Italian hostage injured as police open fire on captors [Archives:2006/909/Front Page]

MAREB, Jan. 4 – One woman among five Italian tourists still in captivity in Beit Al-Zaidi, Abida tribe, in the eastern Yemeni province of Mareb, suffered minor injuries as police opened fire on their kidnappers.

Efforts to free the hostages resulted in an exchange of threats between the government and kidnappers.

According to news Wednesday morning, the kidnappers are believed to be sons of Saleh Ubad Al-Zaidi, who was killed by police two years ago in a dispute over a car without a license plate.

Kidnappers demand the release of Naji Bin Saleh Al-Zaidi, son of Sheikh Saleh Al-Zaidi, who was handed over by UAE authorities to the Yemeni government at the end of 2004, Mareb sources said.

Al-Zaidi was arrested on a charge of instigating the killing of Sheikh Abdulwali Al-Qairi, head of Beit Al-Qairi sheikhs, at the end of the same year.

Al-Zaidi denied the charge and demanded to be released and referred to the court but security authorities have kept him in jail without trial.

Circulating rumors and news indicate that negotiations with kidnappers may culminate in securing the release of the Italian hostages (two men and three women) by the end of the week. Speeding the hostages' release depends on government's response to the kidnappers' demand.

Kidnappers announced they would be accountable for any risk to hostages' lives unless government uses force against them, as one of the three women hostages received minor injuries when security troops opened fire on the kidnappers, sources mentioned.

The abduction of the five Italian tourists is the fourth kidnapping incident in two months, but the first of 2006. Kidnappers released the three women, who refused to leave the men behind, on the first of this month. The kidnapping occurred in Sirwah, Mareb governorate, east of Sana'a, just one day after the release of a German family kidnapped in Shabwa. Tribesmen's demand for release of relatives detained by security authorities is the primary reason behind kidnapping of European tourists.

At the beginning of the week, President Ali Abdullah Saleh threatened to hunt those who kidnap. He also fired senior officials in Mareb and Shabwa provinces as a step to improve security measures and prevent repeat kidnappings in the two areas.
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