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By Lee Tae-hoon
Staff Reporter
Four South Korean tourists were killed and three others wounded in a terrorist attack in the city of Shibam, eastern Yemen, Sunday.
Al-Qaida was behind the suicide bombing that killed the four, according to Yemen's official Saba news agency Monday.
The agency said an 18-year-old who had been ``tricked by al-Qaida into wearing an explosives vest'' carried out the attack.
The area is the ancestral homeland of the militant network's fugitive leader Osama bin Laden.
The government designated all of Yemen as a ``travel restriction area,'' asking people not to travel to the Mideast country.
Vice Foreign Minister Shin Kak-soo presided over an emergency meeting of related agencies, and a group of four officials was dispatched to Yemen.
The ministry expressed regret over the incident.
Ministry spokesman Moon Tae-young said the government expresses ``our deep condolences to the victims and bereaved families.''
Seoul will cooperate with the Yemeni government to shed light on the cause of the tragedy, he said.
The incident occurred at 5:50 p.m. Sunday (local time) when 18 Koreans were traveling in the Arab nation, the ministry said.
The dead and wounded were taken to the Sayun Hospital in central Yemen, while the remaining 10 Korean tourists were rushed to a hotel to prepare to fly home.
Their Yemeni guide was also killed, but the three wounded Koreans are not in critical condition, according to Yonhap News Agency.
``An explosion took place as they were gathered on a hill called Khazzan that overlooks the city. The Telegraph.co.uk quoted a local security official as saying that they were on foot and taking pictures of the buildings in Shibam at sunset,'' said a report.
Shibam is a UNESCO World Heritage site, often referred to as ``the Manhattan of the desert,'' the Yemeni official said.
Ma Gyeong-chan, a survivor of the incident and organizer of the tour, told Yonhap that the explosion occurred among belongings that local residents left at the site.
``While we were looking at the sunset, a teenager and a man in his early 40s who claimed to be his father approached and started talking to us,'' Ma said.
``I'm not sure whether it was a terrorist bomb, but the explosion took place from the belongings they left, shortly after we parted (from) them,'' he said.
The ministry also stated that though it appeared to be a terrorist bomb attack, it could not rule out the possibility that it could have been an accident caused by remnants of dynamite abandoned at a nearby closed mine.
``We are still trying to find the exact cause of the incident and related developments,'' Kim Yu-chul, a senior official of the ministry, said.
No group has yet openly claimed responsibility for the explosion.
However, Khaled al-Hammadi, a journalist in Sanaa, Yemen's capital, hinted at the blast possible link to al-Qaida while talking on the Arab satellite channel Al Jazeera, saying that it came after the announcement of a new leadership of the terror network on the Arabian peninsula.
Al-Qaida has maintained a strong presence in Yemen, the ancestral homeland of Al-Qaida chief Osama bin Laden. His group have attacked and killed foreigners in the poverty-stricken country on numerous occasions, including two Belgian tourists shot dead along with their local guide and driver in Hadramawt in January last year.
leeth@koreatimes.co.kr
