I shrugged off the attempted attack of the embassy here as a sad fringe making some noise. Now a similar attack has occurred against a housing compound that specializes in housing foreigners. That’s got me thinking… I mean, the first thing seemed like a political thing, this just reeks of “We don’t like you and you should leave.” I still believe that the vast majority of Yemenis like foreigners and are proud to have visitors to their country, but it only takes one nutjub with a mortar to really screw things up.
I still don’t feel like I’m in any particular danger. The two targets that have been attacked violate the first (and obvious) aspect of avoiding terrorist attacks, don’t congregate together! If they don’t like foreigners, their favorite target is going to be a bunch of them all in one location. The embassy is an obvious and unavoidable grouping of Americans. But living all together in a walled compound just screams out “BOMB ME! YOU HATE ME DON’T YOU? I OBVIOUSLY DON”T TRUST YOU. SEE MY SECURITY GUARDS AND HIGH WALL?” I spend my day surrounded by Yemenis, I live in the old city, I ride the public transportation, and I teach them. If they want to target me, they’re going to take out a bunch of locals as well. Keep in mind that this latest attack was just as incompetent as the first one, no one was injured.
Like I said before, I don’t really feel like I’m in any danger, but I don’t like the feel of this latest attack…