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| Arabia |
| Yemen says Al-Qaeda behind suicide bombing |
| 2009-03-17 |
| Yemeni state media blamed Al-Qaeda Monday for a suicide bombing that killed four South Korean tourists and their local guide in the historic eastern tourism city of Shibam. Comes as a surprise, huh? An 18-year-old who had been "tricked by Al-Qaeda into wearing an explosives vest" carried out the attack in the ancestral homeland of the militant network's fugitive leader Osama bin Laden, the official Saba news agency said. On a visit to the city of Shibam in the eastern Hadramawt region, Vice President Abed Rabbo Mansur Hadi called for the eradication of those behind it, as survivors, four of them wounded, were flown home. The survivors took a flight to Seoul on Emirates airlines via Dubai, an official said, as a South Korean inquiry team arrived in the Yemeni capital Sanaa. The Yemeni Tourism Ministry said a fifth South Korean tourist who was wounded in the bombing had remained in the country for medical treatment. "The explosion happened as they were gathered on a hill called Khazzan that overlooks the city," a security official told AFP on Sunday. "They were on foot and taking pictures of the buildings in Shibam at the moment the sun went down," he added. The Hadramawt town is famous for its multi-storey mud-brick merchants' houses, which date back to the 16th Century and have earned Shibam UNESCO world-heritage listing and the nickname of the "Manhattan of the desert." "When most tourists had got off the jeep and were enjoying the sunset and the surroundings, there was suddenly a bomb explosion. In a second, a hellish situation followed," Ma Kyong-Chan, who organized the trip, told the Yonhap news agency. |
| Posted by:Fred |