Sanaa, Oct 7 (IANS): A group of gunmen kidnapped an employee of the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) here Sunday, an official said.

"A Sierra Leonean national working with the UNICEF in Sanaa was kidnapped by gunmen near the airport in northern Sanaa," Xinhua reported quoting a Yemeni interior ministry official as saying.

The official said the initial investigations showed that Al Qaeda militants were behind the abduction. Officials at the UNICEF confirmed the incident.

The kidnap occurred half an hour after gunmen shot dead a German national working as a security officer at the German embassy in the southern part of Sanaa, according to the interior ministry official.

Meanwhile, an official at the German embassy in Sanaa denied reports that the German ambassador escaped an alleged assassination or kidnapping attempt Sunday.

He said that Ambassador Carola Muller-Holtkemper was neither at the supermarket nor near the scene when the German national was killed.

Foreigners are frequently kidnapped in Yemen by Al Qaeda militants or tribesmen who ask for ransom or for the exchange for their jailed fellows. Most of the kidnapped have been freed unharmed.