Qaida Says Tried to Kill U.S. Ambassador to Yemen

Al-Qaida said Saturday it had tried to assassinate the U.S. ambassador to Yemen with two bombs that were discovered minutes before they were due to explode.

The explosives were planted Thursday outside the house of President Abdrabuh Mansur Hadi, the media arm of al-Qaida's Yemen branch said in a statement posted on Twitter.

They were intended to be detonated when Ambassador Matthew Tueller left following a roughly hour-long visit to the house in the Yemeni capital Sanaa, it said.

There was no official confirmation of the failed plot.

Yemen is a key U.S. ally in the fight against al-Qaida, allowing Washington to conduct a longstanding drone war against the group on its territory.

The United States considers Al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) to be the most dangerous arm of the jihadist organization.

AQAP was born out of a 2009 merger of its franchises in al-Qaida founder Osama bin Laden's native Saudi Arabia and his ancestral homeland in Yemen.

The group has exploited instability in impoverished Yemen since a 2011 uprising overthrew president Ali Abdullah Saleh.