Turkish Driver Kidnapped in South Yemen

Gunmen kidnapped a Turkish tourist bus driver in southern Yemen on Wednesday to apply pressure on the authorities to release a fellow tribesman, an official in Abyan province said.

He said the driver, returning with his empty vehicle from Mukala, the capital of Hadramaut province, was intercepted in the Abyan town of Shakla.

His kidnappers were demanding the release of a tribesman held for two years for suspected links to al-Qaida.

More than 200 people have been abducted in Yemen over the past 15 years, many of them by members of the country's powerful tribes who use them as bargaining chips with the authorities.

Almost all of those kidnapped were later freed unharmed.