2008 attack on the United States embassy in Sanaa
On September 17, 2008, a group of seven heavily armed militants launched a coordinated attack on the United States embassy in Sanaa, Yemen. Dressed in army uniforms, the attackers planned to infiltrate the compound through the main gate in two vehicles before bombing the embassy wall and raiding it. After being denied entrance, the militants opened fire on the guards at the front entrance and launched a suicide car bomb attack on the guard post near the gate. While the militants were engaged with responding Yemeni security forces, a second car driven by a suicide bomber managed to get past the outer security checkpoint and detonated near a civilian entrance to the embassy after hitting an inner ring of concrete blocks. Yemeni forces continued to clash with the militants for 10 to 15 minutes until all of them were killed.
19 people were killed in the attack, including the seven militants who conducted it, six Yemeni security personnel and six civilians. Three Yemeni police officers and 13 civilians were also wounded. No American embassy employees or diplomats were harmed, though a security guard employed by the embassy was killed at the front entrance. The only American citizen killed in the attack was Susan Elbaneh, an 18-year-old Yemeni-American woman who was waiting outside the embassy with her husband.
A previously unknown group called Islamic Jihad in Yemen claimed responsibility for conducting the attack shortly after it. The group claimed it was connected to al-Qaeda and would launch further attacks on foreign embassies in Sanaa if the Yemeni government did not free imprisoned militants. A US Department of State spokesman claimed the attacks bore "all the hallmarks" of al-Qaeda, with analysts suggesting that the group may have had Islamic Jihad claim the attack on its behalf. Al-Qaeda in the South of the Arabian Peninsula, the group's official branch in Yemen, later claimed responsibility for the attack on 14 November and vowed further attacks on Western targets. After the attack, Yemeni investigators apprehended six suspects affiliated with Islamic Jihad, including its purported leader. Three of them were tried for being connected to the Israeli government, one receiving the death penalty while the other two were imprisoned. The attack was condemned by Yemen and the US, along with the United Nations and several other countries.
Background
Al-Qaeda insurgency
The al-Qaeda network of Yemen underwent a significant resurgence since a prison escape in 2006 freed several key militants. This heralded the emergence of a new, more radical generation of jihadists, among them numerous returning insurgents from Iraq. The year of 2008 witnessed an increase in attacks and propaganda releases by militant groups in Yemen affiliated with al-Qaeda. One of these groups was al-Qaeda in the South of the Arabian Peninsula, which announced itself as al-Qaeda's affiliate in the country early in the year, while a splinter group called the Soldiers' Brigade of Yemen also operated concurrently.The Embassy of the United States in Sanaa had long been a target of militant threats and violence, resulting in the diplomatic mission instilling heavy security measures. Since 2003, the embassy had been the target of four attacks, the most recent one occurring on March 16, 2008, when an attempted mortar shelling had struck a nearby female high school, killing a security guard and wounding several students. This was followed by further shelling against an embassy residential compound in Haddah on April 6, resulting in an evacuation order being issued for nonessential embassy personnel and their relatives.
These incidents were attributed to the Soldiers' Brigade of Yemen. After the group conducted a suicide bombing against a local police station in July, Yemeni security forces responded with a raid on the town of Tarim in August which killed five of their members, including group leader Hamza al-Quaiti. The raid effectively dismantled the Soldiers' Brigade of Yemen, a small, highly-localized cell of the larger al-Qaeda presence in the country, but the success was interpreted by some as a total victory against al-Qaeda. The State Department rescinded its April order for nonessential embassy personnel to leave on August 11, citing an improvement regarding security conditions.
Prelude
The attack was led by scholar Lutf Muhammad Bahr Abu Abdul-Rahman, involving both himself and six students he recruited from a mosque he taught at in al-Hudaydah. Most of the militants involved had previously intended to fight in the Iraqi insurgency, but decided to conduct an attack in Yemen due to increased travel restrictions. One of them, former prisoner Mahmud Sa'ad, was responsible for heavily modifying the vehicles used in the attack. The militants decided upon conducting the attack on September 17, 2008, to coincide, Islamic calendar-wise, with the anniversary of the Battle of Badr, when Islamic prophet Muhammad led a small band of Muslims who defeated a powerful army of pagans.The Soldiers' Brigade of Yemen issued a statement through the jihadist internet forum al-Ikhlas in response to the Tarim raid on August 19, threatening revenge for the killing of Quaiti. This was followed by al-Qaeda in the South of the Arabian Peninsula posting a teaser to the site on September 9 for an upcoming issue of their magazine Sada al-Malahem, a common indicator of an attack being imminent. On top of this, al-Ikhlas began advertising a "special message" from Osama bin Laden set to commemorate the September 11 attacks. Embassy officials feared Bin Laden could use the message to direct an attack in Yemen. However, al-Ikhlas was shut down, possibly by the National Security Agency, on the evening of September 10, preventing the release of new jihadist material and relieving US personnel in Sanaa.
