(Changes nationality of doctor) SANAA, Sept 11 (Reuters) - A foreign doctor kidnapped on Thursday by Yemeni tribes in the northeast of the country was released on Friday, officials said. The doctor, who works in a hospital in Shabwah province, was seized in the neighbouring province of Marib while he was travelling to the capital Sanaa. He was released unharmed following mediation by tribal chiefs, a Yemeni official told Reuters earlier on Friday. The official had described the doctor as Russian, but a Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman later said he was from Uzbekistan. Kidnappings are common in Yemen and hostages are usually freed, but in June nine foreigners were abducted and three were later found dead. The doctor's three or four kidnappers had demanded the release of one of their relatives in a criminal case, the governor of Marib province said in a statement on the www.almethaq.net website earlier on Friday. Yemen, the Arab world's poorest country, is battling a Shi'ite rebellion in the north, a wave of al Qaeda attacks and rising secessionist unrest in the south. (Reporting by Tanya Ustinova in Moscow and Mohamed Sudam in Sanaa; writing by Jason Benham; editing by Andrew Roche)
REFILE - CORRECTING SPELLING Tribal chief and business tycoon Hameed al-Ahmar addresses a news conference by the National Committee for Dialogue in Sanaa September 7, 2009. The committee announced on Monday ...
