Yemen attackers try to kidnap German diplomat

Armed men have shot dead a German security guard in an apparent attempt to kidnap the German ambassador to Yemen.

The security guard was killed on Sunday outside a supermarket in Hadda district in Sanaa as attackers tried to seize Carola Mueller-Holtkemper, who escaped.

Embassy employees in Sanaa and the German Foreign Ministry in Berlin declined to comment.

Mueller-Holtkemper had only recently arrived in Yemen and presented her credentials to Yemeni authorities less than a week ago, a statement on the embassy’s website showed.

Later on Sunday a Sierra Leone citizen, who works for the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), was captured at gunpoint from a UN vehicle in the north of the city. His Yemeni driver was not kidnapped.

Earlier attacks 

The attacks were the latest on foreigners and local officials in Yemen, which is battling one of the most active branches of al-Qaeda.

In November last year gunmen shot dead a Saudi diplomat and his Yemeni bodyguard in Sanaa in an attack believed to be the work of the group.

A month earlier, masked gunmen shot dead a Yemeni man who worked in the security office of the US Embassy in Sanaa.

Germany was one of several Western countries to close its Yemen embassy in early August after warnings of a possible major terror attack in the Middle East. The mission reopened two weeks later.