A massive blast tore through the Yemeni capital city of Sanaa today, but for once it wasn’t the Yemeni military shelling protesters. This time, a Yemeni soldier filled his uniform with explosives and launched a suicide attack on an army battalion in the city, killing 112 and wounding some 300 others.
The blast overwhelmed area hospitals, and medical officials say that the wounded had to be taken to seven different hospitals. Every single casualty was a soldier, and they were practicing for a parade at the time. Defense Minister Mohammed Nasser Ahmed was present at the time, but apparently unharmed.
A spokesman for Ansar al-Sharia claimed credit for the attack, but Yemeni police say that it “bears the hallmark of al-Qaeda.” The attack was the deadliest bombing in the capital since US-backed Maj. Gen. Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi took power earlier this year.
Yemeni officials mostly don’t recognize a difference between Ansar al-Sharia and al-Qaeda, or indeed any rebel faction and al-Qaeda. The US is backing a Yemeni military offensive against Ansar al-Sharia in the Abyan Province currently, and the spokesman said the attack was retaliation for that, as well as a “message to the Americans.”
Over 400 casualties . . . a battalion has somewhere around 750 soldiers, so this was an extraordinarily effective attack. Genuine terrorists in the US of A could easily inflict these kinds of casualties, even more actually, among civilians in tightly packed venues. Instead, we have security organs arranging provocations with phoney pipe bombs, Molotov cocktails and hunting bows. The terror threat in the US of A is a joke.
However, note that according to this article, ALL casualties were military. No civilians at all were killed. Real Muslims do not attack civilians. Genuine terrorists do, but real Muslims do not kill noncombatants.
Working American magic in Yemen…just like Iraq, Afghanistan, Somalia, etc.
Mission accomplished in Yemen too. They have succeeded in plunging that country into civil war. Another job well done by the USan Empire.
NBC newa this evening didn't mention any rebel groups just al-Qaeda and quickly mentioned the underwear bomber being directed from Yemen, no functioning government in Yemen and the US soldiers wounded in Yemen as a logical progression in the war on terror. Not one word about US complicity in supporting the dictators now and in the past. The entire NBC report was a simplistic inaccurate account of the past and present in Yemen. The entire report was a rallying cry for more imperial aggression and more death and destruction for the people of Yemen.
Yemen — A paradise for drone designers and joystick assassins
Using a greater terrorism to overcome lesser terrorism, it will really work? This is the issue our drone manufacturers are trying to resolve in a brutal dictatorship and third-world uneducated nation most perfect for such an experiment.