Armies of Liberation

Yemen Post:

The Houthi rebels are considering a coalition with the Joint Meeting Parties, an opposition alliance in Yemen, Saadaonline reported on Friday. The coalition comes based on the united views of the Houthi and the JMPs of the situation in the country, according to the website.

‘Intellectual and cultural views of the Houthi and the JMPs would not be a roadblock to the coalition that comes within the framework of important and the most important as the situation deepens a day after a day,’ spokesman for the militants was quoted as saying.

The JMPs led by the Islah Party has a realistic view of the current situation in the country, he said, adding that arrangements were underway to solidify the coalition.

Related: Dire Humanitarian Conditions Ignored by West in Rush to Tackle al Qaeda

Islam Online GENEVA – The United Nations is accusing the international community and donors of turning a blind eye to the escalating humanitarian crisis in Yemen, while focusing on security threats.

“The humanitarian situation is just getting worse without any doubt,” John Holmes, UN emergency relief coordinator, told Reuters in an interview.

“Needs are great and in danger of not being met because the international community, the donors, have not responded as we would have hoped.”

The UN appealed late last year for $177 million in humanitarian aid to help some 250,000 people displaced by the ongoing fighting between government troops and Shiite rebels. However, it is only 0.4 percent funded. (Read on …)

This is an astute and comprehensive analysis written by Dr. Abdullah al Faqih, Political Science professor at Sana’a University and member of Academics against Corruption. The section on al Qaeda will be of interest to many. The analysis offers several tangible strategies to deal with the current crises and forestall future disaster.

I agree completely that the Saudis should stop funding the Sa’ada War (and the hard core religious institutes and tribal Sheiks!) and instead funnel all available funds transparently into development projects. Saudi aid is estimated to be in the billions but it is used to fight the Houthis, spread Wahabbism and keep Yemeni sheiks divorced from both the central government and their own tribal constituencies. Rationalizing Saudi aid could have an immediate impact on stability. For Dr. Al Faqih’s website, click here.

The Challenges of Dealing with Yemen’s Deep Crises (ARI)
by Abdullah Al-faqih ARI 29/2010 – 4/2/2010

Theme: President Saleh’s foremost concern is to keep total economic and political power in his own hands as long as he lives, and to hand it down to his son afterwards. The US and the international community are concerned with the threat posed by al-Qaeda to regional and international peace and many educated Yemenis are concerned about the potential for tension between Saleh’s goal and that of the international community.

Summary: The first decade of the new millennium was supposed to be Yemen’s best in modern times. However, in the summer of 2004 an open-ended rebellion broke out in the Saada region in the far north. By mid 2007, resentment against President Ali Abdullah Saleh’s regime among the population of the southern governorates came to a head, with thousands of people pouring out onto the streets every day. While Saleh is busy waging war against the insurgents in the north and trying hard to quash the massive unrest in the south, Saudi and Yemeni al-Qaeda operatives have merged together in the so called al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP). Any sound strategy to tackle Yemen’s complexities should meet several conditions: (1) it should be comprehensive in scope and inclusive of political, economic and security issues; (2) its priority should be to dismantle the ongoing political conflicts in the north and south; and (3) it should fully engage Saleh using a combination of incentives and disincentives. (Read on …)

Political Security authorities raided the house of Dhaif Alsoolani, the editor of the Adengulf.net web site and arrested his younger brother and two of his relatives on Sunday Jan-31-2010 in Aden.

The raid occurred within the ferocious campaign against journalists and southern political activists and their families. Authorities arrested Alsoolani’s younger brother Saleh Hussein Alsoolani 25 years, and his relatives Salah Al-ganhi 19-yeara and Ali Al-ganhi 15 years. They were taken and confined to the Political Security Prison (Alfateh).

According to our sources there, the security soldiers beat the detainees with rifle butts.

Within the last year, Yemeni security authorities raided the homes and arrested of many southern journalists and confined them to the prisons in Sana’a. Currently held are Salah Al-sakldi’ detained since April of last year and Salah Rashed editor of Almukla press .com Also Hesham Basharaheel editor of Al-Ayyam daily, along with his two sons. Journalist Ahmed Al-rabeezi and a hundred of the southern political activists been in prison more in one year without trial.

The global reach of al Qaeda in Yemen became clear when a Nigerian disciple of the murder cult nearly blew up an airliner over Detroit. In response, the Obama administration is strengthening its support for Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh, one of the regions longest serving dictators and one of the most corrupt.

President Obama said he hopes to communicate to “Muslims around the world that al Qaeda offers nothing except a bankrupt vision of misery and death, including the murder of fellow Muslims, while the United States stands with those who seek justice and progress.” The hypocrisy is stunning.

The US administration is well aware that Saleh’s government is committing atrocities against civilians that rise to the level of war crimes. In a Darfur-like conflict in Sa’ada, northern Yemen, collective punishment of Shiite civilians includes indiscriminate bombing and intentional starvation. A former recruiter for Usama bin Laden leads the military with the help of tribal militias, former Iraqi army officers and foreign jihaddists. Over 200,000 are homeless from the war and largely deprived of aid. When Oxfam warned of a “humanitarian catastrophe of terrifying proportions,” the Yemeni Health Minister threatened to expel the organization.

Journalists who report on the carnage are tried as terrorists, like Abdulkarim al Khaiwani, or disappear like Mohammed al Maqaleh, who reported an air strike that killed 87 war refugees in September and hasn’t been seen since.

In south Yemen, police shot and killed dozens of anti-government protesters since 2007. Thousands were arrested. (Torture in Yemeni jails is brutal.) At a recent demonstration, southerners raised the US flag like a distress signal for rescue from tyranny. Funeral marches snake for miles along dusty roads.

If bombed starving children, disappeared journalists and bloody protesters aren’t enough for those who ascribe to the strongman theory of Middle Eastern politics, there’s also Yemen’s consistent duplicity on the terror issue. (Read on …)

This article is well worth reading but the following is certainly true:

Houthi’s Ceasefire Offer Spurned
Saada War Rages On
By RANNIE AMIRI

To understand the true motive behind the relentless bombardment, one only need return to the primary demand of the rebels: an end to the ever-increasing socioeconomic marginalization and religious discrimination of the Zaidi community in Yemen.

This war was not just to aid the fledging Saleh regime in combating an enemy far less threatening to its existence than al-Qaeda, but to send a clear message to Saudi Arabia’s own citizens who suffer the same systemic and institutionalized discrimination as do the Zaidis. Namely, Shia Muslims, Ismaili Muslims, Sufi Muslims and any who dare challenge the authority of the House of al-Saud or the doctrines of the officially-sanctioned Wahabi school of thought.

Not something you see everyday, southern Yemeni oppositionist Tarik al Fadhli raises the US flag (with anthem) over his compound in Abyan:

As I mentioned in my article, US flags are popping up at southern demonstrations “like a distress signal for rescue from tyranny.”

Killed while in police custody in Ma’alla

Aden News Agency:

Local sources in Aden – one the largest cities in the south of Yemen- have declared that the political prisoner ( Faris Zeid Abullkareem Tamah ) was killed by the police of Al-Malla’a city in Aden, after being kept there for days, while the circumstances of his death still unknown until this moment. (Read on …)

World Bulletin

A Yemeni provincial opposition politician thought to be active in a southern separatist movement was gunned down in south Yemen, his party and local residents said on Monday.

The Yemeni Socialist Party said Saeed Ahmed Abdullah bin Daoud was shot dead on Friday in the southern town of Zanjibar in Abyan province, adding on its website that the province was in “an unprecedented state of disorder”.

Zanjibar residents said bin Daoud, a member of the Socialist party’s leadership committee in the town, was also involved with southern separatists seeking independence from the central government.

There was no immediate word on the reasons for the killing.

