British hostage one of nine feared murdered by al-Qaeda in Yemen

Published on Monday 15 June 2009 22:47

A BRITON is among nine foreign hostages – three of them children – reported to have been killed by al-Qaeda terrorists in Yemen.

The engineer, who has not been named, and his South Korean wife had disappeared with seven Germans last week while on a picnic in the northern Saada region of the troubled Middle East country.

It was initially reported they had been seized by Shiite rebels. However, there were subsequent claims that al-Qaeda-linked groups were involved.

A Yemeni security official said yesterday that all nine had now been found dead.

A spokeswoman for the Foreign Office last night said: "We are very concerned about reports bodies have been found. We are urgently investigating."

Yemen, one of the poorest nations in the Middle East, is home to dissident tribes and a Shiite rebellion, as well as a division of al-Qaeda which operates in its remote regions and has often targeted foreigners.

The Foreign Office could not confirm the identity of the missing British man.

Officials announced on Sunday they were looking into reports that the group had been kidnapped.

A spokeswoman said: "We can confirm we have received reports of one British national, with a number of foreign nationals, being kidnapped in Yemen."

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

A tribal leader in the area blamed al-Qaeda for the abduction and the killing. However, the Yemeni government blamed a local Shia rebel group, led by Abdulmalik al-Houthi, for the kidnapping.

The group has fought a sporadic insurgency in the Zaidi Shia heartland between the capital, Sana'a, and the border with Saudi Arabia.

In Berlin, the foreign ministry said it could not confirm the reports the Germans had been killed. A spokesman said a ministry crisis team and the German embassy in San'a were working together to try to 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 was a 34-year-old aid worker in Yemen.

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.

Kidnappings involving al-Qaeda, however, have been lethal for the hostages in the past.

In March, four South Korean tourists in Yemen died in an apparent suicide bombing blamed on al-Qaeda.

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.

Yemen, the ancestral homeland of al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, has long been a haven for Islamic militants and was the scene of the October 2000 suicide bombing of the USS Cole that killed 17 American sailors.

In addition to its poverty, Yemen is one of the Arab world's most unstable nations – making it fertile territory for al-Qaeda.

TURBULENT PAST

YEMEN has been at the crossroads of Africa, the Middle East and Asia for thousands of years, because of its position on the ancient spice routes.

The modern Republic of Yemen was born in 1990 when traditionalist North Yemen and Marxist South Yemen merged after years of border wars, but tensions persist between the north and the south.

Hundreds have been killed in a recent uprising in the north-west among members of the region's Zaidi sect, a branch of Shia Islam in the mainly Sunni country. The president has accused the rebels of trying to overthrow the government.