On 26 April 2010, a suicide bomber attempted to assassinate Timothy Torlot, the ambassador of the United Kingdom to Yemen, as he was heading to the British embassy in the Yemeni capital of Sanaa. The bomber, identified as 22-year-old Othman Ali Nouman al-Salawi, disguised himself as a student and waited along a busy street which led to the embassy. As Torlot's two-vehicle convoy arrived and slowed down along the street, Salawi ran up to them and detonated a hidden explosive belt, killing himself but narrowly missing Torlot's car as he was too slow in reaching it. Torlot and his security escort escaped unharmed, while three bystanders suffered mild injuries.
The assassination attempt was claimed by al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) as a response to the UK's growing support for the Yemeni government. Yemeni authorities arrested and charged a group of four militants for involvement in the attack. The British embassy was temporarily closed, while Foreign Secretary David Miliband condemned it. The attack was noted as the first by AQAP within the capital in over a year, possibly serving to demonstrate its continued threat in the face of intensified local counterterrorism operations since the previous year.
Background
At the end of 2009, al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) came to international prominence for conducting a failed bombing attempt on Northwest Airlines Flight 253, a passenger jet heading to the United States.[1] In the aftermath of the attack, numerous Western governments began signalling increased support for Yemen to combat the threat posed by the group. Among them was the United Kingdom, which had historically provided training for Yemeni special forces.[2] In response to the attempted bombing, Prime Minister Gordon Brown hosted an international conference in London centered on Yemen. The conference led to the establishment of Friends of Yemen, an international contact group led by the UK centered on financial support for the country.[2][3]
In Sanaa, the months preceding the assassination attempt saw little violence,[2] despite an AQAP threat earlier in the year to conduct a major attack in the capital.[1] The group previously perpetrated several attacks on foreign and diplomatic targets in Sanaa, most prominently an assault on the US embassy in September 2008 which left 16 people dead.[4] Their last attack in Sanaa was in March 2009 against a South Korean delegation. In December of that year, local security forces disrupted an AQAP cell in Arhab which was planning to conduct an attack on British embassy similar to the one on the American embassy. Both embassies were later closed for a brief period in January 2010 due to threats of attacks on local Western interests.[5] Yemen's Ministry of Interior announced on 16 April that foreign embassies would undergo heightened security protocols.[6]
After the Friends of Yemen conference, Nasir al-Wuhayshi, the leader of AQAP, approved a plan for another attack against a local British target in Yemen as the American diplomatic presence had adopted significant security measures. His focus came upon British ambassador Timothy Torlot as he, unlike other local diplomats, lived away from the embassy compound and commuted to work every day via motorcade.[7] The embassy itself may have been ruled out for a potential attack due to its own layers of protection.[3] Torlot, the ambassador to Yemen since July 2007, had experience in threat-stricken nations as a former deputy-ambassador in Iraq,[2] and according to GlobalPost, "was known as a hands-on diplomat and one of the few in Yemen who still ventured outside protected compounds."[8] As a security precaution, he commonly differentiated the time at which he left his home for the British embassy and the route he took to it.[9]
Attack
Naqm, the neighbourhood of Sanaa where the assassination attempt took place.