PETN is so last year… This is all coming from the governor of Abyan, al Maseri. A Pakistani expert came to Yemen last year to train them on smaller, undetectable explosives and he died at some point in a work accident. Another Pakistani gave training on poisen gases. Four months ago they got aid with the help of non-Yemenis in the organization. Al Maseri says the security forces found a similiar substance to that used to attack Prince Naif.

Saudi Gazette Pakistani built bomb to kill Prince, says Yemeni official
By Abdullah Al-Oraifij
ABYAN, Yemen – Dramatic new claims have been made that a Pakistani explosives expert was responsible for manufacturing the bomb that was used by a suicide bomber in a failed attempt to assassinate Prince Muhammad Bin Naif Bin Abdul Aziz, Assistant Interior Minister for Security Affairs at his palace in Jeddah last August.
Talking to Okaz, Ahmad Al-Maseeri, Governor of Abyan in Yemen, said that the man who made the explosive capsule, used by Abdullah Hasan Al-Asiri in his attempt to kill the Prince, was a Pakistani. (Read on …)

Oh the Houthis “stole” 20 truckloads of weapons, and Faris failed to report it until they were well away. Lets see what happens now. No one ever goes to jail in Yemen. I had thought Faris Manna was Saleh’s partner, just like the oil smuggler Tawfiq Abdel Rahman Tawfiq Abdel Rahim. I wonder if the theft occured before or after the Defense Ministry imported a shipload of Chinese weapons destined for the rebels with forged documents. The reason Yemen keeps accusing Iran of supplying the Houthis is because without that red herring, it become clear that Yemeni officials are themselves selling weapons to the rebels. Its not just fall off, small deals and captured weapons going from the government side to the rebels. Hey, lets increase in military aid

al Arabiya: Yemen on Sunday arrested the second biggest arms dealer in the country just days after the capture of another top dealer, whose weapons depot was stolen by rebels fighting the government in the north, Al Arabiya TV reported. (Read on …)

Not only are they fighting on behalf of the regime against the Houthis but they gained entry through facilitiation by officials. Many are at Dammaj. Apparently this group was in Yemen for some time. Aden Gulf Network

Informed sources revealed that a number of Algerians took part in some battles based on Yemeni territory between the conflicting parties to the conflict there.

أضافت ذات المصادر، أن عددهم يزيد على عشرين عنصرا أغلبهم من ذوي الاتجاه السلفي، تنقلوا إلى اليمن بطرق رسمية عبر المطارات وبجوازات سفر سليمة، منهم من تنقل إلى المملكة العربية السعودية وأقاموا هناك بطريقة غير شرعية أين انقضت الفترة المحددة لتأشيراتهم، وبعدها تحوّلوا إلى الأراضي اليمنية، والبعض الآخر منهم سافر إلى سوريا وليبيا ليتنقلوا بعدها إلى اليمن. Same sources added that they are over twenty components, mainly with the Salafi trend, moved to Yemen through airports and official passports of sound, many of whom moved to Saudi Arabia and settled there illegally Where the specified period has elapsed for their visas, and then turned to the land of Yemen , and some of them traveled to Syria and Libya to move around then to Yemen. (Read on …)

They seem to think Saleh is capable of reform, although any reform will undermine his authority and cash flow. Economic reform in Yemen is not possible without serious political reform.

Earth Times: London – World powers must broaden the range of support they give to Yemen immediately and sustain it over many years to stop the country from becoming a base for al-Qaeda and other terrorist groups, top diplomats at a conference in London said Wednesday. That will require aid which goes beyond military assistance to help the Yemeni government defeat rebels in the north and south, instead targeting reform, economic development and the rule of law. (Read on …)

Not one word from the international community or Madam Secretary in reference to freedom of the press.

RSF

The 66-year-old editor of the daily al-Ayyam, Hisham Bashraheel, was arrested on 6 January, the day after the security forces lifted a 24-hour siege of his newspaper in Aden. One of his sons, managing editor, Hani Bashraheel, was also arrested at the same time. Another son of Hisham Bashraheel, Mohammed Hisham Bashraheel, was arrested on 5 January. It is not known where they are being held or what the charges against them are.

Abu al Fida is the individual who negotiated on behalf of al Qaeda with President Saleh and Gamal al Qamish starting in 2006 once the dialog program died. He always praised the relationship and gained some important concessions from the regime. More on al Feida here, with links back to older posts.

Times Online: When Osama Bin Laden decided to marry for the fifth time, he turned to his most trusted advisers to find him a bride.

He wanted a Yemeni girl, he told them. The marriage would cement his relationship with Yemen, his billionaire father’s homeland. Sheikh Rashad Mohammed Saeed Ismael, a Yemeni aide, took up the challenge. (Read on …)

Saving a man not a nation:

Monsters and Critics: Five major Yemeni opposition parties said in a joint statement that the conference ‘tended to save the political regime in Yemen rather than the state which is exposed to a serious deterioration due to the policies of this same regime.’

The parties, led by the main Islamist party, Islah, said the government used the conference to gain foreign support ‘in the face of the dangerously deteriorating internal situation and the democratic life.’

They said the conference’s support for the Sana’a government have ‘depleted the last remaining hopes of Yemen and Yemeni people for a serious and real help from the international community.’

Britain’s Prime Minister Gordon Brown called for the meeting in response to the failed bomb attack on an airliner over Detroit on December 25. The alleged bomber was reportedly trained in Yemen.

‘The meeting ended with ambiguous decisions that did not affect the essence of the Yemeni crisis in their manifestations except the security aspect,’ the statement said.

By supporting the government, the conference supported ‘instability and corruption,’ it added.

More buzz on Ali Mohsen from al Wahdawi below the fold. This investigative report from “Saadaonline” is not too surprising:

Ali Mohsen coordinating with al Qaeda in Sa’ada
Salafi leaders integrated directly into the military
Tribal militias and other groups armed by the military
Zaidi mosques handed over to Salafis
Kidnappers were unable to relocate the hostages initally because of Houthi control of many areas and were forced to leave the bodies inside the military controlled Al Jbarah valley
Yemeni government behind the recent declaration of jihad if western troops enter Yemen

Hidden roles between Sanaa regime and al-Qaeda

Special News Saada
20/1/2010

we talk about Saada previously and the hijacking of doctors in
Saada province on the role of a hidden secret and to coordinate with the secret coordination with pro Government:

Especially in the area of Wadi (Valley) Al-Abu Jebara
we talked previously about the history of this valley and where Al Qaedeh fighters training.

Funds, which pumps by Saudi princes and their relationship with Osama bin Laden through private sources, News Saada inside the corridors of military bases and political situation in Saada

During the latest sadah War mostly at Abu Ali font , we got field information that confirm that :ABADAH and TAYS group and other groups from WADY- Valley- Al JBAREH had met with local officials of Sadah and received ammunition and weapons to confront Al Hoothy from behind, and that what really happened .

Those days we got secret and confidential information when news focused on Qaeda in Yemen. The information said that there is currently coordination between military commanders/ eaders loyal to Ali Mohsen Al Ahmar through his office in Saddah, the aim of this coordination is bolstering and unify their actions against Al Hoothy. (Read on …)

True. By paying money directly to the sheiks, the Saudis divorce the sheiks’ relationship with and accountability to both state and their constituencies, the tribe. Victoria Clark at the Independent

Saudi aid in the security field is already reckoned to be around double the $140m to be offered to Yemen by the US this year, and there is more – harder to quantify precisely – in the form of mosque-building, charity and religious education. But the hardest Saudi aid to quantify is the cash flowing straight out of a Saudi “Special Office” to the sheikhs of many Yemeni tribes, especially ones located anywhere near the Saudi border.

A Yemeni civil rights activist laments the Saudis’ financial clout, portraying it as one of the chief banes of Yemen’s existence: “Although Yemenis hate Saudis,” he explains, “the Saudis know how to spread their influence by their wealth and they have corrupted everything in Yemen.” He claims that two thirds – in other words, 6,000 of Yemen’s approximately 9,000 tribal sheikhs – benefit from Saudi handouts, the most powerful of them to the tune of $3.5m a month.

