A Yemeni court today sentenced a suspected al-Qaida militant to death for killing three US missionaries, his lawyer said.

Two Muslim militants accused of killed three American Christian missionaries and a Yemeni politician had also planned attacks on journalists and other foreigners, security officials said today.

An American pharmacist has told his parents he was sure he was going to die when a gunman stormed the hospital where he worked in Yemen.

Yemeni investigators today said they strongly suspect a man who gunned down four American missionaries had links to the al-Qaida terror network.

The man suspected of killing three American missionaries and wounding another in southern Yemen is believed to have ties to a cell plotting attacks on foreigners and secular-minded politicians, officials say.