Yemeni al Qaeda says attack on hospital was mistake
Source: Reuters
(Reuters) - Al Qaeda's wing in Yemen blamed a renegade fighter for targeting medics and patients in a military hospital during its attack on the Defence Ministry compound in Sanaa earlier this month, it said in a statement released on Saturday.
"We do not fight in this way, and this not what we call on people to do, and this is not our approach," it said in the statement, adding it had warned its fighters not to attack the hospital.
The killing of unarmed medics and patients, captured on closed-circuit television footage and broadcast by state media, caused widespread outrage in Yemen, where al Qaeda has portrayed itself as fighting for normal people against foreign drone strikes.
Al Qaeda's offshoot Ansar al-Sharia (Partisans of Islamic Law) claimed responsibility earlier this month for the December 5 assault in which at least 52 people were killed, the worst such attack in Yemen for 18 months.
Read more: http://uk.reuters.com/article/2013/12/22/uk-yemen-alqaeda-idUKBRE9BL01D20131222
Al-Qaida in Yemen apologizes for hospital attack
CAIRO (AP) -- In a rare public apology, the militant leader of al-Qaida's branch in Yemen has said that one of his fighters disobeyed orders and attacked a hospital attached to the Defense Ministry during a December assault that killed 52 people.
Qassim al-Rimi, commander of al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula, said in a video posted on militant websites that the attackers were warned in advance not to enter the hospital within the complex, nor a place for prayer there. But he said one fighter did.
"Now we acknowledge our mistake and guilt," al-Rimi said in a video released late Saturday by al-Qaida's media arm al-Mallahem. "We offer our apology and condolences to the victims' families. We accept full responsibility for what happened in the hospital and will pay blood money for the victims' families."
The apology seemed prompted by Yemen state television earlier broadcasting a video showing a gunman attacking doctors and other hospital staff. Several al-Qaida jihadis tried to dismiss the video as fake on militant websites, but the outcry apparently embarrassed the al-Qaida branch to the point of issuing an unusual expression of regret from the group.
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