The Saudis’ apparent reluctance to invest in the long-term development and improvement of the country and help educate its people is what makes Yemenis baulk at the now frequently voiced Western opinion that Yemen’s rich neighbours, rather than any Western countries, should be taking the lead in supplying aid to Yemen.

- Telegraph: Yemen to open rehab center for about 60 detainees. ” the Yemenis had agreed in principle to the establishment of a Reintegration and Risk Reduction Initiative, which would be internationally funded and monitored.”

- ABC: Ibrahim Al Nahari, sub-governor for foreign banking operations, told Reuters that oil income had fallen to $2bn in 2009, from $4.4bn in 2008, a year-on-year plummet of 55.4 percent.

- Yemeni official accuses Iran, al-Qaeda of funding Houthi rebels, denies UBL in town.

- Yemen carrier seals $700 mn deal with Airbus

- Yemen Times, good article: A woman among the tribes

- the National: Gen David Petraeus, the head of the US Central Command, revealed this week that US funding to Yemen for counter-terrorism and special forces’ operations would increase to about $150 million this year, up from $67m in 2009.

- Youth Initiative: Youth Exclusion in Yemen: Tackling the Twin Deficits of Human Development and Natural Resources

There’s a new ops center and intermediaries to funnel and pass US intel to the Yemenis. Good luck with that, all their sources are going to start having car accidents. Yemeni-American Anwar Awlaki is on a pre-approved hit list. Other reports say theres about 200 Special Ops in Yemen and plans for more but no troops.

WaPo: The operations, approved by President Obama and begun six weeks ago, involve several dozen troops from the U.S. military’s clandestine Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC), whose main mission is tracking and killing suspected terrorists. The American advisers do not take part in raids in Yemen, but help plan missions, develop tactics and provide weapons and munitions. Highly sensitive intelligence is being shared with the Yemeni forces, including electronic and video surveillance, as well as three-dimensional terrain maps and detailed analysis of the al-Qaeda network. (Read on …)

Faris is also the brother of the governor of Sa’ada. Faris Manna was one of Yemen’s primary weapons traders for some years before he was appointed to the government mediation committee tasked with negotiating with the Houthi rebels. Apparently what he negotiated was a weapons deal.

When some aspect of the Defense Ministry imported a ship load of Chinese weapons, destined for the Houthi rebels, Faris was placed on a black list of arms dealers. Does the arrest demonstrate Western pressure having an effect or is it another ploy by the Saleh regime? I have never yet seen a high ranking Yemeni official held accountable for any crimes.

al Masdar Online: After surrounding his home in Sana’a
الأمن يعتقل رئيس لجنة الوساطة بصعدة الشيخ فارس مناع Security arrested the Chairman of the Mediation Committee Saada Sheikh Faris Manna
المصدر أونلاين- خاص Source Online – Special

علم “المصدر أونلاين” من مصادر مؤكدة إن الشيخ فارس مناع شقيق محافظ صعدة ورئيس لجنة الوساطة السابق بين السلطة والحوثيين قد اعتقل اليوم الخميس من منزلـه في أمانة العاصمـة. Aware of “online source” from confirmed sources that Sheikh Faris Manna brother of the governor of Saada, Chairman of the Mediation Committee between the Authority and the former Huthi was arrested on Thursday from his home in the capital. (Read on …)

Yemen
How worried are you that it could become the next Afghanistan in terms of providing a safe haven for al-Qaeda to launch global attacks.

A number of us have been focused on Yemen for well over two years.
From the time when we were examining how foreign fighters were being trained and then how foreign fighter facilitators were operating who enabled foreign fighters to come into Iraq through Syria and many different roads lead to what was then termed al-Qaeda in Yemen and this past year was franchised by the al-Qaeda senior leadership as al-Qaeda in the Arabia Peninsular. (Read on …)

Reuters: Following is the final statement from the talks, as released by the British foreign ministry.

Yemen, its friends and partners have today met in London to discuss the many urgent problems which the people of Yemen face.

The meeting reiterated support for a unified Yemen, respect for its sovereignty and independence, and commitment to non-interference in Yemen’s internal affairs. It was clear that economic and social reform by the government of Yemen was key to long term stability and prosperity. It was agreed that a comprehensive approach was needed, with strong support from the international community. (Read on …)

Houthis announce withdrawal from Saudi Arabia, Saudis mull- can’t jump too quickly on the offer

Seven al Qaeda imprisoned for 5-10 years, days or hours, its hard to say

The US is contemplating whether it is legal to assassinate Yemeni American Anwar Awlaki in Yemen. Awlaki was never indicted, charged or convicted of a crime. He is an al Qaeda recruiter, and may have taken a more operational role lately. (Read on …)

Slideshow, click here.

I’ve been shocked by the US willingness to work with such a lying, stealing, cheating, two-timing, double dealing crook like Saleh, after he already screwed the US during the USS Cole investigation. And then it hit me. Old habits die hard.

At the link is a video from BBC of Dr. al Qirby proclaiming Yemen will accept any and all conditions on donor aid.

The Yemeni Foreign minister, Dr Abu Bakr al-Qirbi, denies that Yemen has been failing to tackle al-Qaeda but he says the international community needs to provide more aid to the country to help them defeat terrorism.

Yemen is asking for aid to also reduce poverty in a country that is one of the poorest in the Middle East.

Denying the money would disappear into corrupt hands, he said the government will accept conditions on how and where the aid is spent.

A good overview of the complexities in a write up at Chatham House.

School authorities deny charges of terror training leveled in the German press. Yemen Times

SANA’A, JAN. 20 ­— A Yemeni Salafi sheikh has refuted allegations made by the German press that the Dar Al-Hadeeth Center for Islamic Studies in Sa’ada is encouraging terrorism. (Read on …)

As HOOD inaugurates its Human Rights Award, it is a good time to note the contribution that HOOD itself has made to the human rights environment in Yemen.

The primary focus of the HOOD Organization, the National Organization for Protecting Rights and Freedoms, is the defense of human rights in Yemen. HOOD raises public awareness of legal rights and mobilizes public support for the victims of human rights abuses. HOOD works within the judicial system to protect and defend the victims of human rights abuses. HOOD also encourages governmental bodies to secure human rights and civil rights as granted by the Yemeni constitution and international protocols.

HOOD holds the police, security forces, judiciary and other public institutions to account for violating human rights. Often victims of human rights abuses in Yemen are subject to a second wave of targeting after their claims are documented and publicized. However, once the HOOD organization adopts a case of human rights abuse, its support remains steadfast regardless of the ensuing danger and harassment. (Read on …)

In an audio tape broadcast by al Jazeera today, al Qaeda leader Usama Bin Laden claimed credit for the failed plot to bomb an airliner as it was landing in Detroit, December 25. Bin Laden called the Nigerian perpetrator of the plot, Abdulmutallab Al-Farouq , “a hero” and said the plot was intended to send the same message as the attacks of 9/11.

“America will not even dream of security, until security becomes a reality in Palestine. It is not fair that you enjoy your lives, while our brothers in Gaza live in hardship. Therefore, our raids against you will continue, Allah willing, as long as your support of the Israelis continues.”

The attack had earlier been claimed by al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP). Nasir al Wahishi, a former lieutenant of bin Laden, is heading the terror group’s offshoot in Yemen. The group merged in January 2009 with al Qaeda’s Saudi branch. Saudi Said al Shihri is the military commander of the organization.
ON January 19, the US State Department designated al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula as a Foreign Terrorist Organization. The group and two of its two top leaders Nasir al-Wahishi and Said al-Shihri were also designated under executive order number 13224. The UN’s 1267 committee also designated AQAP as a terrorist organization along with al Wahishi and al Shihir. As a result all UN member states are required to freezes their asserts, ban travel and embargo arms transfers to these entities.

