S. Korea asks for thorough probe on Yemen bomb blast

(ATTN: UPDATES throughout with foreign ministers' phone talks, survivors' return
schedule, CHANGES headline)
By Lee Chi-dong
SEOUL, March 16 (Yonhap) -- South Korean Foreign Minister Yu Myung-hwan spoke on
the phone with his Yemeni counterpart on Monday and called for local authorities
to thoroughly investigate a bomb explosion that killed four South Korean
tourists.

A bomb went off at around 11:50 p.m. on Sunday (Seoul time) in the city of Syoun
(Sayun), about 500 km east of the Yemeni capital, Sanna, in what appeared to be a
terrorist attack, killing the four and wounding three other South Koreans. The
tourists from Seoul were taking pictures at sunset, according to the foreign
ministry. It added that the South Korean victims included two men and two women,
all of whom were on a group tour. Their Yemeni guide was also killed.
"Minister Yu asked for thorough investigation into the incident in his telephone
conversation with Yemeni Foreign Minister Abu Bakr al-Qirbi," a ministry official
told reporters on customary condition of anonymity.
The Yemeni minister replied that a technical team of experts was immediately
dispatched to the scene to determine the cause of the blast.
"He said the Yemeni government will look into the incident with all the
possibilities open, including a suspected link with terrorism," the official
said. "He also said that Yemeni Vice President Mansoor Hadi will visit the site
of the incident today."
The Arab nation is known as a center of militant activity by al-Qaeda and other
extremists, but no organization has claimed responsibility for the explosion yet.
Yu also accepted Yemen's offer that South Korea participate in the probe. A team
of four South Korean officials, including a police officer, left for Yemen
earlier in the day. Led by Lee Key-cheol, deputy director-general of the foreign
ministry's consular affairs bureau, the team also includes representatives from
the state intelligence agency and another foreign ministry official. It is
expected to arrive in Yemen on Tuesday morning via Dubai.
Two of the injured and 10 other South Koreans who were in the same tour group are
scheduled to arrive in South Korea Tuesday afternoon, according to the official.
One of the wounded, a tour guide, will go back to his home in Jordan.
It is likely to take more time to bring back the bodies of the victims, he said.
In a press briefing, the South Korean foreign minister expressed condolences to
the bereaved families.
Meanwhile, the ministry has designated Yemen a "travel restriction area," a
non-binding measure which strongly advises citizens not to travel there.
The advisory had been in effect for Syoun and several other cities in the Arab
nation known as the ancestral homeland of al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, whose
group has executed a number of attacks on Western tourists in the country,
including the October 2000 suicide bombing of the USS Cole off the port of Aden
that killed 17 American sailors.
Yemeni security officials told foreign news agencies that Sunday's bombing was
probably a terrorist attack, but added it could also have been caused by
unrecovered dynamite.
lcd@yna.co.kr
(END)