Sunday, June 20, 2010

Al Qaeda Attacks Yemen Intelligence Headquarters

SANAA, June 19: Eleven people, including seven military personnel, were killed in a suspected Al Qaeda attack on Yemeni intelligence headquarters in the southern port city of Aden on Saturday, officials said.

A high-level security committee, in an official statement, said preliminary investigations “indicate that the criminal attack carries the marks of the Al Qaeda terror network,” the state news agency Saba reported. It said three women and a seven-year-old boy were also killed in the clashes between the building guards and the assailants.

Earlier in the day, medical sources said that 10 security personnel and three women cleaners were killed and at least 12 other people wounded.

The statement said “terrorists” stormed the main gate of the building at around 0500 GMT on Saturday, using grenades and gunfire to attack guards, also shooting at women and children near the building.

It made no reference to reports by local officials that the assailants succeeded in freeing an unspecified number of suspected Al Qaeda members from the security building.

Witnesses said the assailants “were seen leaving the building in a bus, taking people who had been detained there with them,” in what appeared to be a coordinated and well-planned operation.

There were no casualties among the attackers, the witnesses said.

The security committee vowed that the “terrorists” would be chased and brought before justice.

Yemen, the ancestral homeland of Osama bin Laden, has witnessed numerous attacks claimed by Al Qaeda on foreign missions, tourist sites and oil installations.—AFP

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