Prior to being read his Miranda rights, Al Farouq claimed that he was trained by al Qaeda in Yemen and many other suicide bombers had undergone training in Yemen. The UK raised its terror threat level to “severe” in advance of a conference on Yemen scheduled for January 27 in London.

DUBAI — Al-Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden claimed responsibility for the botched Christmas Day bombing of a US airliner and vowed further strikes on US targets, in an audio message broadcast on Sunday. (Read on …)

In other news, the UK raises its alert level prior to the Yemen conference, the US is searching for Western female suicide bombers trained in Yemen, and Carlos Bledsoe says his lethal attack on a Arkansas recruiting station was jihad, justified by Islamic law and that he is linked to AQAP.

Sahwa Net – Thousands of people in various areas of South Yemen have taken into streets on Thursday, protesting the release of detainees of what is called the Southern Movement and calling the London Conference to be held on next Wednesday to consider their grievances.

In Radfan city, thousands of people took into streets shouting anti-regime slogans, calling in the same time, the London conference to put and end to violations against newspapers and journalists in Yemen.

During the protest, one person was wounded and other 25 were arrested by the Yemeni authorities which shot fire and heavily used tear gas to disperse the protests.

The British Prime Minister Gordon Brown has called an international conference in London to discuss how to help Yemen to tackle extremism.

Human Rights Watch

Allegations that the Yemen-based branch of al Qaeda was behind the attempt by a Nigerian man to blow up a US airliner on Christmas Day 2009 have dramatically increased international attention to the threat of terrorism emanating from Yemen.

To be effective, international counterterrorism policy in Yemen should take into account the lessons from the response to al Qaeda in Pakistan and Afghanistan: military tactics such as airstrikes that cause high civilian casualties, and arbitrary arrests and abusive treatment of suspected militants undermine efforts to reduce local support for al Qaeda. The Yemeni government has engaged in all of these actions against al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP).

Second, engagement with Yemen must also address the serious human rights problems that have turned large segments of Yemeni society against the government, and thus reduced the government’s ability to fight terrorism effectively. Ongoing human rights violations by the state security forces (particularly the Central Security Forces, the Political Security Organization, and the National Security Organization), risk providing an even more fertile base of support for al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula.

Yemen’s most serious human rights violations arise in the context of two pressing internal conflicts-the government’s war with Huthi rebels in the north of the country, and its repression of a secessionist movement in the south. Officials have recently warned against “internationalizing” these two conflicts, but it would be a mistake if international efforts to assist the government ignored the grievances underlying those conflicts. Yemen’s military and policing approaches have resulted in numerous violations of international human rights and humanitarian law, which have alienated large segments of Yemeni society.

Most Yemenis do not see AQAP as a threat to them. They are more concerned about the government’s repressive practices and rampant corruption, as well as the lack of jobs for the country’s booming population, a looming water crisis, and rapidly depleting oil reserves, the main source of revenue, along with the conflicts in the north and south. Resolving the human rights grievances underlying those two conflicts and strengthening human rights protections generally is critical to creating a more stable government in Yemen and empowering it to address the country’s economic and development problems.

Recommendations to Yemen’s allies:

1. Increase development aid to Yemen, ensuring a cohesive strategy in collaboration with the appropriate UN agencies, and use aid to address human rights concerns that drive instability.

2. Support establishment in Yemen of a human rights monitoring mission by the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights with a mandate to publicly report on human rights abuses by all parties to Yemen’s conflicts, and press the government of Yemen to cooperate in the establishment of such a mission.

3. Add effective human rights components to any bilateral aid for security forces, such as law enforcement and military training and equipment, including non-lethal methods of crowd control, respect for the laws of war, measures to combat torture, and internal accountability.

4. Stress the importance of an independent judiciary with the resources and competence to address accountability for human rights violations, including arbitrary arrests and torture.

5. Urge the government to ensure that impartial humanitarian agencies have access to all places of detention in Yemen, and end the use of private or unauthorized detention sites.

6. Ensure that no assistance goes to units of security forces implicated in unlawful killings, arbitrary arrests, torture and other serious human rights abuses. Publicly speak out when such violations occur.

7. Assist the United States and Yemen in repatriating or resettling Yemenis held without charge at Guantanamo, including the 40 Yemenis that the US government has already cleared for release.

1. Do not turn Al Qaeda’s enemies into its friends (Read on …)

Well, I’d like to see their proof. There’s a lot of talk but not many documents, details or witnesses.

Press TV: Yemen’s Houthi fighters accuse the Sana’a government of fueling violence in the country in a bid to attract financial backing from the United States.

The Shia resistance fighters charged the central government with forging an al-Qaeda cell in Yemen, adding that the abduction of foreigners in the country is another part of the scheme planned by Sana’a.

The Houthis insisted that they have evidence showing that the Yemeni government supplies arms to and finances militants throughout the country.

Jeffrey D. Feltman
Assistant Secretary, Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs
Senate Foreign Relations Committee

Washington, DC

January 20, 2010

Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member Lugar, and Distinguished Members of the Committee:

Thank you for the opportunity to appear before this Committee today to discuss this important subject.

The unsuccessful attack on a U.S.-bound aircraft on December 25, 2009 serves as a further reminder of the threats that can emerge when ungoverned and poorly governed places around the world are exploited by terrorists. The United States and the international community have been engaged in supporting good governance, sustainable development, and improved security in Yemen for years. Recognizing the growing threat emanating from Yemen, the United States has been significantly ramping up levels of both security and development assistance since FY 2008. In addition, this administration has developed a new, more holistic Yemen policy that not only seeks to address security and counter terrorism concerns, but also the profound political, economic, and social challenges that help Al-Qaeda and related affiliates to operate and flourish. (Read on …)

Mr. British Prime Minister Gordon Brown … Esquire
Mr. Secretary-General of the United Nations Ban Ki mon … Esquire
Mr. Secretary-General of the League of Arab States, Amr Moussa, … Esquire
Gentlemen, participants at the London Conference …

Honorable Greetings …

In the beginning, allow us to extend our thanks and appreciation to the international community to pay attention to issues in Yemen and in the forefront of those issues is the people of the south (the people of the Republic of Yemen People’s Democratic Republic earlier) that the people who introduced authoritarian rule and his socialist alone is not equal and is not a referendum with the Republic of This culminated in the Yemen Arab occupation of the entire module of the South by force after the summer war in 1994. (Read on …)

Starting to look like another stike when no one was home… One set of local reports indicate an orange grove was destroyed and no injuries or casualties, government sources say Faiz Bin Mo’aili, an Al Qaeda member, was killed, another reports say five civilians were injured.

SANAA — A Yemeni tribal source confirmed the air strikes in Erq Al-Shabwan village, in Maarib province, and said a number of people had been killed. Local forces were responding with anti-aircraft fire.

The wave of air strikes, which began in the morning, blasted the house of Ayed al-Shabwani, one of six Al-Qaeda leaders the government said were killed in an air strike last week, the tribal source said.

A military official, who would not be named, said there had been three strikes on the house and one on an orange grove near the village where the authorities think Shabwani had built a safe haven for dozens of Al-Qaeda members.

al Masdar has an outline in Arabic of the locations of al Qaeda in Yemen and a map:

Abu Dujana San’aani trashes Zindani in letter from Afghanistan for his support of Saleh, the oligarchy and elections. He says I was building a bomb when I heard you made a fatwa against the US… Nice photo of al Zindani and Azzaam below.

