Yemeni rebels kidnap nine foreigners

CIA warns Yemen could become a base for al-Qa'ida fighters leaving Pakistan

By Kim Sengupta, Defence Correspondent

Monday, 15 June 2009

A British man is believed to be among nine foreigners, including women and children, taken hostage by gunmen in Yemen while on a picnic in a remote part of the country.

Seven of those kidnapped are said to be Germans, three of them children, and two of them nurses who worked at a local hospital. A Korean woman teacher, a friend of the Briton, who is believed to be an engineer, is also among those seized.

The group, some of whom had links with a Christian Baptist charity, were last seen on Friday. The Yemeni government accused the Huithi Zaidi rebel organisation, active in the area, of carrying out the kidnapping – a claim immediately denied by the insurgents.

Around 200 foreigners have been abducted in Yemen in the last 15 years; most of them have been freed unharmed. Two dozen foreign medics, mainly Arabs, held by tribesmen in the Amran region, were freed over the weekend following negotiations.

However the latest kidnapping comes in the wake of a warning by the US authorities that al-Qa'ida members, under pressure in Pakistan from US Predator air strikes and a government military offensive, are relocating to new bases in Yemen. Leon Panetta, the director of the CIA, cited Yemen, the ancestral homeland of Osama Bin Laden's family, and Somalia as the countries where the Islamist fighters were seeking refuge.

The abductions also came after the Yemeni authorities arrested Hasan Hessian Bin Alwan, a Saudi national, allegedly a key player in organising al-Qa'ida finances in Yemen and Saudi Arabia, and the man who had arranged funding for a number of Islamist terrorist attacks.

The issue of Britons being taken hostage is currently a matter of particular sensitivity after a Briton taken prisoner in Mali, in west Africa, by Tuareg tribesmen was handed over to Islamists and beheaded. The group Al-Qa'ida in Islamic Maghreb said it had carried out the murder after the refusal of the British government to release Abu Qatada – a terror suspect who had been described as bin Laden's representative in Europe.

In 1998 three Britons and an Australian were killed in Yemen during an attempt by government forces to rescue them from Islamist captors. Abu Hamza, the radical British based fundamentalist cleric now awaiting extradition to the US, was accused by the Yemeni authorities of providing aid for the Islamists. His son, Mohammed Mustapha Kemal, was later imprisoned for three years in Sanaa on terrorism charges.

The Foreign Office said yesterday that it was looking into the reports of the kidnappings. The German foreign ministry said it was in close touch with the Yemeni authorities. A South Korean government spokesman said: "It is presumed that a South Korean woman has been kidnapped by a local armed group." He confirmed that a "Miss Eom", 34, had disappeared after joining friends for a trip to the countryside.

The area where the foreigners went missing, the north-western province of Saada, near the border with Saudi Arabia, has seen repeated clashes between government forces and the Huithi Zaidi rebels, who are Shias in a predominantly Sunni country. There have been thousands of casualties.

A peace deal was recently signed, under Qatari auspices, between the government and the rebel group but the truce has broken down several times amid mutual accusations of bad faith.

Robert Emerson, a security analyst with experience of the region, said that "It is indeed the case that most foreign hostages in Yemen had been freed in the past. But the place has also seen a series of bomb attacks and there is a serious threat from militant Islamists.

"The government has not produced any evidence that these people were taken by the Huithi Zaidis; in any event, they are Shias and do not have links with al-Qa'ida. The real danger would be if they somehow end up in the hands of jihadists," he said.

South Korean Woman Presumed Killed in Yemen

Yemen government soldiers are on patrol in northern Saada province. A group of nine foreigners including a South Korean teacher, identified by her surname Eom, were kidnapped late last week and they are feared to be dead. / Yonhap By Lee Hyo-won Staff Reporter With AP A 34-year-old South Korean woman was presumed dead together with the other eight foreigners, including three children. AP reported that 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. No organization claimed responsibility for either kidnapping or killing. 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 were found earlier in the day. Yemen, the poorest nation in the Middle East, is home to restive tribes, a Shiite rebellion, as well as a division of al-Qaida which operates in its remote regions and has often targeted foreigners. According to the Korean embassy in Yemen, the Korean aid worker, identified as Eom, and the others were working for Worldwide Service, an international NGO for medical volunteer services Eom lived with her 63-year-old father and 31-year-old sister in Suwon, Gyeonggi Province. Her mother is said to have passed away five years ago. She has been living in Saada Province since last August and was doing medical volunteer work. She is reported to have worked with Korean doctors at the hospital and tutored their children. In a recent phone conversation with her sister, Eom said she planned to return to Korea in August. A total of eight Koreans including Eom, four Korean doctors and their families, were staying in the Saada area. Worldwide Service, of which Eom is a member, was launched in 1972 by a Dutch doctor couple who provided medical aid in Yemen. It became an official NGO based in the Netherlands in 1989. Mostly comprising of Europeans, the organization's members include Eom and four Korean doctors. About 30 members belonging to Worldwide Service are working in Saada's Republican Hospital and other facilities. The state-operated hospital functioned like a public health center and mostly treated patients free of charge. She had overseas volunteer experience through a religious organization before going to Saada in last August. Her application for official membership with Worldwide Service was approved, and she has since worked as part of the group. 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. 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. In March, four South Korean tourists in Yemen died in an apparent suicide bombing blamed on al-Qaida. Earlier, the Yemeni government had accused a local Saada rebel group, led by Abdel Malak al-Hawthi, but the group issued a statement saying it has not been involved in any abductions of foreigners. Thousands of people have been killed in Saada, which lies near the border with Saudi Arabia, since a Shiite rebellion erupted there in June 2004. The rebels say the government is corrupt and too closely allied with the West. The rebels negotiated a fragile cease-fire with the government last year, but serious tension remains Yemen, the ancestral homeland of al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden, had 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. Yemen is also the Arab world's poorest nation ― and one of its most unstable ― making it fertile territory for al-Qaida to set up camp. ----Reported by Staff Reporter Lee Hyo-won hyowlee@koreatimes.co.kr