Yemen blames Al-Qaeda for deadly bombing

Compiled by Daily Star staff

Seven Spanish tourists and two Yemenis were killed in an attack by a suspected Al-Qaeda suicide car bomber in the Yemeni province of Maarib on Monday, security sources said.

The Interior Ministry said the bombing in the restive northeastern region appeared to be the work of the Al-Qaeda network. "Preliminary information indicates that the Al-Qaeda organization is behind the cowardly attack," an Interior Ministry official told Saba news agency.

"This criminal attack has killed seven Spanish tourists and two Yemeni nationals who worked as drivers and tourist guides and wounded six Spanish tourists and two nationals," he added. A security official said on the Web site of the Yemeni Defense Ministry's newspaper that the bomber slammed his explosives-laden vehicle into the tourists' five-car convoy, which included a police car.

Witnesses told AFP the attack occurred as the tourists were wrapping up a tour of a temple in Maarib which dates back 3,000 years to the time of the biblical Queen of Sheba.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility.

Security sources said the "terrorist attack" followed an Al-Qaeda statement demanding the release of some of its members jailed in Yemen and warned of unspecified actions.

The security sources said Al-Qaeda also demanded that Sanaa reconsider its cooperation with Washington.

Spain's Foreign Ministry confirmed the toll in the attack in Maarib, about 150 kilometers east of the Yemeni capital Sanaa.

"According to preliminary information the blast could be the result of a car bomb that hit a convoy of tourists," one provincial authority source said.

"Investigations are under way," he added.

Yemen, the ancestral home of Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, has been battling Islamic militants for years.

In March a French student and a Yemeni man were killed and another Frenchman wounded when Zaidi rebels attacked an Islamic college in a volatile area in northern Yemen. The rebels are not linked to Al-Qaeda.

Yemen foiled two suicide attacks on oil and gas installations in 2006, days after Al-Qaeda urged Muslims to target Western interests. Al-Qaeda's wing in Yemen claimed responsibility for the foiled attacks and vowed more strikes.

In 2002 militants bombed the French oil supertanker Limburg off Yemen's coast. In 2000, a suicide attack on the US warship Cole killed 17 US sailors.

Yemen, on the southern tip of the Arabian Peninsula, has been widely seen in the West as a haven for Muslim militants, including Al-Qaeda supporters.

Scores of foreigners in Yemen have been kidnapped over the last decade by tribesmen demanding better schools, roads and services, or the release of jailed relatives. Most were released unharmed, but in 2000 a Norwegian diplomat was killed in crossfire and in 1998 four Westerners were killed during a botched army attempt to free them from Islamic militants who had seized 16 tourists. - Agencies