Yemeni prime minister sends a communique to his British counterpart
Yemen, Politics, 1/2/1999

Referring to an incident earlier this week in which four kidnapping victims were killed and 12 freed during a Yemeni rescue operation, Yemeni Prime Minister Abdul Karim al-Iryani said that the western hostages would have been killed by their extremist kidnappers unless the security bodies had quickly taken action to rescue them.

In a communique to his British counterpart, Tony Blair, the Yemeni minister said that the extremists did not give any chance to negotiations, adding that the Yemeni security forces intervened when the kidnappers began to kill their hostages.

Three British and one Australians were killed in the incident, while both Australia and Britain demanded information on the circumstances of the four tourists' deaths.

Moreover Yemeni sources said the motives behind the kidnapping were political, adding that the kidnappers are affiliated to the Islamic Jihad movement.

The western hostages who survived of the clash between the Yemeni security forces and the kidnappers left Sanaa yesterday morning.

This comes as a British investigation team started work in Yemen to learn the circumstances surrounding the deaths of the four hostages. A US investigation team also arrived yesterday to meet with the Yemeni minister of interior to learn the details of the rescue attempt and inspect the site of the incident.

Previous Stories:
  German tourists released in Yemen   (12/31/1998)
  Hostages killed in Yemen during attempt to free them   (12/30/1998)
  Yemeni tribe clans explode main oil pipelines   (12/29/1998)

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