Sanaa (Yemen): Three Yemeni policemen were killed and another four wounded today morning when a bomb exploded as they were parking their car in the city of Marib, witnesses and hospital sources said.

The blast occurred at the spot where the policemen parked every day in the city located around 170 kilometres east of the Yemeni capital Sanaa.

The vehicle was totally destroyed, the witnesses said. No further details were immediately available, but the blast was the latest in a series of recent attacks, including two targeting US interests and claimed by Al-Qaeda.

The US embassy in Sanaa said last week it was ordered by the State Department to evacuate non-essential personnel following the March 18 and April 6 attacks in the impoverished Arabian Peninsula state.

Al-Qaeda's branch in Yemen, which calls itself the Jund al-Yemen Brigades, claimed in an Internet statement to have targeted the embassy in the March 18 attack, in which a schoolgirl and a policeman were killed and 19 people wounded.

There were no casualties in the second attack, in which militants fired rockets at villas housing US oilmen in Sanaa and which was also claimed by A-Qaeda's Yemen wing.

In October 2000,Al-Qaeda targeted the navy destroyer USS Cole in the southern port of Aden, using a small boat packed with explosives to blow a hole in the side of the vessel, killing 17 American sailors.
Source : PTI