Hostages in Yemen Found Dead??!! Update: Six Alive??!!
OK slightly more coherent:
There are conflicting reports coming out of Yemen on the status of nine foreign hostages kidnapped days earlier in Sa’ada, Yemen. One report says three hostages were killed, most say seven were murdered- shot, not beheaded, and two children were left alive. Another very new report from Yemen says six have been recovered alive.
Looking to the question of who murdered them, the least likely group is “tribesmen” who have kidnapped nearly 200 this decade. All those kidnappings were announced at once and all hostages were released unharmed after negotiations with the government. The next least likely is the Shiite rebel group, the Houthis. In four years of war, the rebels have mingled with civilians but never targeted them, and they never engaged in any kidnappings. A more possible culprit is the Yemeni Political Security Organization which has previously, it is said, created terror attacks against western tourists in order to gain counter terror funding for the regime. The most likely actor is Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), which has claimed credit for all the prior lethal attacks on tourists. Although the Yemeni government has taken great pains to pin the kidnappings and now the murders on the Shiite rebels, it doesn’t jive with history. The victims were associated with a Baptist medical team and were found in an area where a Baptist doctor was killed by al Qaeda in 2002. They were taken from a zone well controlled by the Political Security that would inhibit access by the rebels, but allow it by terrorists. (The Yemeni government has engaged the services of al Qaeda linked terrorists as mercenaries against the Shiite rebels in the Sa’ada governorate.)
Whoever perpetrated this crime, its an incredible act of brutality, considering they chose to take and not leave the kids to start with, and the victims confirmed dead are the three women- two German nurses and a South Korean nanny. Where are the three kids?
Original post, links, updates, below the fold as well as Abdel Malik al Houthi’s statement yesterday denying the complicity of his fighters in the kidnapping and accusing the government of treachery.
Update 3: Yemen Post: Two nurses and a nanny were killed, rumors of a drug dealer involved.
Sa’ada local authorities have worked to transfer the corpses of the two German nurses, a Korean Teacher – who was the teacher of the nurses’ two children – to Sana’a to be taken home.
However, the fate of the other six foreigners, including a British engineer, is still unclear and it is unknown. Some local sources revealed the two sons are still alive and they were found in an area close to the spot where the victims were shot.
Local authorities and Houthi followers have exchanged accusations over the party responsible for kidnapping and killing the foreigners – who were working in Al-Sallam Hospital in Sa’ada.
Local authorities accused Houthi followers of being behind the operation and Houthis deny such allegations and accuse pro-government tribes of kidnapping the foreigners, hinting they seek to ignite the war once again.
Mareb Press reported that a drug dealer is blamed for the incident and noted the dealer, whose merchandise was seized by security forces, resorted to kidnapping the foreign group and once the authorities did not respond to his demands as to releasing his merchandise he killed the two German nurses and the Korean teachers.
Update: Six alive?? See Three hostages found dead, six alive Yemen Online and the Yemen Post
Original Post: Oh, My. God. Its much more likely the work of the Political Security and/or Al Qaeda than the rebels. Certainly it wasn’t tribesmen seeking a well. Two of three kids found alive. What does that mean? One kid killed??? They were kidnapped inside a zone of the Political Security.
If we look at the history- tribesmen have never not announced a kidnapping or injured any hostages in all the many foreigner kidnappings that have occurred. The Houthis have never targeted civilians or foreigners while al Qaeda does it frequently. The PSO has also, sometimes just as a propaganda move. I knew if no one was negotiating for them, that this might happen- because if they were released, they would talk about who took them.
Al-Qaeda is the most likely, and maybe they’ll take responsibility in a internet statement- the Germans were associated with some Christian organization. Those fanatical terrorist murders have taken “credit” for killing several foreign women before.
Hostages found dead in Yemen June 15. 2009 11:29AM GMT Seven out of nine foreigners taken hostage were found dead in northern Yemen today, security officials said.
“We have found the corpses of seven people who were kidnapped,” a local security official said. “They were killed.” Two of the three children captured with the group were reportedly found alive.
The bodies were found by the son of a tribal leader in Noshour, east of the volatile Saada mountainous area of northern Yemen where the nine were abducted, the official said.
The authorities had accused Shiite Zaidi rebels in Saada of seizing seven Germans, a British engineer and a South Korean woman teacher. The rebels denied the charge.
