Suspected Al-Qaeda attack on Yemeni intelligence headquarters

Men armed with machine guns and grenades killed at least eleven people including six security personnel in an attack Saturday on a Yemeni intelligence headquarters in the southern port city of Aden. Local officials are saying the assault in the early hours of the morning may have been the work of Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP).

Wikimedia Commons

Speaking on condition of anonymity, the officials said that during the attack an unknown number of prisoners suspected of being members of Al-Qaeda were set free.

Witnesses also said the assailants "were seen leaving the building, taking people who had been detained there with them."

Medics reported that one of the dead was a woman cleaner.

Yemen, the ancestral homeland of Osama bin Laden, has witnessed numerous attacks claimed by Al-Qaeda on foreign missions, tourist sites and oil installations.

In October 2000, militants in an explosive-packed high-speed boat blew a hole in the side of American warship the USS Cole in Aden, killing 17 sailors.

Two years later, the French-registered 500,000-tonne supertanker Limburg was damaged by another bomb-laden boat, also attributed to Al-Qaeda, in the southeast port of Ash-Shir, east of Aden.