Gunman kills three in Yemen suicide attack

A YEMENI shot dead an American and a Canadian working at a US oil firm in the Arab state yesterday and then killed himself, a Yemeni official said.

Another Yemeni man was killed and a second Canadian man was wounded in the attack, carried out by a man working for a contractor of Hunt Oil Company in eastern Marib province, the Interior Ministry official said.

He said Naji al-Kumaim, who committed suicide after the shooting, suffered from depression.

“It is believed that he had no political affiliation and that this was a personal vendetta because he kept saying that he was taking his revenge on those who complained about him (at work),” the official told the state news agency Saba.

US firm Hunt Oil, the only energy company operating in oil-rich Marib, declined to comment on the incident.

An official at the Canadian embassy in Saudi Arabia, which is also responsible for Yemen, said the mission was aware of the incident but was not in a position to comment. The US embassy in Sanaa said it would issue a statement.

Yemen is the ancestral home of Osama bin Laden, Washington’s main suspect in the September 2001 attacks on US cities, and is seen by the West as a haven for Muslim militants.

But the authorities in Yemen have sought to improve the country’s image and ties with Washington and have arrested suspected members of bin Laden’s al-Qaida network.

Yemen has seen some of the largest anti-US protests in the Middle East, over Iraq and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Last week, citing increased tensions in the Middle East over threats of a US-led war on Iraq, Canada warned its citizens not to travel to Yemen, where many carry firearms.

In December, a Yemeni gunman believed to have links to al-Qaida killed three US missionaries at a hospital in the southern town of Jibla.

In October, suspected militants attacked a French tanker off Yemen, two years after suspected al-Qaida members killed 17 US sailors in an attack on the US destroyer Cole in a Yemen port.

A missile fired by a CIA unmanned drone killed six alleged al-Qaida members in Marib province in November, including a key suspect in the Cole attack.

The atmosphere was also tense elsewhere in the Middle East, where countries and airlines were taking precautions ahead of an anticipated US-led attack on Iraq.

British Airways became the first airline to announce it was suspending flights to and from Tel Aviv after Britain’s Foreign Office advised against all travel to Israel.It said flights would stop tonight.

A senior United Arab Emirates official said authorities were firmly in control of security, after the United States and Britain warned of possible terrorist attacks there.

Lebanon said ithad boosted security in the south, fearing Israel might use the cover of an Iraq war to attack.