U.S. Diplomat Abducted in Yemen; Officials Seek His Release

An American diplomat was kidnaped by Yemeni tribes people, and government officials were negotiating Friday for his release.

Haynes Mahoney, director of the U.S. Information Service office in the Yemeni capital of Sana, was snatched Thursday night outside a Sana hotel.

In Washington, a State Department official said the kidnaping stemmed from a squabble between competing factions and that it seemed likely Mahoney would be released shortly.

The Yemeni Interior Ministry said the tribe holding Mahoney has made “demands of the (Sana) government” in exchange for his release, but did not specify them.

The Interior Ministry said Mahoney was being held in the Jahm area of Marib province about 75 miles east of Sana.

Mahoney, whose car was also taken, is the first diplomat kidnaped in Yemen in recent years. However, Yemenis pursuing local quarrels with oil companies or the government have carried out a string of abductions of foreigners.

Interior Minister Yahya Mutawakel rushed with a team of aides to the abductors’ hide-out to try to negotiate Mahoney’s release, officials said.

President Ali Abdullah Saleh has ordered tribal chieftains to work to secure his release, government officials said.

The ministry’s statement said five gunmen in a jeep intercepted Mahoney at 7:50 p.m. Thursday a block away from the Taj Sheba Hotel, the site of a British Airways reception. The gunmen took him and his car.

U.S. officials in Washington said Mahoney had attended a Thanksgiving dinner given by U.S. Ambassador Arthur Hughes and was abducted before he arrived at the reception, the officials said.

Acquaintances of the diplomat said Mahoney speaks Arabic, is in his late 40s and has a family in Sana that was not harmed.

The kidnaping comes amid political tensions between Saleh and Vice President Ali Salem Bidh, former president of South Yemen.

Ambassador Hughes has been engaged in mediating the dispute, urging the two men to reconcile their differences to preserve Yemen’s union and the democracy they have introduced.

Conservative Yemen and formerly Marxist South Yemen united three years ago. The nation of 14 million has been plagued by tribal and political violence since then.

Bomb attacks on two hotels in the former southern capital of Aden in December left three dead and narrowly missed U.S. troops housed nearby as part of the international operation to provide aid to Somalia.