Yemen Today: That your students here and in Iraq are leading the mujahideen, who took him forensic science that you can, as well as military science that they had acquired in the fields of jihad…Mr. Sheikhi I was the processing of explosive devices to kill the enemies of God worshipers of the cross and their apostate from the radio when I heard that the renowned scholar / Abdul Majid al-declare that any entry in Yemen is a U.S. occupation in his sermons calling for jihad when it comes to Yemen U.S. force! Glory to God who you are I want you to tell us that you would arrange to science Takdhuh who do not want you like a chicken! — (Read on …)

Amnesty International: Yemen must set aside prison sentence on female journalist, 19 January 2010

Amnesty International has called on the Yemeni authorities to set aside a three month prison sentence imposed on a woman journalist after she was convicted of defaming President ‘Ali ‘Abdullah Saleh.

According to media reports, Anissa ‘Uthman, a journalist working for al-Wassat, a weekly newspaper, was prosecuted because of articles she wrote criticizing the arrest and imprisonment of human rights activists. (Read on …)

Amnesty International:

YEMEN ANNOUNCES IT IS HOLDING JOURNALIST

Yemen’s Minister of Information has announced that the Yemeni authorities are holding journalist Muhammad al-Maqalih. However, the authorities are still refusing to give any information about him, including his whereabouts. He is at risk of torture or other ill-treatment.

Muhammad al-Maqalih was abducted on 17 September, by men in civilian clothes, believed to be from the security forces. Eyewitnesses told his family that he was taken by a group of men who arrived in a white minibus, which had its licence plates obscured. In December 2009, the Minister of Information officially announced that the security forces are holding him. It is not clear which security force is holding him or where he is being held, and the reason for his detention is not known. (Read on …)

WaPo LONDON — Britain suspended direct flights with Yemen on Wednesday and the prime minister said the U.K. will introduce new no-fly lists as it seeks to tighten airport security following the failed Detroit airliner attack.

Prime Minister Gordon Brown told the House of Commons the measures are in response to a growing threat from al-Qaida affiliated terrorists based in Yemen.

The full report from the Senate Foreign Relations committee is here, pdf. From the Gulf Times: Kuwaiti Foreign Minister Sheikh Mohamed al-Sabah noted “members of Al Qaeda (in Yemen) already hail from 36 nationalities.” And Fox News reports there are 55,000 Americans in Yemen. The following news story from ABC:

As many as three dozen criminals who converted to Islam in American prisons have moved to Yemen where they could pose a “significant threat” to attack the U.S., according to a report on al Qaeda from the Senate Foreign Relations Committee to be released Wednesday. (Read on …)

People providing arms, money or material support to AQAP are guilty of supporting a terror group under US law. That’s a broad category of persons that includes some members of the PSO. The US is asking for the UN’s 1267 committee to include AQAP. IN 2004, the UN gave Yemen a list of 400 AQ and Talaban associated personal and business bank accounts in Yemen, Yemen froze one account and never circulated the list the next years. Update: AQAP, Whahishi and al Reimi added to 1267 list.

Press Release: The Secretary of State has designated al-Qa’ida in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) as a Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO) under Section 219 of the Immigration and Nationality Act, as amended (INA). The Secretary also designated AQAP and its two top leaders Nasir al-Wahishi and Said al-Shihri under E.O. 13224. Secretary Clinton took these actions in consultation with the Attorney General and the Secretary of the Treasury. These actions prohibit provision of material support and arms to AQAP and also include immigration related restrictions that will help stem the flow of finances to AQAP and give the Department of Justice the tools it needs to prosecute AQAP members. (Read on …)

A follow up to our earlier post: Yousef (not Saed) al Shehri Accidentally Captured, Updated: Maybe Saed

Smart money bet that Yemen’s announcement of the (accidental) capture of Saed al Shehri would be bogus, as was the three deaths of al Qaeda leader Qasim al Reimi who is quite alive.

The erroneous “exclusive” report announcing Saed al Shehri’s capture was not some typo by the Yemen Observer. They pulled the first story that correctly identified the person arrested as Yousef al Shehri, deleted it not corrected it, and replaced it with an article announcing Saed was captured.

Now, after the news is spinning all over the web, they issue a correction. The Yemen Observer is a propaganda front for the Yemeni government and a component of its efforts to delude the world into believing there has been any progress in the battle to diminish the threat from al Qaeda.

So far Yemen’s “All Out War” on al Qaeda yielded zero among the top leadership but lots and lots of false reporting and propaganda to the contrary. Its been like this all along.

Update: Yousef al Shehri was killed in October 2009 trying to cross into Saudi Arabia, dressed in women’s clothes. Who the heck had the traffic accident and is custody is anyone’s guess at this point, but odds are high that its not anyone of significance or even associated with al Qaeda. Does the Yemeni government just pull a name out of a hat when it comes up with this stuff?

Yemen Observer: YEMEN – The last issue of the Yemen Observer, the al-Qaeda militant that was captured is not Saeed al-Shehri who is the deputy Amir of al-Qaeda AKAP but another militant known as Yusuf al-Shehri. As a result of this error the Yemen Observer apologizes to its readers for this error.

This story is that A car carrying members of al-Qaeda was turned over when attempted to bypass a newly established sudden checkpoint by the Yemeni security units today and resulted in the capture of Yusuf al-Shehri, security source told the Yemen Observer.

The car was going in a high speed and was carrying al-Shehri and other al-Qaeda militants and flipped over in the district of Sylan in Shabwah province near the borders of Marib province. All the militants in the car were captured.

Such an important topic, so little time…

Etiawan: Britain’s government says international talks on terrorism in Yemen will likely be squeezed into a two-hour session. (Read on …)

Where is US Ambassador Seche, who visited the Bashraheels previously when they were under house arrest? Al Ayyam under the bus in exchange for Saleh’s pretense of cooperation against al Qaeda. And its a poor pretense at that. The US will never diminish the al Qaeda threat from Yemen as long as the adminstration keeps siding with the wrong people (thieves and killers) and keeps sacrificing “those seeking justice” who Obama mistakenly says we support. More here.

URGENT ACTION

another son of Hisham Bashraheel arrested

Another son of al-Ayyam editor-in-chief Hisham Bashraheel is now known to have been detained after a demonstration about action taken by the authorities against the newspaper. Like his father and brother, he is at risk of torture or other ill-treatment.

Muhammad Bashraheel is now known to have been arrested on 5 January, the day before his father Hisham Bashraheel and brother Hani Bashraheel were detained. The three are being held at the Criminal Investigation Department in Aden. All of them were allowed to see their families and lawyers today, having apparently been denied access to them before. It is unclear whether the three men will be allowed regular contact with them. They may be prisoners of conscience, held solely for peacefully exercising their rights to freedom of expression and assembly.

The three men had been taking part in a sit-in protest at the newspaper’s offices in the southern city of Aden. The protest began on 4 January to mark eight months since the authorities effectively banned them from printing and distributing copies of al-Ayyam. The security forces opened fire on the protestors on 4 January and the newspaper’s security guards returned fire: one member of the security forces was killed and three wounded; one security guard was killed and three wounded.

The authorities confiscated every copy of al-Ayyam from street news stands and distribution points in the capital Sana’a and southern cities on 30 April 2009, taking similar action against six other newspapers on 4 May, when the offices of al-Ayyam were also then blockaded by the security forces to prevent copies of the newspaper from being distributed. Members of the security forces were then stationed outside al-Ayyam until 6 January when security forces raided its offices and confiscated computers. On 5 May the government announced that they would be banning all newspapers which they considered had expressed support for the secession of the south of the country in coverage of protests in the region. Despite this, al-Ayyam published some news on its website during 2009.

In an interview al Shabab spokesman Ali Rage said the Somali terror group intended to provide manpower to Yemen’s al Qaeda group, and that Yemen’s al Qaeda had provided generous support to al Shabab in the past.

Closer coordination between Somalia’s al Shabab and Yemen’s AQAP heightens risk of a coordinated attack on the NATO anti-piracy patrols in the Gulf of Aden. Currently AQAP is asking for any information on the US vessels in the Gulf including the names and home states of individual American sailors, blueprints, suppliers and operating procedures.