On the morning of 26 April 2010, AQAP suicide bomber Othman al-Salwai headed out in Sanaa to assassinate Torlot as he commuted to the British embassy.[7] He reportedly got out of a black vehicle with tinted windows in Sanaa's eastern Naqm neighbourhood five minutes before the attack took place, approximately 600 meters away from the embassy.[10] Naqm is noted as a largely residential area with several governmental and diplomatic offices,[8] as well as an impoverished part of the city which contains a significant amount of militants.[11]
Stratfor determined that as he waited for Torlot, the bomber "was positioned approximately 10 feet above on the opposite road of the two-way, one-lane Berlin Street",[9] adjacent to the Berlin Garden and an abandoned gas station.[1][8] Authorities believed that he was attempting to disguise himself as an ordinary student,[11] wearing a tracksuit with trainers and a backpack.[6] Underneath his brightly-coloured tracksuit was a suicide belt.[12][8]
Torlot took the same route to the embassy as where the bomber was positioned.[9] At around 08:00 local time, Torlot's vehicle and a police car in front escorting him decelerated in an open part of Berlin Street as they neared a bend.[12][9][7] Upon their approach, the bomber dropped down from the adjacent elevated street and ran towards the convoy on Berlin Street along the side with a concrete half wall,[9][12] possibly intending to use the surface as a means of directing the blast towards the vehicles.[8]
As the police escort drove up to him, Salawi detonated his explosives.[12] British officials described the explosion as "small".[11] It rocked the two vehicles and lightly damaged the police convoy,[7][5] while the windows of nearby buildings were shattered and concrete in a 10 ft-wide radius of the site was burnt. The bomber's remains were sent scattered across the area.[8]
The bomber failed to assassinate Torlot as he was slightly too slow in reaching his vehicle before the device detonated.[5][2][8] Witnesses told The Guardian that "the explosion went off before the convoy passed and that an armoured vehicle with diplomatic plates and with its windscreen shattered was seen driving away against the traffic."[6] Torlot was confirmed to have escaped unharmed.[2] Three bystanders, including a woman, suffered non-serious injuries and were treated at a hospital.[13]
Responsibility
The assassination attempt initially went unclaimed, though it was widely believed to have been conducted by AQAP. SITE Intelligence Group reported on 11 May that AQAP had claimed responsibility for the attack in a statement posted on jihadist forums, confirming that they had targeted Torlot, who they referred to as "the so-called British ambassador, who leads the war against Muslims in the Arabian Peninsula on behalf of his state." It proclaimed that "Britain is America's closest ally in its war on Islam, and it is the one which called the London conference, in which it plotted against the Arabian Peninsula," and also condemned the UK for its role in the establishment of Israel.[14] It also confirmed the identity of the bomber and attributed him to the "Sheikh Abu Omar al-Baghdadi" brigade.[15]
Perpetrator
The suicide bomber who tried to kill Torlot was quickly identified by authorities as Othman Ali Nouman al-Salawi, a 22-year-old Yemeni from Taiz.[2] Salawi was the son of a construction contractor, and had an ordinary and happy upbringing according to his father.[2] He studied at a religious institute in Sanaa in the late 1990s, left due to a loss of interest before returning in 2001 after the 9/11 attacks for an additional two years. At the institution, he met a returned fighter from Iraq, who influenced him in joining a group of Yemenis preparing to travel to the country to participate in the insurgency.[7] Before they could do so, the group of eight was arrested by Yemeni security forces and imprisoned for two years.[16] There, Salawi came in contact with incarcerated al-Qaeda militants such as Wuhayshi and Fawaz al-Rabeiee, who indoctrinated him among other prisoners with a "training camp of the mind" through their knowledge from Afghanistan.[7]
Salawi's father said that through his vouching, more than a year prior to the attack, Salawi was released from prison on conditions that he would live with his parents, remain in regular contact with authorities, and attend school.[13][17] A friend recalled that Salawi's demeanor had changed after his release, refraining from his previous Salafi extremist views. He started studying at the al-Saeed Engineering Institute, where he ranked first in his class, and became engaged. In mid-March 2010, Salawi disappeared without a trace, eventually finding his way to Sanaa without the knowledge of his relatives.[13] Authorities believed that during this period, he prepared to conduct the attack on the orders of AQAP,[17] attending a training camp in Marib Governorate.[2]
Investigation
Soon after the attack, security forces cordoned off the scene and an investigation was launched, with the Ministry of Interior later sending in additional police units and investigators.[18] Forensics officers were photographed combing the area.[6] Authorities and investigators had left the scene by noon.[8] Salawi's intact head, found on a rooftop around 20 to 60 metres away from the site,[11][5] was collected and a photograph of it was shown to his father during the day, who confirmed his identity.[17]
Dozens of suspects were reportedly detained by Yemeni authorities after the attack, including seven men previously incarcerated alongside Salawi.[16] Interrogators questioned several former terrorism offenders, but all of them were let go of afterwards.[13] A Yemeni interior ministry official denied reports of any arrests taking place on 27 April, but said that authorities were intensifying the search for wanted AQAP suspects in Sanaa.[19] Interior minister Mutaher al-Masri announced two days later that security forces had arrested the "masterminds" of the attack, without identifying them.[20]
A Ministry of Defense statement on 24 June declared that four unnamed individuals; two Yemenis along with a German and an Iraqi national, had been arrested and being questioned by prosecutors in relation to the bombing.[21] The group was charged by a Yemeni court on 20 September for plotting terrorist attacks in Yemen, operating AQAP networks in Marib,[22] and for training alongside Salawi.[23] All of them rejected the charges. The group, aged between 15 and 22, included 16-year-old Rami Hans Harman, who claimed to be born to a Yemeni mother and German father. The Federal Foreign Office of Germany did not initially confirm his nationality, but was monitoring the case regardless.[24]
Aftermath
Response
The attack was condemned by British foreign secretary David Miliband.
