As a night owl in the Pacific Time Zone, I was watching The Rachel Madow show when MSNBC broke in with a news flash that there was a possible car bomb attack on the US Embassy in Yemen. No details yet, just a 30 second blurb by one of the staffers at MSNBC.
UPDATE:
From MSNBC.com
SAN'A, Yemen - A car bomb exploded outside the U.S. embassy in Yemen on Wednesday, officials and witnesses said.
An embassy spokesman told NBC News that the heavily-fortified compound's main gate was hit by an explosion at 9:15 a.m. local time. The blast was followed by "several secondary explosions", the spokesman said. Witnesses also reported hearing heavy gunfire.
Smoke was seen rising from the site and regional TV news networks Al-Jazeera and Al-Arabiya reported that one of the embassy's buildings was ablaze.
According to local reports, a second car carrying gunmen in police uniforms arrived at the scene soon after the car bomb exploded. They reportedly immediately began firing at the embassy's guards.
UPDATE:
An Al-Arabiya TV reporter said witnesses heard a series of up to ten blasts.
An Associated Press reporter at the scene said ambulances were rushing to the area and that hundreds of heavily armed security forces were deployed around the embassy. Police kept reporters well away from the immediate vicinity of the embassy, he said.
Yemen, the ancestral home of Osama bin Laden, has grappled with a spate of al-Qaida attacks this year, including one on the U.S. Embassy, another near the Italian mission and others on Western tourists.
An al-Qaida-affiliated group claimed responsibility in March for a mortar attack that missed the U.S. embassy in San'a but wounded 13 girls at a nearby school.
The United States ordered non-essential staff to leave Yemen in April, a day after an attack on a residential compound.
But just two days ago, we get the worst economic news since the 1930s AND John McCain had possibly the worst day in his political life. Now tomorrow's news cycle will be off the economy on to the "real" issue confronting us - Islamo-fascism! If it turns out to be bad this attack could dominate the news cycle until the weekend.