Hostage situation
June 20, 2009
"The authorities received the threat of an attack and there was a warning given to the Germans asking them not to travel outside their area of work," interior minister Muttahar al-Masri told reporters on Saturday, June 20.
A German family of five and a British engineer were taken hostage along with two German theology students and a South Korean nurse on June 12th while on a weekend excursion in the province of Sa'dah in northwest Yemen. Some of the hostages had been working at a local hospital.
Three days later, the bullet-riddled bodies of three women - the two students and the nurse - were found in Akwan in the Nadi Wushur area.
"We have a report that they (six hostages) are still alive but we cannot confirm it," Masri said.
Who is to blame?
The authorities blamed the al-Houthi rebel group for the kidnappings. The group is in open conflict with the Yemeni government, which is also slowing down the pace of the search and rescue efforts.
"They want to harm Yemen's image," Masri said. "The Houthis are the group who benefit the most from this situation.
The al-Houthi's, however, have strenuously objected to this accusation.
"The al-Houthis have no precedent of abductions and there is no evidence that they had anything to do with this kidnapping," Faris al-Saqaf, head of the Yemen Center for Strategic Studies, said.
He also said the group would not target Germans since some of its leaders currently live in Germany as refugees.
Suspicions of al-Qaeda involvement
Al-Saqaf thinks al-Qaeda could be behind the crime to secure the release of some of its jailed members, and that they had carefully picked the Sa'dah province, to take advantage of the chaos and violence there.
This theory was reinforced by the head of Germany's internal security agency.
"We are convinced that there is a very real threat to Germany and German targets abroad," Heinz Fromm told the German news magazine Focus.
Al-Qaeda and other radical organizations are attempting to impact political decision making in Germany, he said.
Fears are growing that, if the remaining hostages are still alive, they could be killed in a botched rescue attempt like the one in 1998, when four hostages were accidentally killed in a crossfire between Yemeni security forces and kidnappers.
sjt/dpa/Reuters
Editor: Toma Tasovac