AFP/Sanaa

Gunmen yesterday kidnapped a European oil employee in Sanaa, hours after Yemen’s capital was rocked by overnight explosions, in the second abduction of a Westerner in four days.
The renewed violence comes as the government struggles to end fighting between Shia Houthis and powerful tribesmen in the north, and seeks to turn the republic into a federation.
An oil sector official said the latest kidnap victim was a Briton who worked in the industry, although there was no immediate confirmation of this.
“Gunmen in a car kidnapped the British man at around 9am near a grocery store in Hada,” a heavily patrolled district in central Sanaa where several embassies are located, the official said.
Witnesses said the kidnappers struck the victim on the head with the butt of a rifle, before driving off with him.
The British embassy could not immediately confirm the reported abduction.
“We are aware of the news. We still cannot confirm,” a spokesman said.
On Friday, tribesmen abducted a German in Sanaa and later said they had snatched him to press authorities to release jailed relatives.
The foreign ministry said the German is being held in a tribal region in the eastern province of Marib.
Hundreds of people have been kidnapped in Yemen over the past 15 years, mostly by tribesmen who use them as bargaining chips in disputes with the government. Nearly all have been freed unharmed.
Al Qaeda militants have also abducted foreigners in Yemen and are currently holding a South African man, as well as a Saudi and a Yemeni diplomat.
In another indication of the growing unrest, a mortar round hit near the French embassy overnight, and a car bomb exploded metres away in the Hada diplomatic district, police said.
The French foreign ministry said there was no indication its embassy had been targeted.
The attacks came after midnight and wounded three people, the police source said.
The mortar round struck beside a concrete block, installed for security reasons on a road to the embassy, the source added.  
It hit shortly after a car bomb exploded on the nearby main road, near the residence of former president Ali Abdullah Saleh.
Saleh continues to play an influential political role and is accused by critics of trying to destabilise the country since an uprising led to his ouster in February 2012.
Two other explosions near the defence ministry left no casualties, police said.
Meanwhile, President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi sent Sanaa governor Abdulqader Hilal to the northern province of Amran to try and broker a ceasefire and end bloody clashes there.
Scores of people have been killed in a month of combat between the Houthi rebels and members of the powerful Hashid tribe that erupted on January 5.
On his Facebook page, Hilal wrote that both sides had welcomed his mediation efforts and agreed to sign a deal on a “ceasefire, opening roads, and the withdrawal of fighters”.