SANAA, March 18 (Reuters) - Yemen said 13 girls and five soldiers were injured in a mortar attack on a school near the U.S. embassy on Tuesday and Washington said its mission had been the target.

President Ali Abdullah Saleh described the perpetrators as "terrorists" and offered a reward for information leading to their arrest, the official Saba news agency reported.

"This ugly terrorist criminal act contradicts the refined teachings of the Islamic religion," Saba quoted Saleh as saying. "Terrorist and criminals will not escape punishment ..."

"Our conversations in Yemen have led us to the conclusion that the attack was directed at our embassy," U.S. State Department spokeswoman Julie Reside said in Washington.

Saba, which said the school was located near the heavily guarded embassy compound, reported that three of the girls had received serious injuries.

U.S. State Department spokesman Tom Casey said earlier the embassy, which closed after the incident, had not been hit and there were no injuries to U.S. personnel or citizens.

Five Yemeni soldiers were wounded in a bomb attack on a government compound in the southern province of Abyan earlier on Tuesday.

Yemen, the ancestral home of Osama bin Laden is viewed in the West as a haven for Islamic militants, dozens of whom are jailed in the Arabian Peninsula country for involvement in bombings of Western targets and clashes with authorities.

Yemen, which joined the U.S.-led war on terrorism after the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks on U.S. cities, has also witnessed a number of militant attacks targeting foreign tourists, oil installations and U.S. and French ships. (Reporting by Mohamed Sudam; additional reporting by Washington bureau; writing by Inal Ersan)

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