2008 attack on the United States embassy in Sanaa

On September 17, 2008, an armed attack was carried out against the embassy of the United States in Sanaa, the capital of Yemen. Seven militants travelling in two car bombs attempted to enter the compound through the main gate by masquerading as a Yemeni government delegation. At 9:13 a.m. they arrived at an exterior checkpoint to the main entrance, but their plan was foiled after a guard had closed the drop bar in front of the main gate and sounded the alarm. Instead of blowing up the gate, the first vehicle was rammed into a nearby military technical, while the second one later attempted to breach the exterior wall but failed. Three gunmen controlled the entrance area and fired into the compound and at Yemeni security forces across the street before they had all died by approximately 9:55 a.m.

A total of 20 people were killed and 10 were wounded, making it the deadliest attack on a US government facility outside of a country at war since the September 11 attacks. The only US citizen harmed was Susan Elbaneh, a Yemeni American woman who was killed alongside her husband as they waited in line outside the embassy. Responsibility for the attack was claimed by al-Qaeda in the South of the Arabian Peninsula (AQSAP) in November, which said the attackers had all attended a mosque together and that multiple of them had attempted to join the Iraqi insurgency before deciding on an attack in Yemen.

Officials from the Federal Bureau of Investigation worked with Yemeni authorities to investigate the attack. It was quickly linked to al-Qaeda, with AQSAP leader Nasir al-Wuhayshi being labelled its alleged mastermind and the perpetrators being linked to local terror camps. The investigation eventually stalled, although Yemen tried six people who falsely claimed the attack under the "Islamic Jihad in Yemen" for alleged collaboration with Israel and sentenced three. In 2015, a man who claimed to be an AQSAP informant at the time accused the Yemeni government of being complicit in the attack and secretly providing it support.

In response to the attack, US officials, including President George W. Bush, urged the Yemeni government to address concerns relating to counterterrorism. Analysts viewed the attack, described as sophisticated and unprecedented, as indicative of a resurgence of the al-Qaeda presence in Yemen. Retrospectively it has been considered "a landmark operation in the history of jihadism in Yemen". The country was thereon prioritized by the Barack Obama administration; when the embassy again was targeted in an attack plot in 2009, Obama authorized military intervention to neutralize the threat.