Sanaa: Al-Qaeda wing in Yemen has said it targeted the US embassy in Sanaa in an attack that hit a nearby school in the country's capital, a monitoring group has said.

In a statement posted on an Islamist militant website, the group which calls itself Jund Al-Yemen Brigades said it "launched five mortar shells at the American embassy in Sanaa," a reference to a March 18 attack that struck a girls school near the embassy, the US-based SITE Intelligence Group said yesterday.

SITE, which monitors militant websites, said the statement did not give a date for the attack but acknowledged that one shell missed the target and hit the neighbouring school.

A Yemeni security official was quoted by a local newspaper on Saturday as saying that Al-Qaeda was behind the attack.

A schoolgirl and a policeman were killed and 19 people were wounded in the attack which Washington said targeted the US embassy.

One of the world's poorest countries, Yemen is awash with weapons and is the ancestral homeland of Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden.

Al-Qaeda claimed responsibility for a suicide attack in October 2000 that killed 17 US sailors on the destroyer USS Cole in the southern port of Aden.

Jund al-Yemen Brigades had claimed responsibility for previous attacks on Belgian and Spanish tourists in Yemen.

Source : PTI