Armed Yemeni tribesmen kidnapped a US couple near the Yemeni capital Sanaa today and were demanding the release of a jailed relative, Yemeni security officials said.
The couple's Yemeni driver and a translator were also taken hostage, the officials said. The kidnappers were seeking government intervention to free a family member in jail over a land dispute that was before the courts, a tribal source said.
"Armed tribesmen ambushed a car carrying tourists and their Yemeni driver and took them to their area," one security official said. Another official said the kidnapping was not thought to have any broader political motive.
A US diplomat in Sanaa confirmed that two American tourists had been kidnapped but had no further details.
A Yemeni government official said authorities had made contact with the kidnappers and a team of negotiators was headed to the mountainous area where the Americans were being held.
Security officials said the US couple were seized in al-Haima, an impoverished coffee- and qat-growing region that was considered fairly safe.
The area is near the main road from Sanaa to Hudaida on the Red Sea coast, a common overnight destination for tourists who visit archaeological sites near the coast or the Haraz mountains, home to an Ismaili pilgrimage site.
Tourists travelling between Sanaa and Hudaida are required to inform police of their trip but do not typically need a security escort, as is necessary in some other areas of Yemen.
About a week ago, two young German girls held hostage for nearly a year in northern Yemen were rescued near the Saudi border in good health. Their parents, toddler brother and a Briton seized with them were still missing. The Yemeni government believes their kidnappers have links to al-Qaeda.
Three other foreigners kidnapped alongside the family were found dead last year, and a relative of the girls has said their younger brother is probably dead.
Kidnappings of foreigners and Yemenis are common in the impoverished Arabian peninsula country, where hostages are often used by disgruntled tribesmen to press demands on authorities.
Most hostages taken in Yemen have been freed unharmed, but in 2000 a Norwegian diplomat was killed in crossfire and in 1998 four Westerners were killed during an army attempt to free them.
Yemen, bordering the world's top oil exporter Saudi Arabia, surged to the forefront of Western security concerns after the Yemen-based regional arm of al-Qaeda claimed responsibility for a failed attempt to bomb a US-bound plane in December.
The United States and Saudi Arabia want Yemen, trying to end a conflict with Shia rebels in the north while separatist sentiment bubbles over in the south, to focus its efforts on fighting al-Qaeda. They fear the global militant group, whose regional arm has based itself in Yemen, will take advantage of the country's instability to spread its operations to the kingdom and beyond.