Gunmen abduct Iran embassy employee in Yemen

Armed men kidnapped an employee of the Iranian embassy in Yemen's capital Sanaa on Sunday, police sources said, the latest in a series of abductions of foreigners in the lawless Arab country.
   
The Iranian man was traveling through the diplomatic quarter in southern Sanaa when gunmen blocked the road, forced him to get out of his vehicle and took him to an unknown location, the sources told Reuters.

It was not immediately clear who carried out the kidnapping, they said.

Iran's foreign ministry confirmed that an administrative staff member of its embassy in Sanaa named Nour Ahmad Nikbakht has been kidnapped, the ISNA news agency reported, quoting a ministry spokesman.
   
Yemen's government is grappling with a host of challenges, including a separatist movement in the south and an Islamist insurgency, as it tries to restore authority lost during mass protests in 2011 that overthrew veteran President Ali Abdullah Saleh.
   
Disgruntled tribesmen also often take hostages to press the government to free jailed relatives or improve public services.
   
A Saudi diplomat based in Yemen's southern port city of Aden has been held hostage by Islamist militants linked to al Qaeda since March, 2012.
   
In a separate incident, an instructor in the country's military academy was killed by a bomb placed under his car in Sanaa on Sunday, the Yemeni Defense Ministry's website reported.
   
The attack that instantly killed Brigadier General Abdullah Hussein al-Mehdar was the latest in a series of assassinations targeting senior officers from the armed forces or the security establishment.
   
Militants linked to al Qaeda have been blamed for many of the attacks that have killed at least 70 military and security officials since 2011.


REUTERS