Frenchman's killer linked to Al-Qaeda, Yemen claims

Yemen's Interior Ministry says a security guard who shot dead a Frenchman earlier this month had links to Al-Qaeda. And it has launched a manhunt for eight alleged members of the terror network.

Reuters

The government at first said security guard Hisham Mohammen Assem had probably acted for personal reasons but now says that the killing was “a terrorist crime” and claimed that Assem “had contacts with elements in Al-Qaeda”.

Jacques Spagnolo, a contractor working for energy company OMV, was killed on the same day as a British embassy car was targeted by a rocket attack in the Yemeni capital Sanaa.

A 65-year-old Scot, said to be OMV's security chief, was also wounded in the attack, an official statement said.

At the time, OMV said it saw "no political background for the action taken by the Yemeni security guard".

The ministry Saturday offered a generous award for information leading to the arrest of any of eight men it claims are “extremist terrorists”, whose names and photographs are published in an official communique.

Australia on Friday warned its nationals not to go to Yemen because of a “very high threat of terrorist attack”, especially against “Westerners and Western targets”. US President Barack Obama recently claimed that Al-Qaeda is pursuing a “murderous agenda” there.

Al-Qaeda has claimed responsibility for a number of attacks in the country, which is also the scene of separatist conflict in the south. The US and its allies pledged to back the Sanaa government against the network at the beginning of the year.