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Nine foreign hostages killed in Yemen

(Agencies)
Updated: 2009-06-15 23:48

SAN'A – Nine missing foreigners in Yemen have been murdered, said a Yemeni official Monday, apparently executed by their kidnappers in this country in the Arabian peninsula where al-Qaida has a strong presence.

Map of Yemen locating Saada. Seven out of nine foreigners taken hostage were found dead in northern Yemen on Monday, security officials said. [Agencies]

The nine foreigners, including seven German nationals, a Briton and a South Korean, disappeared last week while on a picnic in the restive northern Saada region of Yemen.

The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the press, announced the discovery of the remaining six bodies Monday after three others had been found mutilated earlier in the day.

Yemen, the poorest nation in the Middle East, is home to restive tribes, a Shiite rebellion, as well as a branch of al-Qaida which operates in its remote regions and has often targeted foreigners as well as the US embassy.

Shepherds roaming the area found the remains of three of the women in the mountainous northern Saada province near the town of el-Nashour, known as a hideout for al-Qaida militants, the official said.

In Berlin, the Foreign Ministry said it could not confirm the reports that the Germans had been killed. A spokesman, speaking on customary condition of anonymity, said that a ministry crisis team and the German embassy in San'a were working together to try and get more details.

Yemeni authorities said the group included a German doctor, his wife and their three children, as well as a Briton and his South Korean wife and two other German nationals. They were all working in a hospital in Saada, the state news agency said.

South Korea's Foreign Ministry identified their national by her family name, Eom, and said she is a 34-year-old aid worker in Yemen.

Chantel Mortimer, the press officer at the British Embassy, expressed concern and said that the embassy is seeking information about the rest of the hostages including the British one.

"We are very concerned that bodies were found. We are seeking further details," she said.

The killing of hostages is not common in Yemen, where tribesmen often kidnap foreigners to press the government on a range of demands, including a ransom, but usually release them unharmed. Kidnapping involving al-Qaida, however, have been lethal for the hostages in the past.

A tribal leader in the area, who also spoke on condition of anonymity for the same reason as the security official, blamed al-Qaida for the Friday abduction and the killing.

Yemen is the Arab world's poorest nation - and one of its most unstable - making it fertile territory for al-Qaida to set up camp. The country is also in a strategic location, next door to some of the world's most important oil producing nations. It also lies just across the Gulf of Aden from Somalia, an even more tumultuous nation where the US has said militants from the terror network have been increasing their activity.

Al-Qaida militants, including fighters returning from Afghanistan and Iraq, have established sanctuaries among a number of Yemeni tribes, particularly ones in three provinces bordering Saudi Arabia.

In January, militants announced the creation of al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula, a merger between the terror network's Yemeni and Saudi branches, led by Naser Abdel-Karim al-Wahishi, a Yemeni who was once a close aide to Osama bin Laden. Over the past year, al-Qaida has been blamed for a string of attacks, including an armed assault in September on the US Embassy in San'a, as well as two suicide bombings targeting South Korean visitors in March.

Earlier, the Yemeni government had accused a Shiite rebel group in Saada, led by Abdel Malak al-Hawthi, but the group issued a statement saying it has not been involved in any abductions of foreigners.