Two Belgian tourists, two Yemenis shot dead: official
SANAA (AFP) — Two Belgian women tourists were among four people killed, and four more Belgians were wounded, when suspected Al-Qaeda gunmen opened fire on them in Yemen on Friday, a local official told AFP.
The official, who declined to be named, blamed the local branch of the terror network for the attack, in which the tourists' Yemeni guide and driver were also killed.
The attackers were said to have opened fire on a bus carrying 15 Belgian tourists in the eastern province of Hadramut's Do'an Valley, before they fled the scene in a car.
In Brussels, Belgian Foreign Minister Karel De Gucht said the tourists should have known Yemen was a dangerous place to visit.
"Someone who leaves for Yemen knows that it is a dangerous destination," he said. "When you travel with a group specialising in adventure holidays, you also know that there is a risk."
One of the Belgian victims was named as 65-year-old Claudine Van Caillie from Bruges. Patrick Coucke, also 65, who was shot in the stomach and seriously wounded, was expected to be flown out of Yemen late Friday.
De Gucht did not confirm any Al-Qaeda link with the attack, adding that the Hadramut area was out of the government's control and also had "tribal problems".
The Belgian group was travelling to the city of Shibam, which lies around 450 kilometres (280 miles) east of the Yemeni capital, Sanaa.
The 16th century city is a UNESCO World Heritage site and has been dubbed the "Manhattan of the Desert" for its distinctive, tower-like structures.
Hadramut Governor Taha Hajir said in a statement posted on the defence ministry website that security teams had set up roadblocks and helicopters had been deployed to locate those responsible for the "criminal incident."
The casualties were transported to a local hospital and arrangements were made to move them on to Sanaa, Hajir added.
Last July, seven Spanish tourists and two local drivers were killed when a suicide bomber rammed his explosives-laden car into their convoy at an ancient temple in Yemen.
That bombing was the worst attack against Westerners in the Arabian peninsula country since Al-Qaeda extremists struck the USS Cole off the southern port of Aden in 2000, killing 17 US sailors.
Al-Qaeda has been blamed for a series of attacks in Yemen, the ancestral homeland of its leader, Osama bin Laden. Some of them predated the September 11, 2001 attacks in the United States.
Yemen announced in December that it had foiled an Al-Qaeda suicide attack in the country and captured two members of a terrorist cell in Sanaa. It said they were wanted in connection with a number of security cases.
The Yemeni branch of Al-Qaeda recently announced in an Internet statement that it would carry out operations to free imprisoned members of its group held in the country.
The killing of tourists in Yemen is rare, but foreigners are frequently seized by powerful tribes for use as bargaining chips in disputes with the central government. More than 200 have been abducted during the past 15 years.
All have been freed unharmed except for three Britons and an Australian seized by Islamist militants in December 1998. They were killed when security forces stormed the kidnappers' hideout.
Government troops in the impoverished Arabian peninsula state have also been fighting an on-off insurgency led by Shiite rebels in the northwest of the country.
Thousands of people have died since the Zaidi uprising first broke out in 2004 in mountainous Saada province near the border with Saudi Arabia.
