Yemeni Rebels Fire at U.S. Embassy

SANA, Yemen — A splinter group of Al Qaeda fired a rocket toward the United States Embassy in Sana on Saturday, wounding local guards. In a post on Twitter, the group said the attack was carried out to retaliate for what it said was an American drone strike in a northern province on Friday.

The rocket landed about 200 yards from the heavily fortified embassy, which is in a compound surrounded by high walls, wounding at least two members of the Yemeni special police force who guard the site, the police said.

The rocket was fired from an M72 light antitank weapon from a car before speeding away, a police official said.

Several hours after the attack, Ansar al-Shariah, an affiliate of Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, said on its Twitter account that it had targeted the embassy with a rocket, wounding several guards and damaging a vehicle.

The group said the attack was revenge for a drone strike on Friday that had seriously wounded children in the northern province of Al Jawf.

Tribal officials said a drone strike killed two Qaeda members and wounded two more in Al Jawf on Friday, and that there were reports of some children having been wounded.

The United States regularly uses drones to attack Islamist militants in countries like Yemen as part of a strategy to combat Qaeda militants without putting troops on the ground.

American officials acknowledge using drones in Yemen but do not comment publicly on the practice.

The United States Embassy in Yemen had said earlier on social media that it had no reason to believe that it was the target of the attack and that the Yemeni government was looking into the situation.

The attack came a day after the United States told its citizens to leave Yemen and said it was reducing the number of American government staff members there because of political unrest and fears of a possible military escalation.

President Abdu Rabbu Mansour Hadi has said Yemen may be heading for civil war.

In recent weeks there have been regular clashes between Shiite rebels and government forces in Sana, the capital. The rebels, known as the Houthis, seized control of the capital last week hours before the signing of an accord for the creation of a new government. Despite a declared cease-fire, clashes between the rebels and security forces in Sana have continued since the accord was signed.

Analysts have said that the Houthis’ control over the capital makes them the main power brokers in Yemen.

The embassy compound was stormed in 2012 by demonstrators angry at a film made in the United States that they saw as blasphemous.