3 Pinoys among 52 people killed in attack on Yemen defense ministry

SANAA - Yemen's Higher Security Committee said 52 people, including doctors, nurses and patients, were killed in Thursday's attack on the Ministry of Defense and around 162 people were injured. At least three Filipinos are among the casualties.

 

A suicide bomber and gunmen wearing army uniforms targeted the ministry compound in the capital Sanaa in the worst single attack in Yemen for 18 months.

 

Medics and a Defense Ministry official said the gunmen pulled a Western doctor and a Filipina nurse into the hospital's courtyard and shot them in front of local staff.

 

A medical source who works at one of the hospitals where some of the victims were taken told Reuters two female Yemeni doctors, a Filipino surgeon, a Western doctor and four foreign nurses from India and the Philippines were gunned down.

 

A separate and earlier Agence France-Presse report, quoting sources, said six doctors, including a Venezuelan and two from the Philippines, and three Yemenis, along with five patients including a judge, were among the dead.

 

Philippine officials have yet to confirm the reports.

 

“(Philippine Ambassador to Saudi Arabia) Amb. (Ezzedin) Tago informed me that this report of a Filipino casualty in the Sanaa attack is still being verified by our honorary Consul in Yemen,” said Foreign Affairs spokesperson Raul Hernandez in a text message to GMA News Online.

 

A statement by Yemen's Higher Security Committee said some of those killed were Germans. It did not give a number of officers and gunmen dead.

 

No one claimed responsibility for the attack, but a Yemeni expert on Islamist militant affairs said the "suicide nature of the attack" pointed to al Qaeda.

 

Yemen has been grappling with al Qaeda-linked militants who have repeatedly attacked government officials and installations over the past two years.

 

The security threat is an international concern. The U.S.-allied country shares a long border with Saudi Arabia, the world's top oil exporter, and the branch of al Qaeda that is based there has plotted attacks against Western targets.

 

The attack on Thursday began as ministry employees were arriving for work when a vehicle exploded at the compound's gate, two sources inside the ministry said.

 

"The attack took place shortly after working hours started at the ministry, when a suicide bomber drove a car into the gate," the Defense Ministry source said.

 

The massive blast shook the bustling Bab al-Yemen neighborhood on the edge of Sanaa's old city, a warren of market stalls and stone tower houses decorated with stained glass windows and ornate plasterwork.

 

Smoke billowed over the area, where the country's central bank is also located.

 

"The explosion was very violent, the whole place shook because of it and plumes of smoke rose from the building," said an employee who works in a nearby building.

 

Security forces retook the compound after killing most of the attackers, the Defense Ministry said in a statement on its website, making no reference to a suicide attacker.

 

Ambulance sirens and gunshots were heard after the blast as a second vehicle entered the compound carrying armed men dressed in Yemeni army uniforms and exchanged fire with soldiers.

 

Yemeni President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi later visited the compound, met senior military officials and ordered an investigation into the attack.

 

The United Nations condemned the attack, calling on all parties to cooperate with the investigation, the spokesperson for Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said in a statement.

 

"He (the Secretary General) recalls that the Security Council has reaffirmed its readiness to consider further measures in response to any actions by individuals or parties that are aimed at disrupting the transition process," the statement read.

 

Yemeni analyst Abdelrazzaq al-Jamal, who specialises in Islamist militant affairs, drew parallels with an attack claimed by al Qaeda on a military base in eastern Yemen in September.

 

"The operation carries the fingerprints of al Qaeda because of the suicide nature of the attack," al-Jamal told Reuters.

 

Construction work

 

The Defense Ministry said the militants struck at an area were construction work was taking place near the compound's hospital facility.

 

It said that most of the gunmen were "wiped out" in the battle but that two had fled into a nearby building where they were pursued by security forces.

 

A military source put the death toll at more than 20, including medical staff, soldiers and gunmen, and said dozens were also wounded, many of them seriously. The Yemeni Health Ministry appealed for blood donations to help save the wounded.

 

Violence is common in Yemen, where an interim government is fighting southern secessionists and northern Houthi rebels in addition to the al Qaeda-linked militants, as well as severe economic problems inherited from former president Ali Abdullah Saleh who was forced out of office in 2011.

 

Islamist insurgents were emboldened by a decline in government control over the country during protests that eventually ousted Saleh.

 

They seized several southern cities before being driven out in 2012 in a government offensive aided by U.S. drone strikes.

 

Al Qaeda militants have since killed hundreds of Yemeni soldiers and members of the security forces in a series of attacks, particularly in the southern provinces of the country.

 

In August, a U.S. warning of a possible major militant attack in the Middle East prompted the closure of several Western missions in Yemen and U.S. missions in several other Arab states.

 

In July last year, a suicide bomber wearing a Yemeni army uniform killed more than 90 people rehearsing for a military parade in Sanaa, and al Qaeda later took responsibility for the attack.

 

The defense minister, Major General Muhammad Nasir Ahmad, escaped a car bomb on his motorcade in September 2012 that killed at least 12 other people. Ahmad is currently in the United States for annual discussions on relations between the two countries, officials said. — Reuters/with Agence France-Presse/ELR, GMA News