The nine – among them three German children and two women nurses – belong to an international relief group that has been working at a hospital in Saada province bordering Saudi Arabia for 35 years, a local official said on Sunday.
There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the kidnapping, the latest in a string of abductions of foreigners in one of the poorest countries in the world.
Seoul confirmed that a South Korean, identified by her family name Eom, 34, had been missing since Thursday evening in Yemen when she joined members of the relief group for a walk.
Local sources said the group was a Christian Baptist organisation that also has a medical team in the hospital at Jebla, south of Sanaa, where an Islamist militant killed three American doctors in December 2002.
In Berlin, a foreign ministry spokesman had declined to confirm that Germans had been seized, saying only that the German embassy in Sanaa was in “close contact” with the Yemeni authorities.
Shot not beheaded, including women and a child. AQAP and the PSO have murdered foreign women before. Tribesmen and the Houthis have not.
Saada, 15 June (AKI) – The dead bodies of seven foreign hostages abducted three days ago were found in Yemen on Monday. Local police in north-west Saada province (photo) confirmed that seven of the nine hostages had been found.
At least three of the victims were reportedly German women and local officials said some bodies had been found with bullet wounds.
The orignal Arabic text of the press release yesterday of Abdel-Malik al Houthi, issued before the murders or maybe before the bodies were found is a better way to say it:
بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم
اليمن ـ صعدة
14/6/2009مأبناء اليمن عامة وأبناء محافظة صعده خاصة معروفون عبر تاريخهم الطويل بتمسكهم بالقيم والمبادئ والأخلاق الحميدة عرف ذلك عنهم القريب والبعيد بما في ذلك كل من يعمل بينهم من الأجانب سواء في المستشفى الجمهوري او مستشفى السلام او غيرها من المرافق الأخرى بصعدة وقد ذابوا في المجتمع وكأنهم جزء من نسيجه الاجتماعي كما هو حال العاملين في المستشفى الجمهوري ولا يوجد بينهم وأبناء صعده أي مشاكل تذكر
ولذلك فان مسرحية الاختطافات التي نسمعها هذه الأيام هي مسرحيات هزلية لن تنطلي على احد سواء من أبناء صعده أو ممن يعرفهم .
كما نؤكد ان السلطة هي من تتحمل المسؤولية الكاملة عن مصيرهم حيث وان المنطقة التي قيل أنهم اختطفوا منها ( غراز ) هي بجوار الأمن السياسي في قلب مدينة صعده .
ونؤكد ان اتهام السلطة لنا هو اتهام باطل وزور وبهتان وهو من باب الكيد السياسي .
وهو دليل على إفلاسها وتخبطها ولن يكون في صالحها كما تظن وتسعى من وراء ذلك بل ستفتح باب الشر على أبناء اليمن يدخل منه من يحملون الى شعوب امتنا مشاريع استعمارية خطيرة .
وندعو أبناء الشعب الى التيقظ لمثل هذه المؤامرات الخطيرة التي تهدف الى العدوان عليه وتمزيقه وإدخاله في نفق مظلم مليء بالفتن والجرائم كما عليه الحال في العراق وأفغانستان .
كما يؤكد بطلان اتهام السلطة تخبطها حيث كانت (قد أكدت أن دوافع اختطاف ممرضي مستشفى السلام بصعده وراءه دوافع قبليه للإفراج عن معتقلين ) ثم في وقت لاحق تتراجع وتتهم أبناء صعده وهذا دليل على بطلان دعواها وسعيها للتهيئة لعدوان جديد .
وإننا على يقين ان هذه المؤامرة كغيرها من المؤامرات السابقة سيكون مصيرها الفشل كما حدث عندما فجرت السلطة مسجد بن سلمان وقامت بعدد من الاغتيالات والتقطعات وغيرها من الأعمال الإجرامية التي تحاول السلطة من ورائه تشويهنا وكسب تعاطفات وتحالفات إقليمية ودولية .وقد ثبت فشل هذه الأعمال ليبقى الشعب ضحية هذه التصرفات الحمقاء وهو من يتحمل تبعات هذه الأعمال الإجرامية.
المكتب الإعلامي للسيد / عبد الملك بدر الدين الحوثي
21/ جماد الثاني / 1430هـ
