Unidentified gunmen shot dead a senior Yemeni security official employed by the US embassy in Sanaa in a hit-and-run attack on Thursday, a security official and a US diplomat said.
Qassem Aqlan was shot dead by gunmen on a motorbike as he drove along Sittin Street, a main artery of the Yemeni capital, the official said, adding the assailants managed to escape. A US diplomat said Aqlan was in charge of coordinating a US and Yemeni probe into an attack last month on the embassy by protesters angry over an anti-Islam film that triggered a wave of deadly demonstrations across the Muslim world.
Demonstrators attempted to storm the US embassy in Sanaa on September 13, and some managed to break into the mission’s compound, before Yemeni security forces intervened. Four protesters were killed and 34 others wounded. Yemen’s President Abdrabuh Mansur Hadi apologised to his US counterpart Barack Obama and the American people for the acts of a “mob” and ordered a probe. The unrest came two days after four Americans, including the ambassador, were killed when a mob attacked the US consulate in Libya’s second city Benghazi, and protesters in Cairo attacked the US mission there and tore down the Stars and Stripes, replacing it with a black Islamic flag.
