SANAA: One of the two officers at the US Embassy in Yemen who shot and killed a pair of suspected Al-Qaeda gunmen was getting a haircut at a barbershop when the attempted abduction took place, Yemeni security officials said Sunday.
The attempted kidnapping April 24 is the latest evidence of Al-Qaeda’s expanding presence in the capital, a serious challenge to the authority of the already weak central government.
The barbershop, owned by a longtime Indian resident, is on Heda Street, a commercial road in the southern part of the city where some of Sanaa’s best restaurants, supermarkets and high-end boutiques are located. The Yemeni officials said the armed militants arrived in a battered SUV and burst into the shop shouting: “Police! Police!” The officials said one of the two Americans was having his hair cut, while the second waited for his turn.
They said one of the Americans killed both militants before the pair jumped into their waiting SUV and drove off. Owners of nearby stores rushed to the barbershop on hearing the gunshots but the Americans already had left, the officials said.
Yemeni authorities questioned the two Americans and later gave them permission to leave the country, the officials said. The two fully cooperated with the Yemeni government investigation, they said.
The US State Department said the two Americans, whom it did not identify, were at a Sanaa business at the time of the attack and have since left Yemen. Citing unidentified US officials, The New York Times has reported that the Americans were a CIA officer and a lieutenant colonel with the elite Joint Special Operations Command.
Meanwhile, A suicide car bomber killed six Yemeni army officers and wounded many others on Sunday after targeting a military police building in the southern coastal city of Mukallah, a local security official said.
The blast appeared to be a revenge attack by Al-Qaeda over the Yemeni Army’s campaign to crush insurgents in two large southern provinces.
The attempted kidnapping April 24 is the latest evidence of Al-Qaeda’s expanding presence in the capital, a serious challenge to the authority of the already weak central government.
The barbershop, owned by a longtime Indian resident, is on Heda Street, a commercial road in the southern part of the city where some of Sanaa’s best restaurants, supermarkets and high-end boutiques are located. The Yemeni officials said the armed militants arrived in a battered SUV and burst into the shop shouting: “Police! Police!” The officials said one of the two Americans was having his hair cut, while the second waited for his turn.
They said one of the Americans killed both militants before the pair jumped into their waiting SUV and drove off. Owners of nearby stores rushed to the barbershop on hearing the gunshots but the Americans already had left, the officials said.
Yemeni authorities questioned the two Americans and later gave them permission to leave the country, the officials said. The two fully cooperated with the Yemeni government investigation, they said.
The US State Department said the two Americans, whom it did not identify, were at a Sanaa business at the time of the attack and have since left Yemen. Citing unidentified US officials, The New York Times has reported that the Americans were a CIA officer and a lieutenant colonel with the elite Joint Special Operations Command.
Meanwhile, A suicide car bomber killed six Yemeni army officers and wounded many others on Sunday after targeting a military police building in the southern coastal city of Mukallah, a local security official said.
The blast appeared to be a revenge attack by Al-Qaeda over the Yemeni Army’s campaign to crush insurgents in two large southern provinces.
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