US Embassy was attacked!!!

The entrance to the U.S. Embassy compound in San'a Yemen can be seen in this image from APTN television file footage taken April 3, 2002. Explosions and heavy gunfire were heard Wednesday morning Sept. 17, 2008 near the U.S. Embassy in the Yemeni capital and police swiftly cordoned off the area, according to a government security official. U.S. Embassy spokesman Ryan Gliha tells The Associated Press by telephone that there was a second explosion Wednesday that followed the initial one. He did not have figures for casualties or know their nationalities. (AP Photo/APTN) (AP)

SANA, Yemen, Sept. 17 -- Attackers exploded a vehicle bomb outside the main gate of the U.S. Embassy in Yemen on Wednesday in what appeared to be a well-coordinated assault that triggered more explosions and heavy gunfire around the compound.

Yemen's official Saba news agency said 16 people died in the incident, including six Yemeni soldiers, four civilians and six attackers. One of the civilians was an Indian woman at the embassy on business.

There were no immediate reports of American casualties. The embassy is located in the center of Sana, Yemen's capital, but the building is set far back from an outer security wall.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility.

Yemen is the ancestral home of Osama bin Laden. Al Qaeda has maintained a steady presence here, especially as fighters from the militant group return from Iraq.

The first explosion, at 9:15 a.m., resounded for miles and sent a plume of black smoke over the city.

"It shook everything in my home," said Saddam Hussein, a Yemen man living about 200 yards from the embassy. "One big explosion, then smaller explosions, and gunfire."

The vehicle bomb exploded at the main gate, said embassy spokesman Ryan Gliha. There did not appear to be any major damage to the embassy building, Gliha said.

U.S. officials still were trying to determine the nature of several explosions that followed the vehicle bomb, Gliha said. Hussein and other nearby residents said the secondary blasts sounded much smaller, like grenades.

The intermittent explosions and heavy gunfire continued for about 10 minutes after the first blast, as scores of Yemeni forces rushed to the scene.

A half-hour after the blast, intermittent gunfire still crackled. Helicopters circled the embassy. Ambulances painted in green camouflage carried injured to the city's military hospital.

The Yemen embassy has been the target of numerous attacks since 2002. In the most recent assault, three mortar rounds hit a nearby school for girls in March, killing a security guard and injuring about 20 girls and others. Other attacks include one in 2006, when a man armed with an automatic weapon opened fire outside the embassy, saying he wanted to kill Americans. Security forces shot him and captured him, without other injuries.

Yemen was also the scene in 2000 of the deadly suicide attack against the USS Cole.