Posted on 03/19/2008 7:24:31 AM PDT by beericus
The State Department says U.S. officials have concluded that the American Embassy in Yemen was targeted by three mortar rounds that crashed into a nearby high school, apparently killing a Yemeni security guard.
(Excerpt) Read more at nationalterroralert.com ...
The attack happened earlier Tuesday, and at the time U.S. officials said they couldn’t say for certain whether the real target was the U.S. Embassy.
Later Tuesday, in Washington, the State Department said U.S. Embassy officials in Yemen had concluded that the attack was “directed against our embassy.” U.S. officials refused to comment further, saying it was still under investigation.
In Yemen, the Interior Ministry said the shells fired by unidentified attackers also wounded five soldiers and 13 schoolgirls.
Thats one way of getting street cred.... There was another post on here today saying Yemen’s know who did it. Do they really use mortars to settle personal disputes in Yemen?
I was in Yemen yesterday. Now the news and the Yemen government are saying it was a mortar attack aimed at the US embassy, but missed and hit the girls school next door. Apparently the mortars were fired from a nearby rooftop. In general, Yemenis that I met were disgusted at either attacking the embassy or a school. Out in the countryside, every man I saw had an assault rifle, mostly older Russian made AK-47s (kind of like every woman in Houston carries a gun in her purse). So I think that the answer is no, mortars are not used to settle personal disputes. However, there was a report of one village refusing to register their cars and pay the license plate tax and they used mortars to register their displeasure with the government. So mortars are probably more of an anti-government (theirs or ours) type of dispute.
I have not been in the middle east since the mid 90’s. I was being facetious about the settling of personal disputes with mortars. I appreciate your info though. BTW what is a cheese head doing in Yemen? Are you staying at the World archipelago?
I work for an oil company. And no, of course I am not staying on one of the “Islands of the World”. Not on an oil company salary. I think there might be some movie stars, soccer players and rock stars that have homes there. Maybe even some politicians.
Wow, pretty intersting. Are you nervous living in that region?
No, I am not nervous about living in the middle east. I have been to all 7 of the Emirates. We go camping on the weekends in Oman. I went to Yemen on vacation last week. The most dangerous thing about Dubai is driving on the freeway. Last week there was a 200 car pile up in dense fog. The United Arab Emirates are considered to be the “Switzerland of the Middle East”.
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