Yemen offers reward after foreigners killed

Three women from a party of nine kidnapped foreigners were found dead in northern Yemen this week, in a rare killing that coincided with a rise in separatist and militant tensions in a country whose instability has alarmed Western countries and Saudi Arabia.

One analyst said the killings bore the hallmarks of al Qaeda but no claim of responsibility has been made.

The reward of 5 million rials from Hassan al-Manna, governor of Saada province where the nine were seized last week, was announced on the state news agency, Saba.

It said authorities were searching for the remaining hostages but gave no further details.

Saba said on Monday the three were part of a group of nine -- seven Germans, a Briton and a Korean -- that included three children and their mother, who were kidnapped last week in the mountainous Saada region bordering Saudi Arabia.

In Germany, Chancellor Angela Merkel condemned the killings.

"We must unfortunately assume that two of the three people found dead in Yemen were German women doing work experience. It it is very sad news and we strongly condemn (the killings)," Merkel said.

German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier said German experts would help identify the victims. "This morning a team of German experts was sent to carry out a precise identification. At the moment the circumstances of the death of both women is unclear," he said.

The two German women were students at a German bible school who were carrying out work experience at a hospital in Saada, the school said on its website.

"They had decided to carry out an internship in Yemen because of their strong social and pastoral engagement," the school said. "We received the news of the death of our students, Anita G. and Rita S., with deep dismay."

A source told Reuters on Sunday that one of the German captives was a doctor at a local hospital which the other Germans were visiting. The Briton is an engineer and the South Korean was working with an aid agency.

A statement from the Yemeni military said two of the dead women were German nurses and the third was a Korean teacher.

Several other foreigners who worked at the hospital left on Tuesday, a Yemeni official said.

Yemeni authorities have blamed the Houthi tribal group, who belong to a Shi'ite Muslim sect, for kidnapping the nine foreigners, a charge the Houthis have denied.

If the killings were carried out by tribesmen, it would be the first time that women hostages have been their victims. Two Belgian women, however, were killed in 2008 by gunmen in an ambush that authorities blamed on al Qaeda.

Yemen last week arrested a man described as al Qaeda's top financier in Yemen and Saudi Arabia.

Yemen, the Arab world's poorest country, is struggling with a revolt in the north, a secessionist movement in the south and growing al Qaeda militancy.

The unrest has raised concerns Yemen could slip into chaos and provide a base for al Qaeda or pirates operating in the Indian ocean.