As the bodies of American sailors killed in Aden harbour on Thursday began arriving in Germany en route to the US, the Pentagon confirmed that 17 US sailors died in the terrorist attack on the USS Cole. Seven bodies have been recovered, 10 are still missing and 33 people were injured.
Some 37 US embassies in the Middle East and adjoining regions have been closed until next week as a precaution against further attacks like the one on the British embassy in Sana'a, the Yemeni capital. Yemen claimed yesterday the embassy blast was caused by an electric power generator explosion. A similar claim had been made about the "accidental" origins of the bombing of the US destroyer.
British Foreign Secretary Mr Robin Cook said earlier a bomb had been hurled at the embassy, causing a massive explosion but no casualties. He expressed fear of a resurgence of "terrorist activities". The official Yemeni news agency SABA quoted an interior ministry official as saying: "The blast was caused by the explosion of the electricity generator."
A joint British-Yemeni technical team was investigating the blast. Mr Cook said a bomb thrown at the British embassy had hit a power generator.
"We understand that a bomb was flung over the wall of the embassy in Yemen. By ill-luck it hit a diesel generator, which created a substantial explosion," he told BBC radio. He said British diplomats in Sana'a had been on the alert for some time because of a number of "terrorist incidents" in the Middle East.
Britain is widely resented in Yemen as subservient to the US and as a former colonial power that intervened on the Saudi-backed royalist side which ended up the loser in Yemen's civil war. Yemen has been close to the Palestinian movement since taking in several hundred Palestinian fighters forced out of Lebanon after Israel's 1982 invasion.
The Kuwait News Agency quoted witnesses in Sana'a as saying that a fire broke out after the embassy blast and damage was extensive.
It said windows of nearby buildings were blown out by the force of the explosion. The embassy compound is close to some government ministries.
The blast occurred early in the morning of the Muslim weekend, which probably explained the lack of casualties. The embassy is a modern building surrounded by high walls in the outskirts of Sana'a.