Caught at security Man with pistol arrested at Jibla Hospital [Archives:2003/09/Local News]

archive
February 3 2003

Yemeni authorities have detained a suspected Muslim fundamentalist because he was trying to carry a gun into a hospital where three U.S. missionaries were shot dead last year, a security official said Wednesday.
The official said the suspect, identified as Ahmed Abdullah, was carrying a pistol and tried to enter the Baptist-run hospital last Thursday in the southern town of Jibla.
He was frisked and arrested by security guards at the hospital’s gate after walking through a metal detector, the official said, on condition of anonymity. The suspect was being held for questioning about why he was trying to carry a weapon into the hospital.
The hospital has strengthened security measures, including installing two metal detectors sent by the U.S. Embassy, after a suspected Muslim militant entered the complex on Dec. 30 and shot to death three American missionaries, seriously wounding another.
The alleged gunman, Abed Abdul Razak Kamel, passed a security checkpoint by concealing his weapon under loose-fitting clothes and making it look as if he were carrying a child. Yemeni security officials arrested Kamel and said he may belong to a terrorist cell linked to al-Qaida.
Many in the region fear that anti-Western sentiment could increase as momentum builds for a U.S.-led strike against Iraq.
Yemen’s government has cooperated with the United States in its global war on terror, but anti-American sentiment is high because of U.S. support for Israel and its standoff over Iraq’s weapons programs.

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