At least three French nationals were kidnapped in Yemen Sunday by armed tribesmen, security officials said. The officials, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the media, said tribesmen kidnapped the French nationals in the Shabwa province in southeastern Yemen. The kidnapping of the French nationals is the latest in a series of abductions of foreigners by armed tribesmen that have embarrassed the Yemeni government, the Associated Press reported. On Jan. 1 kidnappers abducted five Italian tourists, releasing them unharmed six days later when they were cornered by security forces in the mountains of north Yemen. They were seized a day after another Yemeni tribe freed a former deputy foreign minister of Germany and four members of his family whom they had held for four days. President Ali Abdullah Saleh has pledged to crack down on kidnapping, a tactic tribesmen frequently employ to win concessions from the government. Hostages are usually freed unharmed, but several were killed in 2000 when Yemeni soldiers carried out a botched raid to free them.
