Apology from al-Qaeda for Yemen hospital attack In a rare move, Al Qaeda militants have claimed full res ponsibility for an attack on Yemen's defence ministry and have apologised for opening fire in a hospital inside the complex killing 52 people. In a video posted online, al Qaeda commander in the Arabian Peninsula, Qassim Ar-Reimy said: "We confess to this mistake and offer our apologies and condolences to the families of the victims. We did not want your lost ones, we did not target them on purpose. This is neither our religion nor our morals. We accept full responsibility for what happened in the hospital. Al Qaeda's offshoot Ansar al-Sharia had already claimed responsibility for the attack on December 5 and said it carried out the assault on the compound because it believed that it housed an operations room for US drone strikes against Islamist militants. Al-Qaeda has suffered heavy losses as a result of a joint US-Yemeni campaign against a group which Washington has called the most dangerous branch of the "global terrorist network."