U.S. Embassy Worker Shot, Wounded

WASHINGTON — A 41-year-old communications officer with the U.S. Embassy in Yemen was shot and wounded Friday by an unknown assailant, the State Department announced.

Department spokesman Charles Redman said that no person or terrorist organization had claimed responsibility for the attack in Sana, the country’s capital. U.S. officials have no information linking the attack with Libyan leader Col. Moammar Kadafi, who has vowed revenge for the U.S. bombing raid against Libya last week, he added.

Redman identified the victim as Arthur L. Pollick of Bakersfield, Calif., the second U.S. Embassy employee in the Arab world to be attacked by gunmen in the last 10 days. An unidentified communications officer from the U.S. mission in Sudan was shot in the head April 15 in Khartoum. The employee was flown to a hospital in Saudi Arabia, and a U.S. Embassy spokesman there said he was taken to West Germany on Friday for further treatment.

Pollick was also reported in stable condition after surgery in a Sana hospital, Redman said. “His life does not appear to be in danger,” he said.

Hospital sources in Sana told the Associated Press that Pollick was wounded in the back and left shoulder.

Yemen, a conservative Arab nation in contrast to its Marxist neighbor, South Yemen, has remained relatively free from the widespread turmoil that has besieged other parts of the Arab world. Sudan, however, has a history of terrorism that dates back to the 1973 killing of two American diplomats and the Belgian ambassador in an attack on the Saudi Arabian Embassy.

Redman said that Pollick was driving home from religious services when he was shot from a passing car. It was not known if the two or three bullets that hit Pollick damaged any vital organs, but he reportedly was able to walk inside his house and call for help.