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SANAA, YEMEN (EmergencyNet News) - Up to four tourists taken hostage in Yemen were killed on Tuesday when security forces stormed their kidnappers' hideout, freeing at least 12 other captives. Confusing events from the remote Arabic state were reported into the ERRI Watch Center, with Yemeni Embassy representatives in London saying that two British men and an American woman had died, while local security sources said the death toll was four, all Britons.

The British Foreign Office said three British hostages were killed in the incident. Foreign Secretary Robin Cook said in a statement that he understood the fourth hostage to die was Australian. U.S. officials said the injured American was "seriously wounded."

Some of the 16 hostages -- ten Britons, two Americans and two Australians -- were wounded in the raid, while two kidnappers also died. A spokesman for the Yemeni Embassy in London said the casualties appear to have been murdered by their kidnappers before security forces moved in. The spokesman said, "I think that when the security forces got to the place, the kidnappers started to kill some of the hostages. When the security forces intervened, then there were clashes and some of the other hostages were released. Four of the kidnappers were arrested and two were killed."

Some security sources have blamed a group calling itself Islamic Jihad, suggesting the hostages were taken to back demands for the release of the group's leader, Saleh Haidara al-Atwi, who was arrested with another man two weeks ago as part of a crackdown on vigilantes enforcing strict Islamic dress codes and alcohol bans in southern Yemen. But academics based in Britain say tribesmen's claims to be part of the international network of Muslim extremists were sometimes a "flag of convenience."

The Yemeni Interior Ministry said on Tuesday night that of the three of the kidnappers killed one of them was an Egyptian national.

Yemen was once a major haven for Islamic militant fugitives from other countries, but the government has reportedly expelled many of them.

Other experts said that the claims also suit the Yemeni authorities, helping them to justify repression of the tribes. Ten of the survivors were taken to the Movenpick Hotel in the southern Yemeni city of Aden.

The British Foreign Office was unable to confirm the deaths, but said Britain's ambassador in Yemen, Victor Henderson, had met the Yemeni Interior Minister to receive details of the clash. The incident has led to calls for stricter British Foreign Office travel advice to deter tourists from traveling to far-flung and dangerous destinations.

ERRI/EmergencyNet News  has been putting out advisories concerning the situation in Yemen and the dangers of being kidnapped there for more than a year. Britain, Australia and Germany have all also advised their nationals this week to avoid Yemen.

The Australian government on Wednesday went as far as urging all Australians to leave Yemen. Australian Foreign Affairs Minister Alexander Downer told reporters in Adelaide: "We've said that all Australians with non-essential business should defer their travel to Yemen and that those Australian tourists who are in Yemen would be well advised to get out of the country. Those Australians who have to be in Yemen for one reason or another should confine themselves to the major towns, and travel outside of the main towns obviously is somewhat hazardous."

Though with all of the kidnappings than occur in Yemen, this was one of the first to end with such violence. Donald Anderson, the chairman of the British Commons Foreign Affairs Select Committee, said: "This is a tragic case. The psychology of sieges is to play things as long as necessary. There is a fear that on this occasion there was pressure on the Yemeni authorities to reach a speedy conclusion against all the experience and wisdom on how to deal with these matters."

When asked if Western tourists should have been traveling through Yemen, Anderson said: "All you can do is advise people of the risks they face. The Yemen authorities do well out of tourism and, as far as I am aware, no visitor has been killed there before."

Another member of the British Foreign Affairs Select Committee, Dr Norman Godman, accused the British travel industry of being in "a state of lethargy" about the dangers to their customers. He said people should be discouraged from visiting countries like Yemen on vacation, and suggested the Foreign Office could hand out "last-minute warning" leaflets at airports to persuade travelers to change their plans.

Godman said, "If there's a lack of control by the authorities then in my view people should be stopped from going to such hotspots."

More than 200 government troops surrounded the kidnappers' suspected base in an area called al-Wadea'a, located about 250 miles south of the capital, following the abduction. The Governor of Abyan province, Ahmad Ali Mohsen, was said to be talking to the leaders of the Al-Fadl tribe, to which the kidnappers belonged.

This is believed to be the first time that hostages have been killed in Yemen and the first time that government troops have attempted to free kidnap victims by force. As EmergencyNet News has reported numerous times, hostage-taking is a regular occurrence in Yemen, one of the Arab world's poorest nations, but all foreign victims have previously been freed unharmed, many reporting that their captors treated them as guests -- not prisoners.

Yemenis are occasionally targeted, but Westerners are regarded as more useful bargaining chips in a country which is desperate to boost income from tourism. More than 100 foreigners have been abducted since 1992. Hostage-takers from tribes in remote mountainous areas have freed their captives in return for ransoms or government promises to develop new roads, electricity supplies or schools in their regions.

However, the latest kidnapping is being blamed by security sources in Yemen on Islamic fundamentalists, who had been demanding the release of two jailed leaders.

Paddy Ashdown, a British Liberal Democrat leader said the "bungled" raid showed the need for governments and international bodies to consider setting up a specialist group of experts to deal with hostage taking. He stressed that his comments were based on early reports of the rescue attempt.

U.S. officials said they did not know the motive for the kidnapping and could not comment on whether they believed the Yemenis had acted appropriately.

Ashdown said: "It sounds as if it was a bungled operation. Obviously this is a tragic outcome and we have had a few of these outcomes. There is a case for the United Nations or another international body for setting up a bank of expertise on hostage situations to try to avoid this sort of outcome." He added that the United Kingdom could have a important role in any such organization because of the expertise of troops like the SAS and police experience in dealing with hostage taking. But any specialized hostage taskforce should only be used with the permission of the country involved and to try to get hostages released safely.

On Wednesday, Britain and Australia were still seeking information from Yemen on whether the four dead tourists had been shot before or after Yemeni authorities stormed their kidnappers' hideout. British Foreign Office minister Baroness Liz Symons told BBC radio the British government would be very concerned if it turned out that its advice to seek a negotiated solution had been ignored.

Symons said, "There do seem to be conflicting reports ... of hostages being used as human shields. The issue seems to be whether the shooting was triggered by a bungled rescue attempt or whether the Yemeni authorities knew that hostages were already being killed and therefore moved in. That is obviously the point at issue here." She added that Britain had told Yemen its main concern was for the hostages' safety. "If our advice was ignored for reasons that are not adequate reasons then we will be very concerned indeed," she said.

Australian Prime Minister John Howard said he believed the dead Australian had been caught in crossfire during the rescue attempt, and that his government would also pursue the matter vigorously with Yemen.

In Sanaa, British embassy vice-consul Kate Batty-Smith said two other wounded hostages -- one American and one Briton -- were recovering following surgery on gunshot wounds.

Meanwhile, British officials and counterterrorism experts were appalled by the Yemeni security forces' action, with one former SAS commander branding it: "sheer madness." Middle East expert Lieutenant Colonel Colin Allan said, "This is exactly what you do not do. No kidnapper is going to kill a hostage so soon after taking them -- they would have nothing to bargain with. You have to open a line of communication with the kidnapper. Even if you have an idea where the hostages are held you don't go in like John Wayne or Rambo."

(C)Copyright, EmergencyNet NEWS Service, 1998. All Rights Reserved. Further redistribution without permission is prohibited by law.

The ERRI DAILY INTELLIGENCE REPORT is a subscription publication of the EmergencyNet NEWS Service, which is a part of the Chicago-based Emergency Response and Research Institute. This publication specializes in Corporate Security/Terrorism/ Intelligence/Military and National Security issues.

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