US army instructor shot at in Yemen, Qaeda suspected

A US military instructor helping train Yemeni coastguards was shot and in critical condition after an attack by unidentified assailants in the Red Sea city of Hudaida on Sunday, a Yemeni security source said.

The source said two other US instructors, who were travelling in the same car, were not hurt in the attack, which happened before noon on the group’s journey to work.

“A number of militants from suspected al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula opened fire on a group of US counterterrorism experts when they were training Yemeni coastal guards in the western port city of al-Hodayda,” a Yemeni security official told Xinhua.

A caller told Reuters by telephone — not the group’s usual method of communication — that the al Qaeda-linked Ansar al-Sharia group was behind the attack.

The gunmen were travelling by car and they hit one of the Americans, the Yemeni security source said. Officials at the US embassy in Sanaa said they were checking the report. US military instructors are helping train the Yemeni forces, who are battlling al-Qaeda-linked militants in the south.

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