SANAA, Jan 18: Two female Belgian tourists were among four people killed, and four more Belgians were wounded, when gunmen opened fire on them in Yemen’s Hadramut province on Friday, a local official said.

Provincial Governor Taha Hajir blamed the local branch of Al Qaeda for the attack, in which the tourists’ Yemeni guide and driver were also killed.

The attackers were said to have targeted the group in the eastern province’s Do’an Valley, before fleeing the scene in a car.

The group was travelling to the close-by city of Shibam, which lies around 450 kilometres east of the Yemeni capital, Sanaa.

The 16th century city is a Unesco World Heritage site and has been dubbed the “Manhattan of the Desert” for its distinctive, tower-like structures.

Last July, seven Spanish tourists and two local drivers were killed when a suicide bomber rammed his explosives-laden car into their convoy at an ancient temple in Yemen. Six Spaniards, two Yemeni drivers and four police guards escorting them were wounded.

The killing of tourists in Yemen is rare, but foreigners are frequently seized by powerful tribes for use as bargaining chips in disputes with the central government. More than 200 have been abducted during the past 15 years.

All have been freed unharmed except for three Britons and an Australian seized by Islamist militants in December 1998. They were killed when security forces stormed the kidnappers’ hideout.—AFP