By Robert Windrem, NBC News Producer
Today's attack on the U.S. embassy in Sana'a, Yemen, is the latest in what U.S. officials call a worrisome uptick in terrorist attacks on diplomatic facilities worldwide. There have been four other attacks on embassies belonging to the U.S. or its allies, this year alone.
Adam Gadahn, the American-born al-Qaida spokesman, warned last August that embassies no longer have immunity from attacks by militants. In the August 2007 video, "The Will of the Matyr Hafiz Usman," Gadahn warned, "The concept of immunity for embassies and consulates provided for by the international infidel law of the United Nations has no place at all in Islamic law." He goes on, ""Law and logic tells us that these criminals and subversive elements have no place among the Muslims."
Today's attack killed at least 16 people, after car bombers wearing military uniforms attacked the U.S. Embassy in Yemen. Here are the details of the four most recent attacks on embassies belonging to the United States and its allies:
February 1, 2008, Mauritania:
Unidentified gunmen from al-Qaida in the Land of the Islamic Maghreb open fire on the Israeli Embassy in Nouakchott, Mauritania. Five people, including French citizens, are wounded.
March 18, 2008, Yemen:
Two mortar rounds that were meant for the U.S. Embassy in Yemen crashed into a school next door, killing a student and injuring many more, an Interior Ministry official said.
June 2, 2008, Pakistan:
A car bomb detonates outside the Danish Embassy in Islamabad. Officials said at least six people--including two policemen--were killed and 35 people were wounded in the blast. One of the victims of the bombing could have had Danish citizenship. The bombing follows a warning by Osama Bin Laden that militants were prepared to respond to a Danish cartoonists' caricature of Mohammed.
July 7, 2008, Afghanistan:
A car bomb ripped through the front wall of the Indian Embassy in central Kabul, killing 40 people in what appeared to be the deadliest attack in Afghanistan's capital since the fall of the Taliban, officials said. The massive explosion detonated by a suicide bomber damaged two embassy vehicles entering the compound, near where dozens of Afghan men line up every morning to apply for visas.