In a missive released yesterday, AQAP said, “Today, the duty of our Muslim nation is to declare Jihad against the infidels and their apostate cooperatives; not only on land but on sea and in the air too. The Crusader warships are present in the Gulf of Aden, in the Arabian Sea and in the Red Sea, and the American surveillance jets occupy the sphere over the Arabian Peninsula..” This echoes an earlier statement from AQ Central calling for naval jihad.

Droves of Yemeni jihaddists and Somalis in Yemen traveled to Somalia when the TFG was battling the ICU. Afterward, the US noted an exodus to back to Yemen. The intersection of piracy, arms smuggling, human smuggling and terrorists has been noted by the UN.

Update: Reuters: AQAP military commander Qasim al-Raymi has fought in Somalia and has written on the need to back Somalia’s revolt… Some others in that founding group had also fought in Somalia. Security experts say Yemenis make up a sizeable part of a foreign contingent that fights with al Shabaab’s Somali rank and file and supplies bomb-making and communications expertise. By one estimate there are about 500 or more foreigners in Shabaab’s ranks, which experts say may number 5,000 or more.

(Read on …)

There we go. I think I wrote something very similar in 2005 after my head stopped exploding, but its good to see it in the New York Times. (See my Feb. 2006 article, Al Qaeda Escape in Yemen, Facts, Theories and Rumors for a comprehensive round-up of the situation then that brought us here now.)

Ali Mohsen, bin Laden recruiter, using Afgan Arabs in the Sa’ada War, and possibly training al Iman students at his military camp next door. The US funnels money pretty directly to Ali Mohsen, according to Robert Kaplan in Imperial Grunts. The US is funding a jihaddi that targets Zaidi civilians with indiscriminate bombing and deliberate starvation? The Houthis have always claimed the Sa’ada war was intent on the irradication of Zaidism itself. The strategic location of Sa’ada for al Qaeda can’t be underestimated.

NY Times: Mr. Mohsen, a general who is currently prosecuting the war against a Houthi rebellion in the north, also recruited thousands of Yemenis to fight the Soviets in Afghanistan. His brigades returned victorious, and Mr. Saleh has used them since to help defeat the south in the 1994 civil war and against the Houthis. Some fighters, of course, have migrated to Al Qaeda, and there are imams here more radical than Mr. Zindani.

When north and south Yemen were united in 1990, Sheik Zindani accepted Mr. Saleh’s rule and was granted this huge area of government land on the western edge of Sana for the university — adjoining a large military base, which is Mr. Mohsen’s headquarters. There are rumors that students sometimes get military training there, which Mr. Abu Ras also denies.

Ali Mohsen’s extremist office manager in Sa’ada indoctrinates the military in Friday sermons and they hand out religious tracts to soldiers that say Houthi blood is free. This is the guy who was instigating against foreign medical workers prior to the kidnapping of the Germans.

Arab Monitor: Meanwhile sources claim that Saudi fighter planes launched two separate missile attacks against a camp for displaced persons located about 15 km north west of Saada and four attacks in the Jabal Qatabir region. Al-Houthi sources also claim they managed to repel Yemeni government forces from regaining control in the area north of Saada. Sanaa had hoped that a Saudi Arabian military intervention against the al-Houthi movement on and beyond the borders with Yemen would help back up the government in its stand-off with the separatist ambitions in the south, in an effort to ultimately liberate military capacities for the US-dictated crack-down on al-Qaeda clusters presumed to be hiding out in Yemeni territory.

Guest Post:

Counterterrorism in Yemen between Sociopolitical/Socioeconomic International Development Aid Programs and Airstrikes; London Conference to examine terrorism in Yemen Challenges and Opportunities

By Ahmed Hezam, Jan 2010 ahezamyem@gmail.com

By now and since 9/11 (and even before that), It has been very obvious that the Yemeni Government – in spite of all the negative speculations and interpretations and political analysis/reporting (though some are/were very rational) on the seriousness of the political will, interrelated and integrated radical relations, its inner dynamics and weak institutionalism, …etc – become an alley and a partner with the US and the western hemispheres on what it has been known to be called “The War on Terror”. (Read on …)

A government that operates so far above the law that it doesnt pay its own electric bills is going to have difficulty with reforms. Yemen Observer

YEMEN – The Ministry of Electricity, in collaboration with the Ministry of Finance and Justice, has a plan to reduce its debts, collecting more than YR20 billion from individuals and institutions, said Awad al-Socatri, Minister of Electricity and Power at a press conference in Sana’a Sunday evening. (Read on …)

Brian Whiitker, the Saleh Factor

Weekly Standard, a Few Bad Men: history of men released from Gitmo

Globe and Mail from Bikinis to Burkas, Yemen’s slide into fundamentalism since unity

CTV Military Approach May Backfire

WaPo: Yemen’s internal divide complicates U.S. efforts against al-Qaeda, the southern factor

Al Jazeera, Child Soldiers Used in Yemen’s War, both sides

Gulf News Yemen, Al Qaeda isnt the only problem, from a Yemeni view

BBC Yemen’s Deal with al Qaeda Re-examined

The last time “al Qaeda” demanded money was in August 08, five million dollars. It was the era of the Yemen Soldiers Brigades (now theres a blast from the past). Supposedly, Islamic Jihad and Hamza al Qaiti, claimed responsibility for the car bombing of a police station in Sayoun, and demanded the money to stop future attacks. The very sad incident of the German’s kidnapping has been bizarre from day one. The demand for funds is unusual. Damanding prisoner releases is not. But Saleh says he knows where the German family is being held and is negotiating. The Germans are skeptical.

Speigel: The German government has been presented with a new challenge in Yemen. Kidnappers holding a German family are allegedly demanding $2 million in ransom and the release of several suspected Islamist terrorists being held by the Yemeni government. The demands are being met with skepticism. (Read on …)

Yemeni President Saleh’s conduct of the Sa’ada War rises to the level of war crimes. There are massive and flagrant violations of human rights in the south. But Saleh also has a trail of bodies behind him that’s rather extensive. The list of the assassinations of political opposition, news men, and rivals is almost too long to be documented. This following article gives a glimpse into Field Marshal Saleh’s history and rise to power.

Saleh’s Bloody Background RCW
Apart from Muammar Qadhafi of Libya, Saleh is the Middle East’s longest-serving leader. Now a field marshal by rank, he first came to prominence in 1977 as a thirty-one-year-old major during political turmoil in what was then North Yemen (which united with South Yemen in 1990.) The country’s military leader at the time, Ibrahim al-Hamdi, was assassinated, as was his brother, by unidentified gunmen who riddled their bodies with bullets. An Arab newspaper described it at the time as a well-planned coup, naming Saleh as a conspirator along with his mentor, Lt. Col. Ahmed al-Ghashmi, the deputy commander-in-chief of the army who became North Yemen’s new leader. Al-Ghashmi himself survived an assassination attempt five days after taking power but was subsequently killed in June 1978 when the briefcase of a special envoy from South Yemen exploded in his office. A month later, Saleh was voted into office by the quasi-parliament as president and commander-in-chief; he survived yet another assassination attempt only months later. (Read on …)

It makes me wonder if Mr. Awlaki, who says he is close to the President, ever heard any of Anwar’s recent sermons or read his writings. Anwar Awlaki clearly is inciting people to violence. Backgrounder to follow below the fold. Apparently Anwar wrote for the Yemen Observer. Interview Yemen Post:

In the attacks last month in Abyan and Shabwa against Al-Qaeda, government officials said they were trying to attack Anwar Awlaqi, your son. Is he really an Al-Qaeda leader?

