More than four months after their abduction, an Austrian student and a Finnish couple were freed in Yemen by Al Qaeda militants on Thursday, officials said. The three were abducted on December 21 and were handed over to the neighboring Omani authorities after being freed by locals near the border with Oman. The foreign visitors had been taken from a shop in the Yemeni capital, Sana'a, and moved around until they were held in the small town of Hawf, near the Omani border, officials added. On Wednesday night, the courageous Hawf residents attacked and arrested the kidnappers and set free the three foreigners. In a YouTube.com video released in February, the Austrian student appeared with a gun to his head, saying his kidnappers will kill him unless Austria and the European Union pay a ransom. Despite the high numbers of kidnappings in Yemen in the last decade, almost all kidnapped foreigners have been freed. BN
