U.S. investigators were trying Tuesday to discover whether the shootings at a missionary hospital in Yemen that killed three U.S. aid workers was part of a wider terrorism plot or a one-off attack by a lone extremist.
The suspect was identified as Abed Abdul Razak al-Kamil, a 30-year-old Yemeni who claimed membership to a militant cell believed to be targeting foreigners and secular-minded Yemeni politicians and public figures.
The Yemeni news agency Saba quoted an official as saying the suspect told interrogators that he plotted the attack in collaboration with Ali al-Jarallah.
Yemeni officials told The Associated Press that al-Jarallah was a Muslim extremist and a member of the fundamentalist Islamic Reform Party who was detained for assassinating a leading Yemeni left-wing politician on Saturday.
On its part, the Bush administration deplored the killing of the three American missionaries. A State Department spokesman called it "a horrible and tragic crime." Philip Reeker said there was no justification for such an attack on Americans who are trying to help the people in Yemen.
He said this demonstrates the terrorist danger for Americans in Yemen. (Albawaba.com)
