Key dates in the rise of extremist attacks in Yemen:
1992
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- Dec 12: In the the first known Al-Qaeda attack in the country, bombers strike a hotel which formerly housed US Marines in the southern port of Aden. Two non-American citizens die.
2000
- Oct 12: 17 US military personnel killed in an Al-Qaeda suicide attack on the USS destroyer Cole at Aden port.
2002
- Oct 6: The French tanker Limburg is damaged by a bomb-laden boat in the southeast port of Ash-Shir, killing a Bulgarian sailor. Al-Qaeda claims responsibility.
2007
- July 2: Eight Spanish tourists and two local drivers are killed by a car bomb at a historic site in Marib, east Yemen.
2008
- Sept 17: 19 people are killed, including seven attackers, in a double car bomb attack outside the US embassy in the capital Sanaa. None of the dead or injured are Americans.
2009
- Jan: Saudi and Yemeni Al-Qaeda branches announce they have merged to form the Yemen-based Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP).
- Dec 25: Nigerian Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab allegedly tries to explode a bomb on a Detroit-bound US airliner. Three days later the attempted bombing is claimed by AQAP.
2010
- August 20-25: The army regains control of Loder (in Abyan) after fighting with men linked to al-Qaeda.
- Nov 5: AQAP claims responsibility for a plot to send parcel bombs to the United States and for the September downing of a UPS cargo plane.
2011
- May 29: Hundreds of suspected Al-Qaeda gunmen wrest control of the south Yemen city of Zinjibar and move on to extend their control to other parts of the province and neighbouring Shabwa province. Zinjibar remains in Al-Qaeda's hands and almost daily fighting since then has left hundreds dead on both sides.
- July 26: AQAP chief Nasser al-Wuhayshi reaffirms his group's allegiance to the head of the worldwide Al-Qaeda network, Ayman al-Zawahiri.
- Sept 30: Prominent US-born Al-Qaeda-linked cleric Anwar al-Awlaqi killed in a US air raid.
2012
- Jan 16: Al-Qaeda overruns the town of Rada, after consolidating its presence in the south and the east. It bows to tribal pressure nine days later and withdraws from the town.
- Feb 25: A suicide attack on a presidential palace in southeast Yemen kills 26 Republican Guards, on the same day that Abdrabuh Mansur Hadi takes the oath as Yemen's new president. Al-Qaeda claims responsibility for the attack.
- March 4: 185 soldiers are killed in Yemen in clashes with Al-Qaeda gunmen on the outskirts of Zinjibar. Twenty-five of the Al-Qaeda assailants also die.
- March 18: A US man working for a development agency is murdered in the town of Mukalla. Al-Qaeda claims responsibility.
- March 31: AQAP claims responsibility for blowing up a gas pipeline in southern Yemen. The next day, some 40 people die in fighting between government troops and rebels in the region.
- April 9: At least 60 people killed when Al-Qaeda militants raid a barracks in Loder in Abyan province.
