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Multiple terrorist attacks on northern Yemen on government facilities cause power outage
The Associated Press
Published: August 9, 2007

SAN'A, Yemen: Al-Qaida militants attacked a power station and a government building in the north Yemen town of Marib in the early hours Thursday, causing a major power outage, police and tribal officials said.

The attacks appeared to be a response to a raid a day earlier by security forces who killed a senior al-Qaida operative in the zone and three other militants.

Over a dozen suspected al-Qaida members have been arrested or killed in recent weeks as the government cracks down on a cell blamed for a suicide bombing that killed eight Spanish tourists and two Yemenis in July.

The Islamic militants used rocket-propelled grenades and other explosives to bomb the main power station in Marib, leaving the whole town in the dark overnight, said a security official speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk to the media.

A government building was also attacked, but there were no casualties because the office complex was nearly empty at the time except for guards, the official said.

Meanwhile, embassies and hotels were put on high security alert in the capital, San'a, where checkpoints were installed on main roads to prevent an escalation of al-Qaida attacks, another Yemeni official said, speaking on conditions of anonymity for the same reasons.

The U.S. Embassy in Yemen has urged Americans to avoid traveling in large groups and to remain in the capital as much as possible because the country is experiencing a "previously unseen" level of terrorist actions.

Al-Qaida has an active presence in Yemen, the ancestral home of Osama bin Laden, despite government efforts to fight the terror network. Al-Qaida was blamed for the 2000 bombing of the USS Cole in Aden that killed 17 American sailors, and the attack on a French oil tanker that killed one person two years later.

Multiple terrorist attacks on northern Yemen on government facilities cause power outage (http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2007/08/09/africa/ME-GEN-Yemen-Attacks.php)