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September 18, 2008
Posted: 1312 GMT
SANAA, Yemen - A diplomatic source told me Wednesday’s attack on the U.S. embassy in Yemen involved two car bombs and three suicide bombers with explosives belts, one of whom blew himself up just meters away from the embassy’s main gate.
Attackers disguised as Yemeni forces bombed the outer wall of the U.S. Embassy in Sanaa.
The entire attack, he said, lasted 15 minutes and left 16 dead — five Yemeni security forces, one Yemeni U.S. embassy guard who was shot by the assailants when he tried to bar the first vehicle from entering the embassy parking lot, six of the attackers and four civilians, including an 18-year-old Yemeni-American woman from Buffalo, New York. Yemeni government security guards outside the embassy told me the attack was by “cowards” who kill innocent people. We saw several people who appeared to be U.S. investigators surveying and photographing the damage. We were allowed into the area by Yemeni security officials who didn’t coordinate with the Americans. One of the investigators exclaimed to another (and I overheard) “Who the f***k allowed CNN in here?” Shortly afterwards a security officer from the embassy told us to leave the area directly in front of the embassy because we were endangering the evidence, although dozens of Yemeni troops were milling around the area. She told the CNN crew to go to the other side of the barrier in front of the embassy, “up against the wall” on the other side of the street. Today, the atmosphere in Sanaa is calm, the streets are quiet and of course it’s Ramadan, so it’s quiet on top of quiet. Posted by: Ben Wedeman, CNN Correspondent
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