer (@JoeSheffer) 11 Sep 12
No way to prove this yet, but lots of Yemenis are assuming this is revenge for death of #aqap #2 Shihri ‘they s tole the news' #yemen
- Adam Baron (@adammbaron) 11 Sep 12
Neither CIA nor DOD confirm an airstrike killed AQAP leader Said al-Shehri. Only Yemeni sources say he's dead & conflicting reports of how.
- Camille Elhassani (@celhassani) 10 Sep 12
@RosJordanAJE and I try to make sense of it and what al-Shehri death means to the broader fight against Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula.
- Camille Elhassani (@celhassani) 10 Sep 12
Still, Yemen has not escaped the turmoil behind the protest movements sweeping other Arab countries. The country's president, Abdu Rabbu Mansour Hadi, assumed power in February after its former president, Ali Abdullah Saleh, agreed to step down last November following a year of antigovernment demonstrations calling for his removal.
worth noting: the minister of defense target o f today's deadly car bomb, is seem as one of pres Hadi's closest ally's in the govt. #yemen
- Adam Baron (@adammbaron) 11 Sep 12
Katherine Zimmerman, an analyst for the American Enterprise Institute, wrote on her blog that Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula still had room to maneuver in Yemen after Mr. Shihri's death.
The group took advantage of the unrest in Yemen during the Arab Spring to expand its network, and despite territorial advances against AQAP's insurgent arm in the south, its operational network is largely intact.