"The tragedy of this kind of attack is the impact on the people of Yemen... What happened today will essentially make fewer job opportunities for the many young Yemenis who are looking for work."
The British embassy in Sanaa issued a statement confirming the attack and announcing a temporary closure to the public. It suggested "all British nationals in Yemen to keep a low profile and remain vigilant."[5] Embassy spokeswoman Chantel Mortimer said it would not affect the British government's goal of spending at least £100 million to bolster economic development in Yemen by the end of 2010, but said that insecurity hindered progress in the country and that "young Yemenis are the ones who are hurt most by attacks like today's."[6] UK Foreign Secretary David Miliband condemned the attack and reiterated the UK's support for the Yemeni government in fighting terrorism.[2]
Yemeni presidential advisor Abdul-Karim Al-Iryani called the attack "one of the most serious acts of terrorism to have happened in Yemen", referring to the gravity of an assassination attempt on a foreign diplomat, and reiterated the government's determination towards fighting AQAP.[6] A newspaper associated with Yemen's defense ministry, 26 September Net, hosted a statement issued by the Ministry of Interior regarding the attack, which claimed it "reflects the state of despair which has hit the terrorists after the painful pre-emptive strikes which they received in their hide-outs at the hands of security services."[10] A statement by the Yemeni embassy in Washington, D.C., claimed the bombing may have been in response to an operation undertaken by Yemeni security forces in Hodeidah on 18 April which left two militants dead.[25]
The US embassy issued a statement on 1 May advising staff to avoid the Movenpick Hotel, a popular establishment among Westerners in Sanaa, as part of increased security procedures in the midst of the attack.[26] The British embassy reopened itself to the public on 9 May.[27]
Analysis
Analysts and observers interpreted the attack, the first in the capital in over a year and against a high-profile Westerner, as a signal of AQAP's continued threat in Yemen.[28][25]Bernard Haykel, professor of Near Eastern Studies at Princeton University, believed the assassination could have been a major victory for AQAP if successful, and that the group was "clearly looking for symbolically important targets to make a statement."[8] Jonathan Rugman of Channel 4 News said AQAP may have also intended for the attack to ward off inward investment, which could be perceived as a threat to the appeal of militancy.[3][12] Foreign development workers lamented that the attack would likely lead to further security protocols placed on them regarding movement and interaction with locals, making their projects more difficult.[12]
Theodore Karasik of the Institute for Near East and Gulf Military Analysis believed the attack would be the first in "a new campaign of targeted assassinations".[28] Gregory D. Johnsen, a Yemen expert at Princeton, noted that AQAP had been weakened from months of counterterrorism operations, and said that whether the assassination attempt was an isolated incident or the beginning of a larger campaign would allow for a proper assessment of the US-Yemeni operations against the group.[8]
BBC Middle East editor Jeremy Bowen queried about "the degree of organisation behind the attempted assassination."[2] Writing for the Combating Terrorism Center, analyst Christopher Boucek noted the similarity of the assassination attempt to the attack on the South Korean convoy in 2009. He wrote that "In both incidents, the attackers knew their targets' vehicles, routes and schedules, suggesting a level of prior knowledge. These attacks were especially concerning due to the heightened sense of vulnerability and exposure that comes with sitting in traffic in Sanaa."[29] An assessment from Stratfor concluded that the failure of the attack "demonstrates the difficulty of effectively neutralizing a target in motion, particularly for a poorly trained or inexperienced operative."[9]
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Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula 
