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Yemen in talks with tourist kidnappers to free Italians
Yemeni authorities negotiated with tribesmen holding Italian tourists hostage, and three women returned to the captors after being freed on Sunday to try to secure the release of two remaining men, officials said.

The kidnapping of the five Italians, which followed the abduction of five Germans, prompted the sacking of governors in the two provinces where the Western tourists were seized.

Yemeni officials earlier said the three women had been freed and that the authorities were negotiating to gain the release of the two male tourists.

But one official later said they had decided to return to the tribesmen upon learning after being handed over to a mediator that the men were still being held. They said they would only leave if all five were released.

"They have gone back," the security official told Reuters.

The Italians' kidnapping came hours after Yemen's President Ali Abdullah Saleh pledged to eradicate abductions in the poor Arab country, and a day after five German hostages were freed unharmed by tribesmen who held them for three days.

Yemeni officials promised to look into the demands of the kidnappers in negotiations to free the Germans.

"Tribesmen stopped the vehicle the tourists were travelling in and abducted them," said the official, adding that talks were under way through local officials who acted as mediators.

Troops were being deployed in the remote mountainous Marib province, where the five were kidnapped by al-Zaidi tribesmen demanding eight tribe members held on criminal charges be freed, he added. The tribe is known for similar abductions in the past.

Italy said its embassy in Sanaa was working with Yemeni authorities to seek a solution to the kidnapping.

Italy's foreign ministry said there were about 100 Italians in Yemen and that it had long warned against travel to tribal areas on its Web site (www.viaggiaresicuri.mae.aci.it).

President Saleh later sacked the governors of Shabwa and Marib, the two unruly provinces where the latest kidnappings took place, state media said.

Officials also replaced the chiefs of the security forces in the two provinces, where central government control is weak.

Scores of tourists and foreigners working in Yemen have been kidnapped in recent years, often by disgruntled tribesmen demanding better schools, roads and other state services for their region, or the release of jailed relatives.

Most of the hostages have been released unharmed, but in 2000 a Norwegian diplomat was shot dead in crossfire between security forces and kidnappers. Four Westerners were killed in 1998 during a botched army attempt to free them from Islamist militants who had seized 16 tourists.
Posted by: Dan Darling 2006-01-02
http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=138833