The suspected attacker, a Yemeni, was arrested, and a Yemeni
official said security forces were searching for a militant cell
that may be targeting foreigners and secular figures in the country.
Americans have been repeatedly warned by the U.S. State
Department to take care in Yemen, a country where central government
authority is weak in tribal areas and where Muslim militants have
found refuge. Yemen, the ancestral homeland of al-Qaida chief Osama
bin Laden (news
- web
sites), has been a key front in the U.S.-led war on terrorism.
Officials said the gunman entered the complex of Jibla Baptist
Hospital in the town of Jibla hiding a semiautomatic rifle under his
jacket to make it resemble a child.
The gunman entered a room where hospital director William E.
Koehn was holding a meeting and opened fire, said a statement from
the Southern Baptist Convention's International Mission Board, based
in Richmond, Va.
Three people were killed instantly with shots to the head, Yemeni
officials said. The gunman then headed to the hospital's pharmacy
and opened fire, wounding the pharmacist, the Yemeni officials said.
The Southern Baptist International Mission Board identified the
dead as Koehn, 60, of Arlington, Texas, who had planned to retire
next year after 28 years of service; purchasing agent Kathleen A.
Gariety, 53, of Wauwatosa, Wis.; and Dr. Martha C. Myers, 57, of
Montgomery, Ala. The statement identified the pharmacist as Donald
W. Caswell, 49, of Levelland, Texas.
Caswell was shot in the abdomen and hospital officials said he
was in critical condition. His father, 71-year-old D.C. Caswell,
said his son was recovering after surgery.
"We just thank the Lord that he is alive," D.C. Caswell said from
Texas. "He's alert and talking and everything's going to be all
right, they're thinking."
International Mission Board spokesman Larry Cox said the
organization was "devastated by this news" of the attack. "We are
moving quickly to minister to family members" in Yemen and the
United States," he said in the board statement.
Cox said no decision had been made about evacuating Americans
connected with the hospital.
The killings are "a crime unacceptable in any religion. This
contradicts Islam," said a Jibla woman who gave only her first name,
Fatima, and said she used the hospital. "They cared for us and
looked after us. I can't even count the number of children they
treated and saved."
Carrying weapons is common in Yemen, where people often take them
openly into offices and public buildings.
The operators of the hospital in Jibla, a town 125 miles south of
the capital, San`a, said there had been no reason to believe the
hospital would be the target of an attack.
"We've been there for 35 years," said Wendy Norvelle, spokeswoman
for the International Mission Board, in Richmond.
It was the second recent attack on American missionaries in the
region. On November 21, a gunman shot and killed an American
missionary nurse in the Lebanese city of Sidon. Lebanese authorities
have yet to determine who was behind that shooting.
A Yemeni Interior Ministry official identified the 30-year-old
assailant in Monday's attack as Abed Abdul Razak Kamel, the official
news agency Saba reported. Officials said they believed he was a
Muslim extremist.
Kamel said during interrogation that he plotted the shooting in
collaboration with Ali al-Jarallah, who was arrested for killing a
senior Yemeni leftist politician on Saturday, an official said.
Another security official, also speaking on condition of
anonymity, said authorities were searching for a five to eight
extremists targeting foreigners and secular personalities in Yemen.
The U.S. Embassy in San'a condemned the attack "on American
citizens who have long been providing humanitarian services to
Yemeni citizens." It urged the Yemeni government "to bring those
responsible to justice."
In a statement, the embassy also asked Americans in Yemen to
enhance their security, saying it was requesting additional
protection for them and was sending a team to Jibla to help with the
investigation.
The Southern Baptist missionary board said its 80-bed Jibla
hospital treats more than 40,000 patients annually, providing care
free to those cannot afford it. Its missionaries also taught English
and clinical skills at a nearby nursing school, according to the
board.
Kathleen Gariety had been in Yemen for about 10 years and along
with her hospital work had helped educate Yemeni children, said her
brother Jerome J. Gariety Jr. of Colgate, Wis.
"She was a wonderful, devoted person," he said. "She loved the
children very much."
Impoverished, factionalized, predominantly Muslim Yemen has for
years been a haven for wanted Muslim extremists. Bin Laden enlisted
thousands of Yemenis to fight alongside the mujahedeen of
Afghanistan (news
- web
sites) in their U.S.-backed war against an occupation Soviet
army in the 1980s. Many returned when the Soviets withdrew, and they
are a powerful political force here.
On Oct. 6, an explosives-laden boat rammed a French oil tanker
off the coast of Yemen, killing one member of the tanker's crew,
tearing a hole in the vessel and spilling some 90,000 barrels of
oil. U.S. intelligence officials suspect militants with links to
al-Qaida in the attack.
In a similar attack in October 2000, a suicide bomb boat hit the
USS Cole (news
- web
sites) in the southern port of Aden, killing 17 sailors in an
attack blamed on al-Qaida. Al-Qaida also is held responsible for the
Sept. 11, 2001, attacks in the United States.
Yemen has signed on as Washington's partner in the war on
terrorism launched after the Sept. 11 attacks.
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