My son Anwar has been attacked in the local, Arab and international media in America, Britain and other parts of the world. They are claiming that he has links to Al-Qaeda. This is completely untrue. And I will give you the reason why. My son is an engineer and an educationist. He studied in the best universities in the United States. But he is also a good Muslim. He published many books about Islam to teach young Muslims in English. (Read on …)

Update: the Yemen Observer deleted the story below and rewrote the article to indicate it was Saed not Yousef al Shehri that crashed the car and was captured. The first link is dead. Tacky tacky.

Original Post: The Yemeni government’s English language mouthpiece Yemen Observer is conflating al Qaeda operative Yousef al Shehri with top al Qaeda in Yemen leader Saed al Shehri (Saudi, ex-Gitmo).

A car carrying members of al-Qaeda was turned over when attempted to bypass a newly established sudden checkpoint by the Yemeni security units today and resulted in the capture of Yusuf al-Shehri, the second person in command (ed- No, he’s not.) of al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, security source told the Yemen Observer. (Read on …)

Yes here we go yet again… An absolutely predictable update: Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) denied that six of its leaders were killed in a Yemeni air strike last week, according to a statement published by the SITE monitoring group on Monday.
“None of the mujahedeen were killed in that unjust and insidious raid; rather, some brothers were slightly wounded,” the Qaeda group said in a statement on jihadist forums, SITE reported.

Original Post: Following Yemen’s announcement that al Qaeda head honcho Qasim al Reimi was killed in an air strike this week along with five others, news is starting to leak out that ooops, maybe not.

Al Reimi had been reported killed in two earlier air strikes but this time the announcement was based on an identification, officials said. Security sources now say that perhaps it was a “hasty” announcement. Tribal sources say another of the six dead men was recently spotted eating lunch with his family, and al Reimi was wounded in the leg and escaped.

We can call it the al Nabi syndrome, reported dead but still alive. Old habits die hard. At best, now we’re back to “maybe al Reimi is dead,” and “maybe the Yemeni government told the truth about al Qaeda for once.” Wait and see mode.

Its hard to say what’s up, really. There were six bodies recovered including al Reimi, the Yemeni officials said. Ah, even I’m doing it now, quoting them like they have a shred of credibility.

Meanwhile the Yemeni journalists are getting smashed (run-over, imprisoned, fined and kidnapped) without a word from the West and/or the hundreds of foreign journalists who recently discovered Yemen. Even for the open source intel value alone, you think someone would make a peep. I knew something was up today when several Yemeni news sites were mysteriously offline.

(Read on …)

UPDATE: The sentence was one year ban from writing and three months imprisonment, RSF statement below the fold.

Yemen: Imprisonment And Suspension For A Year
Against The First Female Arab Journalist For Insulting the President

The Arabic Network for Human Rights Information, said that on 16/1/2010 Yemen has witnessed the first female journalist to be sentenced to prison for insulting the president. Two years ago, “Anisa Mohammed Ali Osman” published two opinion articles : ” Bullying children.. by presidential orders” and “Power: A monster on the armless .. a blind mouse on enemies “. In addition , she was suspended from writing for a year and the editor of “AlWasat” newspaper where the articles were published, Jamal Amer, was fined to 10,000 Yemeni Rials. (Read on …)

That’s some good targeting right there, if it turns out to be true. Two cars, no civilians, direct hit. Ammar Al Waeli? Fascinating. Update: They are “almost certain” al Reimi was killed. Also: Mr. Ayman was an Egyptian jihadist who had arranged many suicide bombings in Afghanistan, the official said. He had moved in and out of Yemen recently, and has been on Yemen’s most-wanted list for years… Another man targeted in the raid was known to have escaped, the official said: Ammar al-Waeli, an important arms dealer for Al Qaeda.

Update 2: Almotamar.net The ministry said the killed terrorists are Qassim al-Raimy, Ammar Abadah al-Waili, Saleh al-Tais, Ayedh Jaber al-Shabwani and Ibrahim Mohammed Saleh al-Banaa.
(Read on …)

Yemeni President Saleh is quite adroit at playing the terror card. Today he warns the US that he will declare jihad if the US attempts any military action against al Qaeda in Yemen, in a statement from Yemen’s Council of Clerics. Its Saleh talking. There’s no way they would issue that without Presidental approval.

The message is simple: Just. Give. Me. The. Money.

Saleh has various mouthpieces: the government media, officials, GONGOs (governmental non-govermental organizations) some “experts” and Sheik Abdulmagid al Zindani (oh! scary!), who is classified by the UN’s 1267 committee as a terrorist financier. Al Zindani endorsed President Saleh’s 2006 “re-election” bid, and Saleh made his first speech of the electoral season from al Zindani’s al Iman University. The Minister of Endowments is Judge Hamoud al Hittar, who ran the now defunct dialog program that released hundreds of al Qaeda. (He never dialoged with the Houthi rebels though.)

Al Hittar is often an intermediary between the regime and al Qaeda. For example in 2003 al Qaeda offered Yemen a truce, and al Hittar was in charge of negotiations. At the time he said some demands were non-starters, meaning perhaps others were workable. That marked the beginning of what al Qaeda calls the (quite productive) “quietness period” from 2003-2006 when the group provided logistical support and thousands of jihaddists to various hotspots around the world, especially Iraq.

To follow is the clerics’ statement. Also below the fold is Foreign Minister al Qirby’s nearly identical statement that US counter-terror aid must be unconditional. The upcoming London Conference on Yemen should not attempt to deal with internal affairs like civil rights, political reforms, press freedom, corruption or economic transparency, he said, repeatedly.

Update: Alert Net: Yemen, facing a daunting array of security and economic problems, needs about $2 billion a year in aid to stay afloat and double that to turn its economy around, Foreign Minister Abubakr al-Qirbi said on Thursday…”I am not an economist, but I think one is talking about probably $4 billion a year,” Qirbi told Reuters when asked how much aid was required to rescue an economy struggling with a sharply rising population and falling oil revenues. (Read on …)

The sign posts point to Southern cities, where the independence movement is.

Its not just Saleh with the long standing ties…

AFP: Yemen’s government has gone on the offensive against Al-Qaeda, sending the network into hiding, the country’s national security director Ali Anisi said.

Anisi, who also heads President Ali Abdullah Saleh’s office (ed- since 1982), was speaking after authorities announced the killing of Abdullah Mehdar, an Al-Qaeda chief in eastern Yemen. (Read on …)

Photo Aden Press

The PSO is one of President Saleh’s main instruments of terror and intimidation of civil society, journalists and the forces of progress. Lets not forget about the Mohammed al Maqaleh disappeared since August, the closure of al Ayyam and the recent arrest of several of its editors and the continuing detention of Salah Alsagalde, Fuad Rashid, and Ahmed Alzubairi and the continuing ban on several newspapers, and the destruction of News Yemen, and the blocking of dozens of political websites in Yemen (but not the jihaddis ones).

Threats to liquidate the managing editor of Sahwa Net:

إشارة إلى الموضوع أعلاه، فإن مدير تحرير الصحوة نت الزميل محمد العلواني تلقى تهديدات هاتفية بالتصفية الجسدية من الرقم (777128007) من شخص قال بأنه يعمل في الأمن السياسي. A reference to the above subject, the managing editor of Sahwa Net colleague Mohamed al-Alwani, received telephone threats of physical liquidation of the number (777128007) from someone who said that he was working in the Political Security. (Read on …)

Saudis claim to have “cleansed” a village. Homes and mosques bulldozed. Meanwhile, cold weather threatens the lives of the 200,000 displaced war refugees, and Yemen’s blockade on aid continues.

