Yemen warned kidnapped foreigners against 'picnicking'

SANA'A, June 20 (Saba) – Foreigners, who were kidnapped on June 12
and of whom three female captives were killed three days later in
Saada, were warned against travel outside the area, Yemen's Interior
Ministry said Saturday.

Speaking to German media during a meeting with minister of
Information who accompanied the foreign reporters, Mutahar Rashad
al-Masri said the Yemeni authorities in the province received attack
threats prompting a warning to the foreigners not to leave their
workplace'.

A great mystery has been surrounding the attack, the minister told
reporters.

However, al-Masri noted that the attack took place in an area
familiar with subversives and Houthi rebels. Earlier the authorities
directly accused the Houthi rebels, who have been fighting the
troops for years, of the abduction and killings.

Amid an expanded hunt for six foreigners whose fate is still
unclear, the minister said the Yemeni police in association with
German pathologists could reach a conclusion over where the two
cars, the kidnappers' one and the second which carried the nine
abducted, went after the kidnapping.

Extending Yemen's condolences to the families of the victims, he
assured the families that the Yemeni authorities are working around
the clock to hunt for the remaining hostages and put the captors to
justice.

Nine foreigners, seven Germans.. a family including three children
and other two nurses.. a Briton and a South Korean were kidnapped in
Yemen's restive Saada region on June 11.

Three bodies identified as two German nurses and a South Korean
teacher were found in the province three days later. The dead were
apparently shot dead by their captors.

Germany believes al-Qaeda was behind the kidnapping and slayings.

The German Intelligence Services said last Tuesday the abduction and
killing of German nationals along with others bore the hallmarks of
al-Qaeda.

Germany sent a team of pathologists to identify the bodies of the
dead and help the Yemeni counterparts investigate the deaths.

FR