Eric Watkins
Senior Correspondent
LOS ANGELES, Apr. 7 -- The Al Qaeda terrorist organization, building on earlier claims, has taken responsibility for a rocket attack on a residential complex in Yemen that houses executives and the headquarters of Safer E&P Operations Co.
"Al Qaeda has issued a statement claiming the attack," said a Yemeni security official. Residents reported no injuries after three rockets struck near the residences of US employees of the Yemen-owned Safer E&P.
The official said police had arrested seven people in connection with the attack, adding that three people had fired the rockets from a car on the edge of the complex of villas in the al Hadda district in southwestern Sanaa, the Yemeni capital.
The attack occurred 2 days after the arrest in Sanaa of Al Qaeda operative, Abdullah al Rimi, who was sought by the US Federal Bureau of Investigation. Al Rimi has been identified as taking part in attacks in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, in 2003 and on the USS Cole in 2000 in the Yemeni port of Aden, which killed 17 US sailors and injured many others.
Suspected Al Qaeda militants have claimed several attacks in Yemen, the ancestral homeland of the terror network's chief Osama bin Laden.
Last week, the Jund al Yemen Brigades, an Al Qaeda affiliate group, claimed responsibility for two operations carried out in Hadhramaut, including a Mar. 27 bomb attack on a pipeline belonging to Total SA in the Sah Valley and a Mar. 29 mortar attack on an unidentified Chinese oil company operating in Al-Khish'a.
Since the attacks on the USS Cole in 2000, several other foreign interests, specifically oil interests, have been attacked," according to the Yemen report by the US Energy Information Administration.
These include:
-- The suicide bombing of the Limburg French oil tanker off the coast of Yemen, killing one and causing a massive fire and leakage of 150,000 bbl of oil into the Gulf of Aden (OGJ Online, Oct. 11, 2002).
-- An unsuccessful firing of a surface-to-air missile at an oil company helicopter in 2002.
-- The 2006 foiled suicide bomb attempt against two oil facilities.
-- The more-recent attacks on oil company personnel near the border between the Marib and Shabwa governorates.
In addition, EIA said, there have been reports of violence in rural areas, attacks on oil company personnel, and kidnappings in Yemen.
Last December, Yemen's Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Interior, Rashad al Alimi, identified terrorism as the chief threat to his country.
Contact Eric Watkins at [email protected].
