Yemeni security officials say at least seven of the nine foreigners kidnapped in a northern mountainous region have been killed.
Officials said Monday local residents found the bodies of three women
near the town of Nashour. Two are reported to be German and one South
Korean.
Later in the day, authorities said they had discovered the bodies of at
least four more hostages. Their nationalities were not immediately
clear, but authorities said all of them were among the group of seven
Germans, a British engineer and a South Korean teacher taken hostage in
the Saada region last week.
Government officials on Sunday accused a Shi'ite
rebel group of kidnapping the foreigners. The rebels deny any
involvement and accuse the government of trying to tarnish their image.
The grisly finds came a day after Yemen arrested a Saudi man, Hassan Hussein bin Alwan, suspected of being al-Qaida's top financier in Yemen and Saudi Arabia.
The kidnapped group is said to include three children, two nurses and
an engineer and his wife. They were reported to be working at a
hospital in Saada.
Tribesmen in Yemen often take foreigners hostage to pressure the
government on a range of demands, but those foreigners are generally
released unharmed.
The German Foreign Ministry says it has not confirmed the deaths of the hostages.
South Korea's Foreign Ministry previously identified the missing South
Korean only as a 34-year-old woman with the family name Eom.