Al-Qaeda Statement: More Lies
Al-Qaeda has unveiled new details about the U.S Embassy attack last September 17 and killing a security officer by a letter bomb in Mareb last October.
The proclamation of the so-called “al-Qaeda in south of the Arab Peninsula” said the attackers were seven, not six as Yemeni authorities have previously announced. It said “the brave attack was carried out by Lutf Mohammad bin Bahr (Abu AbdulRahman) and other six Jihadists who could penetrate the embassy and kill guards of crusaders.”
The proclamation, first posted on al-Qaeda’s website Sada al-Malahim, claimed responsibility for killing the security director in Mareb Mohammad bin Kalan by a letter bomb last October.
It said bin Kalan was killed for offering assistance to Americans to hunt al-Qaeda’s leader in Yemen, Abu Ali al-Harethi, who was killed by a U.S Predator missile strike in Mareb in 2002. It said Kalan also has directly cooperated with the U.S. Embassy in Sana’a in hunting Jihadists in Mareb and al-Jawf.
The proclamation said that a US administrative officer has been possibly killed in the latest attack.
In a statement on Tuesday, the US Embassy in Sana’a denied al-Qaeda claims and said that the administrative officer Jeffrey Patneau, who worked at the Embassy, died on October 4, 2008 from injuries sustained in a motor vehicle accident in Sana’a on September 29, 2008.
“Recent claims to the contrary made in the international press regarding the circumstances of Mr. Patneau’s death are completely false,” said the statement.
