SANAA — Key dates in the rise of extremist attacks in Yemen since 1992 as US missions across the Middle East and Africa close amid intelligence fears of a major Al-Qaeda attack:
1992
– December 12: Al-Qaeda carries out its first know attack in yemen, striking a hotel in the southern city of Aden that houses US troops headed for Somalia. A Yemeni and an Austrian are killed.
2000
– October 12: 17 US military personnel killed in suicide attack on the USS destroyer Cole in the Yemeni port of Aden.
2002
– October 6: The French-owned oil tanker Limburg is damaged by a bomb-laden boat off the Yemeni coast, killing a Bulgarian sailor. Al-Qaeda claims responsibility.
2007
– July 2: Car bomb in Marib eastern Yemen kills eight Spanish tourists and two local drivers.
2008
– September 17: Two car bomb attacks outside the US embassy in Sanaa kills 19 people, seven of them assailants. There are no Americans casualties.
2009
– January: Saudi and Yemeni Al-Qaeda branches announce they have merged to form the Yemen-based Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP).
– December 25: Foiled bid by Nigerian Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab to blow up a US airliner, an attempt claimed by AQAP.
2010
– November 5: AQAP claims responsibility for sending parcel bombs to the US, two months after placing a bomb aboard a UPS cargo plane that crashed in Dubai, killing the two pilots.
2011
– May 29: Hundreds of suspected Al-Qaeda gunmen wrest control of the southern city of Zinjibar as they extend their control to other parts of the region.
– September 30: US-born cleric Anwar al-Awlaqi, a key AQAP figure, is killed in a US drone strike in Yemen. The group’s media chief and Awlaqi’s son are killed in similar raids two weeks later.
2012
– February 25: 26 Republican Guards are killed in a suicide attack in the southeast as Abdrabuh Mansur Hadi is sworn in as Yemen’s new president. Al-Qaeda claims responsibility.
– March 4: 185 government soldiers and 25 Al-Qaeda militants killed in clashes on the outskirts of Zinjibar.
– April 9-14: At least 222 people die, 183 of them from Al-Qaeda, when the group attacks a barracks in Loder, southern Yemen.
– May 6: Fahd al-Quso, a Yemeni Al-Qaeda leader suspected of helping to mount the attack on the USS Cole, is killed in an air raid.
– May-June: The army launches an offensive against AQAP in the province of Abyane. More than 560 people die in the fighting.
2013
– July 17: AQAP confirms the death in a US drone strike of deputy leader Saeed al-Shehri.
– August 4: Security is beefed up around western embassies in Sana, and some close following warnings by Washington of an imminent attack.
