SANAA, 31 July 2003 — A gunman shot eight worshippers dead and injured two others in an unexplained attack at a mosque in southern Yemen yesterday, a police spokesman said, adding that the attacker was immediately arrested.
The assailant stormed the mosque in the city of Yahar in Lahj province, almost 300 km south of the capital Sanaa, early in the morning and opened fire with a machine gun.
Locals told Arab News that the victims included six young students of a Qura’nic school which was part of the mosque and their teacher.
A tribal leader identified the assailant as 42-year-old Mouhssien Yahia Mounassar.
Gun violence is usual in the tribal areas of Yemen, but the country has witnessed several terror attacks by Islamic militants in recent years, mainly on Western targets.
In 2000, an explosives-laden boat rammed an American destroyer, the USS Cole, off Yemen, killing 17 US soldiers and injuring 38. A similar attack last October targeted a French oil supertanker at a Yemeni oil exporting harbor.
