.
"AQAP (Al Qaeda on the Arabian Peninsula) had taken advantage of a security and
political vacuum created by last year Arab Spring-inspired uprising and
seized territories and cities in the south."
10/11/12, "Yemen security chief at U.S. Embassy killed," AP, CBS
"A masked gunman assassinated a Yemeni security official who worked
for the U.S. Embassy in a drive-by shooting near his home in the capital
Sanaa on Thursday, officials said.
A U.S. Embassy official told CBS News that the slaying happened fairly far away from the embassy.
Yemeni
officials said the killing bore the hallmarks of an attack by the al
Qaeda offshoot in Yemen, but it was too early to determine whether the
group was behind it. The assassination resembles other attacks recently
that have targeted Yemeni intelligence, military and security officials.
Those attacks are believed to be in retaliation for a military
offensive by Yemen's U.S.-backed government against Yemen-based Al Qaeda
in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), which Washington considers the most
dangerous offshoot of the global terror network.
AQAP has called for attacks on U.S. embassies in a bid to exploit the
anti-American sentiment that has swept the Middle East and other parts
of the Muslim world in the past month over an anti-Islam film produced
in the United States.
Initially, the film was linked to
an attack on the U.S. Consulate in the Libyan city of Benghazi on
September 11 which left four Americans dead including U.S. Ambassador to
Libya Christopher Stevens.
U.S. officials said later the attack was not
linked to the video
AQAP
praised the killing of U.S. diplomats in Libya, describing it as "the
best example" for those attacking embassies to follow.
Yemeni
officials identified the embassy security official as Qassem Aqlani, in
his fifties. He was on his way to work when a gunman on a motorcycle
opened fire at him and fled the scene. The attack was in western Sanaa,
close to Aqlani's home, while the embassy is located in eastern Sanaa.
Aqlani had been working for the U.S. Embassy for nearly 20 years,
said the officials who spoke condition of anonymity because they were
not authorized to speak to the media. Most recently, he was in charge of
investigating a Sept. 12 assault on the U.S. Embassy by angry Yemeni
protesters over the anti-Islam film. Protesters stormed the embassy and
set fire to a U.S. flag before government forces dispersed them with
tear gas. That attack came one day after the killings of the Americans
in Benghazi.
AQAP had taken advantage of a security and
political vacuum created by last year Arab Spring-inspired uprising and
seized territories and cities in the south. The government-led offensive
has pushed the militants out to mountainous areas from where they have
been staging suicide attacks and assassinations inside cities.
Two weeks ago, a top intelligence official, Col. Abdullah al-Ashwal, was also killed in a drive-by shooting in Sanaa."
.
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