- Reaction score
- 0
- Points
- 360
And those Al Qaeda scum strike again.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090615/ap_on_re_mi_ea/ml_yemen_kidnapping
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090615/ap_on_re_mi_ea/ml_yemen_kidnapping
By AHMED AL-HAJ, Associated Press Writer Ahmed Al-haj, Associated Press Writer – 27 mins ago
SAN'A, Yemen – Shepherds found the mutilated bodies on Monday of two German nurses and a South Korean teacher who were kidnapped while picnicking in an area of Yemen known as a hideout for al-Qaida.
Experts said the killings bore the hallmarks not of local tribesmen but of jihadist militants who had returned home after fighting in conflicts in Afghanistan, Iraq and elsewhere.
The dead women disappeared in the remote northern province of Saada Friday while on an outing with six other foreigners, including a German doctor, his wife and their three young children. The whereabouts of the six were unknown, the Yemeni government said.
Yemeni authorities announced a state of high alert in the area and were "conducting extensive searches and investigations," according to a government statement. Besides the German family, a British man was also missing. They all worked for World Wide Services Foundation, a Dutch aid group helping with medical care in the province.
The incident is the latest attack against foreigners in this impoverished Arab nation on the tip of the Arabian peninsula where al-Qaida has a firm foothold in its remote areas.
The government blamed the kidnapping on a Shiite rebel group that has been leading an uprising in the province for the past several years, but the group denied it had anything to do with it. Initially, Yemeni security officials had reported all nine were killed, but the government later said six were still missing.
Nearly all past fatal attacks against foreigners in Yemen have been by Islamist militants.
(...)
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 U.S. has said militants from the terror network have been increasing their activity.