Three US doctors shot in Yemen

Three American doctors were shot dead in Yemen today, security officials said.

The victims, including a woman, were shot by a man who entered the complex of a missionary hospital where they worked in the city of Ibb, 120 miles south of the capital San’a.

A fourth American doctor was injured in the shooting.

The officials said the attacker was a suspected Muslim fundamentalist who used a semi-automatic rifle and a gun in the attack.

The four doctors worked at Maaden Hospital.

The officials refused to say whether the gunman was apprehended.

Yemen has for years been a haven for wanted Muslim extremists and is the ancestral homeland of al-Qaida terror chief Osama bin Laden.

Bin Laden enlisted thousands of Yemenis to fight alongside the mujahedeen of Afghanistan in their US-backed war against an occupation Soviet army in the 1980s. Many returned when the Soviets withdrew, and they are a powerful political force in the country.

On October 6, an explosives-laden boat rammed a French oil tanker off the coast of Yemen, killing one crew member, tearing a hole in the vessel and spilling 90,000 barrels of oil.

An intelligence official in Washington has said US experts believe the Limburg attack was the work of unspecified operatives with links to al-Qaida.

Statements attributed to bin Laden and his network’s “political bureau” hailed the explosion on the tanker but would not confirm al-Qaida’s responsibility.

In October 2000, 17 US sailors were killed in a similar attack on the USS Cole in the southern port of Aden.