N.Y. teen died in U.S. embassy attack

UPDATED:

SAN’A, Yemen (AP) – A senior security official says at least 25 militants with suspected links to al Qaeda have been arrested in connection with Wednesday’s deadly attack on the U.S. Embassy in the Yemeni capital. The Yemeni official says the 25 have been rounded up from various parts of Yemen over the past 24 hours and are being questioned by Yemeni and U.S. investigators.

The official spoke Thursday on condition of anonymity because he is not authorized to speak to the media.

The attack Wednesday killed 16 people but failed to breach the compound’s walls.

Susan Elbaneh, 18, a U.S. citizen from Lackawanna, N.Y., who was recently wed in Yemen in an arranged marriage, was killed along with her Yemeni husband as they stood outside the embassy, family members said Wednesday.

They were apparently there to do paperwork for the husband’s move to the U.S. when the attackers struck, said Elbaneh’s brother, Ahmed. Elbaneh’s family was gathering at her father Ali’s house Wednesday afternoon.

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An audacious attack on the U.S. Embassy in Yemen on Wednesday demonstrates a renewed offensive capability by al Qaeda and may be the group’s premier operation for 2008, U.S. intelligence officials and specialists on the terrorist group said.

Yemen has a long history as a haven for al Qaeda and venue for attacks, beginning with the 2000 suicide ramming of the USS Cole. Over the past two years, the organization has regrouped in Pakistan´s tribal region and trained recruits from Western nations and Africa.

The identities of the attackers in the Yemeni capital of San’a were not clear, although a U.S. counterterrorism official said some of the assailants wore Yemeni military uniforms. He spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the nature of his work.

Sixteen people, including six of the assailants, died as the gunmen tried to break through the heavily guarded embassy’s multiple defenses. Suicide bombers in a vehicle made it through a first checkpoint and detonated explosives at a second concrete barrier, the Associated Press reported. Six Yemeni guards and four civilians, one of them a newlywed from New York, were among the dead.

Susan Elbaneh, 18, a U.S. citizen from Lackawanna, N.Y., who was recently wed in Yemen in an arranged marriage, was killed along with her Yemeni husband as they stood outside the embassy, family members said. They were apparently there to submit paperwork for the husband’s move to the U.S., said Mrs. Elbaneh’s brother Ahmed.

Two FBI agents who arrived to speak with family members at her father Ali’s house would not comment beyond saying they were there to talk to the family.

Relatives acknowledged, however, that Mrs. Elbaneh was related to Jaber Elbaneh, who is in custody in Yemen and faces U.S. charges of providing material support to a foreign terrorist organization. But they stressed that had nothing to do with Mrs. Elbaneh, saying she was an innocent victim of Wednesday’s attack.

Witnesses to the attack heard multiple explosions. SABA, the Yemeni state news agency, quoted an unidentified Interior Ministry official as saying that two suicide car bombs had been detonated. Victims included six Yemeni guards and four civilians, including Yemenis lining up for visas, the news agency said. At least seven civilians were wounded.

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