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SAN'A, Yemen - Exactly one month before the bombing that would take her life, a young Yemeni-American left an upstate New York city with her trousseau and wedding dress to marry a man she'd never met and eventually settle down in the ancestral country she'd never visited.

During the trip, 18-year-old Susan Elbaneh was happy and excited at the prospect of starting a new life, her brother Muhammad Elbaneh recalled. The last image he has of his sister is of her laughing while sharing with her relatives in Yemen a film of her bridal shower in the U.S.

"When we left the U.S., it didn't even cross my mind that something like that would happen," he said. "It was a total shock for everybody. My mom couldn't believe it until she saw the body."

Susan Elbaneh was the only American among 19 people killed in Wednesday's attack on the U.S. Embassy. The dead included six militants. Because the attackers could not breach the embassy walls, those killed and injured were outside the compound, like Elbaneh and husband Abdul-Jalil al-Jibli.

Al-Jibli's sister, who was with the couple, survived because she was closer to the embassy wall, Muhammad Elbaneh said.

Susan Elbaneh was the cousin of terrorism suspect Jabr Elbaneh, wanted in the United States as the seventh member of the "Lackawanna Six" a group of Yemeni-American men who trained with al-Qaida in Afghanistan.

The family says she never met her cousin, however, and a senior counterterrorism official in Washington said neither she nor her husband were involved in the attack, although they are still checking. He spoke on condition of anonymity because the investigation is ongoing.

Although Susan Elbaneh's relatives in Lackawanna say the couple was at the embassy to fill out paperwork for the husband's move to the United States, Muhammad Elbaneh said the two had no plans to move there and that his sister wanted to return to finish high school and return to Yemen.

Muhammad Elbaneh said al-Jibli had offered to accompany his sister, who does not speak English, to the embassy in case she needed help communicating with officials while applying for a visa for one of her children. Once there, al-Jibli's sister left the couple to inquire about visa procedures.

The embassy says the mission was not open for visas that day but it's not unusual for visa-seekers to show up on such days.

At the home of their relatives, Muhammad Elbaneh and his mother have to deal with another painful issue that adds to their grief: Yemeni authorities have refused to release the couple's bodies, telling family members they will do so only when the investigation is over.

"All we want is to have a respectful burial for her and her husband, bury them together, side by side," said Muhammad Elbaneh, losing his composure.

Asked whether the fact that his sister was a cousin of terror suspect Jaber Elbaneh played a part, he said: "I don't see why."

He said Susan Elbaneh had never met her cousin.

Muhammad Elbaneh, a 20-year-old college student, said the last time he had seen the man was when he was a kid. Jaber Elbaneh did not return to Lackawanna after allegedly training with al-Qaida and was later convicted of planning attacks on oil installations in Yemen.

"There's no way" his sister could have been involved in the attack, he said.

When asked whether Yemeni investigators had found anything linking the couple to the attack, Yemeni Foreign Minister Abubakr al-Qirbi told The Associated Press: "Investigators will look at every detail of the case, but there's no indication they were involved."

Muhammad Elbaneh said the U.S. Embassy got in touch with him the day after the attack to inform him of his sister's death and asked to meet him. He went on Saturday.

"They asked what they could do to help and if we wanted to have the body sent back to the States," he said. "They showed a lot of respect and promised to get in touch with authorities and ask why they are holding the bodies."

Muhammad Elbaneh said his sister agreed to marry al-Jibli without meeting him, a practice not uncommon among conservative Muslim families living in the West.

When Muhammad Elbaneh, his sister, mother, aunt and two cousins arrived in Yemen Aug. 19, they found al-Jibli waiting for them at San'a airport. It was the first time that Susan Elbaneh, who wore the black cloak and headcover most Yemeni women wear in public, had laid eyes on her future husband, a pharmacy student who worked as a taxi driver to make ends meet.

The day before the attack, the newlyweds, an aunt and a cousin traveled the 130-mile distance to San'a from the village of al-Jibn in central Yemen where the couple settled so they could be at the embassy early the next day.

Susan Elbaneh and her husband checked into a hotel but spent the evening at her grandfather's house, where family members watched the film of her bridal shower.

"She told me she was really happy, enjoying life," said Muhammad Elbaneh.