U.S. soldiers in Yemen

SANAA, December 30 (News Agencies) – Three American doctors, of the U.S. Southern Baptist Convention's International Mission Board, were shot dead and a fourth was wounded in the southern Yemeni town of Jibla, hospital officials said.

Wielding a Kalashnikov assault rifle, a gunman opened fire in the Jibla Baptist hospital in the province of Ibb, 170 kilometers (105 miles) south of the capital Sanaa, the officials said, Agence France-Presse (AFP) reported.

The killer, who was arrested, entered the building saying he was visiting a sick relative. But he gunned down the doctors as they held a routine morning meeting, the officials added.

The U.S. Southern Baptist Convention's International Mission Board, based in Richmond, Virginia, was reportedly preparing to transfer control of the 77-bed hospital to a local Yemeni charity.

The hospital opened in 1967 and treats 40,000 people a year on a nine-hectare (22-acre) site near the city of Ibb.

The correspondent of the Qatari-based Al Jazeera Satellite channel said that the gunman, Abed Kamel was arrested and he admitted to being the colleague of Al Jarallah, the man accused of assassinating the Jarallah Omar, the deputy leader of the Yemeni Socialist Party (YSP) on Saturday, December 29.

The correspondent also said that there has been problems between the hospital and some of the Islamic parties in Yemen because of the missionary activities of the doctors and the workers in the hospital. Some Yemeni citizens were Christianized at the hands of these doctors, the correspondent said, adding that the hospital has received during the last few weeks warnings from the U.S. Embassy in Yemen regarding the targeting of the Americans working in the hospital.

Amidst increasing protest against the U.S.'s war on terror, the Gulf region has also recently witnessed massive protests against the U.S. military presence on its land, which led to the killing of several U.S. soldiers and the rise of anti-American attacks.

Omar was assassinated at an Islamic conference after being hit twice in the chest with bullets fired from a pistol.

Police and witnesses said Jarallah Omar was hit twice in the chest with bullets fired from a pistol and died on his way to hospital. He had just given a speech in the name of the YSP rejecting violence at the opening of a conference of the Al-Islah Party in Sana'a.

Armed bodyguards protecting Yemen's parliament speaker and Al-Islah leader, Sheikh Abdullah al-Ahmar, overpowered the gunman and took him to the sheikh's house. He was turned over to police a few hours later.

All political parties condemned the murder, with President Ali Abdullah Saleh saying Omar "was a victim of blind violence and extremism".

"Terrorism will not dissuade us from continuing along the path of democracy," Saleh said.

The president gave orders for Omar to be buried in the "martyrs' cemetery" in Sanaa.

The YSP, now in the opposition as is Al-Islah, governed southern Yemen before it was unified with the north in May 1990.

In his speech, Omar had called for national dialogue among the political factions in Yemen and rejected violence in a country largely governed along tribal lines.

The Al-Islah party had denied reports published by the foreign media saying that the assassin was one of its member.