Sunday, June 14, 2009 SAN'A: Yemen accused a Shiite rebel group Sunday of kidnapping nine foreigners in the country's rugged north. The Interior Ministry said the foreigners were kidnapped Friday by a rebel group led by Abdel Malak al-Hawthi while on a picnic in northern Sada province. The ministry did not identify the foreigners, but local Yemenis in Sada said the group included a German doctor, his wife and five children, as well as a Briton and his wife. They spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of government reprisal. A local state news agency said the foreigners worked in a hospital in Sada. Tribesmen in Yemen frequently take foreigners hostage to pressure the government on a range of demands and generally release them unharmed. Tribesmen on Friday freed 24 local and foreign medics working at a Saudi-funded hospital in Sada less than 24 hours after their kidnapping, which was not carried out by the al-Hawthi group. Thousands of people have been killed in Saada since a rebellion erupted there in June 2004. The rebels say the government is corrupt and too closely allied with the West. The government has charged al-Hawthi with sedition, forming an illegal armed group and inciting anti-American sentiment. The group negotiated a fragile cease-fire with the government last year, but serious tension remains.
BAGHDAD: Nearly 500 U.S. Army combat engineers who specialize in clearing roads of explosives started shifting to southern Afghanistan."We are probably going to be the beginning of the influx you are going to see to Afghanistan," Lt. Col. Kevin Landers, commander of the Fort Carson, Colo.-based 4th Engineer Battalion, said as crews packed crates and cleaned vehicles for the flight to Kandahar.Obama has ordered 17,000 more U.S. soldiers and Marines to Afghanistan to bolster the 38,000 American troops already battling the resurgent Taliban."We are going to take this footprint out of Iraq," said Landers, whose battalion received word of its reassignment last month just after taking command of clearing roads in Baghdad of bombs and debris.
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