Attack
The attack utilized two explosive-laden Suzuki jeeps, heavily modified with tinted windows and cutouts in the roofs for gunmen. Their plan was to have the first vehicle, driven by two suicide bombers, breach the main gate of the embassy compound, allowing the second vehicle to enter and insert the other militants, each armed with automatic rifles and suicide vests, into the embassy's chancery building. To reach the gate, the militants attempted to impersonate a delegation of the Yemeni Armed Forces, fitting their vehicles with paint jobs and license plates consistent with those used by the military while wearing army fatigues. The militants were likely attempting to capitalize off an early morning attack during Ramadan, as security would potentially be less attentive and most nearby businesses were closed.Upon arriving, the convoy successfully passed by a cordon on the road ran by the Central Security Forces at 9:10 a.m. local time before reaching another outer checkpoint at the embassy's parking lot, which guarded access to the gate about 200 yards further away. One militant claimed to the two guards manning the station that they were transporting a military general for a meeting with US ambassador Stephen Seche. Already suspicious due to the rarity of Seche conducting meetings at the embassy itself, one of the guards began to approach the first vehicle before he stopped to note its tinted windows, whereupon a gunman appeared from the roof hole and opened fire. The guard ran to cover, but the other one who was manning the rope to the gate's drop bar, Mukhtar al-Faqih, waited a few more seconds until it was completely closed before sounding the embassy's alarm system. Faqih then attempted to escape towards cover before he was gunned down.
One of the militants managed to lift the drop bar at the checkpoint and allowed for the convoy to enter the parking lot, but the element of surprise was gone. Instead of targeting the main gate, the first vehicle sped down the road and exploded into a Yemeni military technical parked adjacent to the gate at approximately 9:13 a.m. as gunmen traded fire with the guards. Numerous civilians waiting in line by the gate were killed by the blast and the shooting.
The first car bomb failed to blow open the gate as planned, forcing rest of the group to search for weak points from which they could breach the embassy. From 9:15 a.m. onwards, security footage exhibited several militants probing the front of the embassy on foot while firing through openings in the structure and across the road. The drivers of the second vehicle spent several minutes looking for a point to attack before deciding on the pedestrian entrance in the parking lot. At at 9:22 a.m., once the three gunmen on the ground took cover, the two occupants drove into the entrance and detonated their vehicle.
The second bomb failed to breach the wall of the embassy. The propane tanks fitted in the vehicle to amplify the explosion were sent instead flying across the area. The remaining three militants continued to maintain control of the entrance, but they did not have a way to enter the embassy. At around 9:33 a.m., they opened at a fire truck arriving at the scene, forcing it to retreat. Shortly afterwards, one of the gunmen set off their suicide vest next to a wall near the gate in an attempt to create an opening, but was unsuccessful. Another militant later attempted the same and failed, leaving only one of the seven militants alive. By 9:53 a.m., while possibly wounded, the sole attacker attempted to surrender to a police officer while cooking a grenade, though the officer managed to retreat before the militant blew himself up.
Embassy personnel response
Ambassador Seche was in his office on the third floor of the chancery building when the first explosion occurred. Shortly after, he ran down the hallway to the office of the Regional Security Officer, Nicholas Collura, intending to coordinate with him. Upon realizing that he was not present, Seche ran to Post 1, the "command-and-control center" of the embassy, where he was let in by a Marine Security Guard. Viewing the remaining security cameras active at the blast site, Seche noted that "the men on the black-and-white CCTV monitors didn’t look like they were in a hurry... these men had just killed a lot of people, executing some of them, but on the screen they looked too casual to be murderers." He grew increasingly frustrated as Yemeni security forces failed to neutralize the attackers.Upon the first explosion, embassy staff and visitors were ordered to enter a duck and cover position for the rest of the attack. Diplomatic personnel were transferred to a safe room in the basement of the embassy building. At his office on the first floor of the chancery, Federal Bureau of Investigation legal attaché Richard Schwein guided two female colleagues into a safe room immediately after the explosion before calling the FBI headquarters in the US and his assistant Susan Ostrobinski, who was in Ethiopia at the time.
Collura was at the British embassy in Sanaa when he received a call at 9:15 a.m. informing him of an attack. He then drove to the front of the embassy, where he found Yemeni security personnel pinned down by gunfire. Fearing the embassy had been breached, he ran to a back door of the compound, which was locked, before going to a CSF base adjacent to the northwest corner of the compound. He attempted to convince some 40 CSF soldiers to mobilize against the militants, even after having an embassy surveillance detection officer translate his orders.
Collura and the officer then went by themselves to the northeastern corner of the compound wall, near where the attackers were present. An auxiliary gate controlled by Post 1 was a turn away from the corner. Collura phoned Post 1 and coordinated to quickly open the gate to allow them to enter before shutting it. As the two were making their first attempt, the second car bomb detonated nearby, knocking them to the ground and forcing them to retreat to cover unnoticed. The second attempt, which took place just after the final militant had died, was successful.
Once inside, Collura went to Post 1 to establish contact with Seche, while alert for any remaining militants possibly inside the compound. He then met with Schwein and formulated a team to secure the rest of the compound. After arming themselves, they set out to retrieve stranded civilians before searching every building in the compound. At 9:58 a.m., Collura declared to embassy staff that the threat was neutralized.