Missionaries murdered

last updated 8 January 2015

Jibla, Yemen

A gunman linked to al Qaida killed three American Baptist missionaries at a charity hospital in Yemen last week. The killer, Abed al-Kamil, burst into a meeting room and machine-gunned the staff, killing hospital director William Koehn, 60; Dr. Martha Myers, 57; and staffer Kathleen Gariety, 53. All three had been working in Yemen for more than a decade and were well liked in Jibla, locals said. Yemeni officials said Kamil, who came from the capital, Sana, was a member of an Islamic militant group with ties to al Qaida. Thousands of Yemenis attended al Qaida training camps in Afghanistan, and many are believed to have returned to their home country.