Militant attack in Yemen kills 16

SAN'A, Yemen — A well-coordinated attack on the U.S. Embassy in the Yemeni capital Wednesday morning left 16 people dead, but it ultimately was thwarted by security barriers and Yemeni soldiers, six of whom perished in a car-bomb explosion and an ensuing gunbattle.

No American personnel were reported hurt.

An obscure group called Islamic Jihad, unrelated to the Palestinian organization of that name, claimed responsibility for the attack. U.S. officials said the attack appeared similar to those orchestrated by al-Qaida, which experts say have been able to exploit the ineffectiveness of the government of President Ali Abdullah Salah Qaida in the ancestral home of Osama bin Laden. The government has been struggling to maintain order while facing a renewed threat by extremists as well as sectarian war in the north and a separatist drive in the south.

The violence added to growing fears about instability in this impoverished and war-torn Arabian Peninsula nation of 23 million, which is perched aside a critical sea route through which nearly 5 percent of the world's crude oil passes every day.

Wednesday's operation was the deadliest by Islamic militants on a U.S. target in Yemen since the 2000 attack by al-Qaida on the USS Cole in the port city of Aden.

State Department officials said the attack began when a car bomb went off near a guard post outside the main entrance. Armed attackers dressed in military uniforms that obscured their identity fired on the first Yemeni security forces that arrived. A second vehicle appeared and tried to drive toward the main entrance. The attackers sought to break through the outer wall to the embassy, but they failed, officials said.

A Yemeni soldier cried out after the fighting subsided: "What kind of animals did this?" he said. "Who could kill innocent people like this? These people aren't Muslims."