NY Times: Earlier, Saudi Arabia’s assistant defense minister, Prince Khaled bin Sultan, said Tuesday that Saudi forces had killed hundreds of Yemeni rebels occupying a border village, as fighting between the rebels and Yemen’s military also intensified nearby in the Yemeni city of Sadah. (Read on …)

The Daily Mail: Yemen has started negotiations with kidnappers holding one British and five German hostages. The Yemeni foreign minister has confirmed that talks are taking place to free the Europeans believed to have been kidnapped by Al Qaeda.
(Read on …)

Yemen kills a guy no one ever heard of and maybe its legit, but everything coming out of the Yemeni state media and security needs to be taken with a grain or bucket of salt. If its true that al Midhar is a major al Qaeda figure with his own cell, then there’s a lot going on under the radar, considering Wahishi and the three stooges are thought to be the essence of Al Qaeda. Check my timeline Al Qaeda in Yemen Arrests 2002-2009.

SHABWA, Jan. 13 (Saba) – Security forces in Shabwa province have killed one of the major figures of al-Qaeda in Yemen, Interior Ministry announced on Wednesday. (Read on …)

Yemen reached the tipping point some time ago, when the political, administrative and security structures were co-opted by a growing number of terror sympathizers and/or operatives within. The tools of the state are themselves compromised. Meaning that if Saleh authentically wanted to make a serious move, on al Qaeda, (instead of just asking them to leave), it is nearly impossible to do so in any way that diminishes the capacity of the group. It is the elite support of bin Laden and his goals that is problematic. The following is from the Arab reform Initiative:

Is the War Against Terrorism Going to Save Yemen?
Mohammad Mekhlafi, Lawyer and member of the “Yemeni Joint Committee”

Since the re-unification in 1989, foreign fighters from throughout the Arab world have entered Yemen. The number of “Afghan Mujahedeen” reached over 60,000 people. They were led by Usama bin Laden, and participated in the 1994 war against the country’s south and the socialist party. President Ali Abdullah Saleh used them to break the society’s resolve and to weaken the different political forces. His objective was to rule alone and transform the structure of power into a kin system.

“Afghan Mujahedeen” were able to infiltrate Yemeni society and state apparatuses, including military and security bodies. Since this time, it is not clear if any distance between the Yemeni power structure and these terrorist organizations has been established. The ruling elite- in the name of the “War against Al-Qaeda” – is now trying to win support from abroad in order to annihilate political forces, continue accumulating power, and eventually ensure the succession of Saleh’s son. (Read on …)

Wow a really good article on the Sa’ada War, Saleh’s relatives commanding security forces and Ali Mohsen al Ahmar’s conduct of the Sa’ada War. It lays the facts out for the obvious conclusion about why the war just won’t end.

Globe and Mail: There have been tens of thousands of casualties and about 100,000 people in Yemen’s northwest triangle are now under siege – trapped by a combined force of the Yemeni regular army on one side, the Republican Guard on another, and Saudi military forces along the border between the two countries.

“They’re trying to starve them out,” said Abdel-Ghani Iryani, a development consultant and political analyst, who says he still can’t figure out what the war against the Huthi is all about. (Read on …)

The Yemeni government refuses to stop bombing, even for a week, to enable aid shipments to the war refugees. UN News Center

12 January 2010 – Thousands of people continue to flee as the latest round of fighting between Government and rebel forces in the Sa’ada province of northern Yemen enters its sixth month, said the United Nations refugee agency, which last month put the number of uprooted at 175,000 but now estimates that it could be higher. (Read on …)

A good analysis by Leslie Campbell, the question is whether it can be achieved with Saleh and his goons in charge.

Globe and Mail: Although Yemen appears to be the odds-on favourite as the world’s next failed state and now enjoys 24/7 prognostication on its ills from the self-appointed experts who populate the cable news channels, Yemen as a source of instability on the Arabian Peninsula and a haven for terrorists is neither a new phenomenon nor as difficult to address as it might seem. (Read on …)

Update: Yemen denies with the standard claim that al Fadhli is linked to al Qaeda. As usual they fail to explain why al Fadhli was a member of the Saleh government for over a decade handling the “jihaddists file” which they transfered to someone else after al Fadhli’s defection.

Original post: Wow, this is interesting stuff, and current! Its about time al Fadhli dished a little dirt.

-the January 09 meeting with Saleh and the dozens of Jihaddists was to ask them to broker a deal with al Qaeda whereby al Qaeda would leave Yemen in exchange for money. Saleh was negotiating with Wahishi through back channels and would have happily sent them to Saudi Arabia or Somalia.

- the release of the over 108 jihaddists at that time was part of the negotiations. The Yemeni government defended the release as “aged member of the Aden Abyan Islamic Army who were never charged with anything.” According to Tariq al Fadhli, they were al Qaeda members.

- Saleh requested al Fadhli assassinate four southern leaders, which was when he defected. Hundreds of southern politicians were assissinated by Saleh’s proxies in the period between unity in 1990 and the civil war in 1994.

From the Telegraph: Yemen offered to free all al-Qaeda militants held in its prisons last year if the group agreed to leave the country, a former senior government official has claimed.

Although the government of Ali Abdullah Saleh, the country’s president, released 130 of its fighters as a goodwill gesture, al-Qaeda’s leadership in Yemen rejected the deal, according to Tariq al-Fahdli, who has since joined an outlawed group fighting for the secession of the south.

“Because we were previously with al-Qaeda in Afghanistan, Saleh asked us to act as a broker,” Mr Fahdli said, adding that the president had offered to pay the group money to move to Somalia, Saudi Arabia or another country.

Mr Fahdli was recruited along with fellow veterans who fought Soviet occupation in Afghanistan to form a militia against communists in south Yemen during a 1994 civil war.

He said he defected last year to a new movement fighting for southern independence after Mr Saleh asked him to kill the secessionists’ four leaders. (Read on …)

Such total garbage, but its a good example of how the Yemeni government spins every event for the western audience.

Free Media : VIENNA, 7 Jan. 2010: The arrest on 6 January of the editor and publisher of Yemen’s Al-Ayyam newspaper, Hisham Bashraheel, has reinforced concerns that Yemen’s high-profile clampdown on militants is being used as a pretext to further suppress media freedom. (Read on …)

Somehow they can never lay their hands on the top leaders. For the Yemen government’s spin on events, here’s Al Motamar, newspaper of the ruling GPC party.

The Yemeni Interior Ministry has announced on Thursday the arrest of a youth suspected of his affiliation to al-Qaeda organisation in the province of Mareb. (Read on …)

Member of Parliament and rebel spokesman Yahya al Houthi, translated by the Iranian Press TV, alleges al Qaeda infiltration into key Yemeni ministries (media and intelligence). But its not news. I’d like to add to the list the Political Security, National Security, aspects of the military as well as the certain passport and tourism offices as additional Yemeni government institutions subverted by al Qaeda.

A Yemeni Parliamentarian says al-Qaeda enjoys strong support from the government of President Ali Abdullah Salih and runs key ministries in his cabinet.

Exiled Yemeni lawmaker Yahya al-Houthi — who is the brother of the Shia leader, Abdul-Malek — accused the government of allowing hundreds of al-Qaeda militants into the country.

He said members of al-Qaeda are in charge of many key ministries in the Salih administration including ministries for media and intelligence. (Read on …)

Alert Net – Escalating fighting in northern Yemen is preventing vital supplies reaching thousands of people fleeing a war between government forces and rebels, aid groups say. (Read on …)

I lost the link! I think its from the Yemen Times, I have to check it.

Governmental offices’ corruption cases are totaling to more that YR1.5 trillion in illegal transfering, equivalent to the current state’s budget, said a first draft report by Yemen Journalists Against Corruption (Yemen JAC), in collaboration with the Journalists Without Chains Organization.

The report registered 126 corruption cases last year. The oil sector, registering 19 cases, was at the top of the list, with more than YR700 billion in corrupt deals. Aden Oil Refinery Company illegally bought oil products worth YR300 billion alone without announcing bids. “This contradicts the Bid Act by which all companies should abide,” said Nabeel Abdurab, one member of Yemen (JAC). (Read on …)

Following the seige of al Ayyam newspaper, police arrested 23 in Aden who were participating in a funeral march. There is no official word yet on the status of those arrested the day of the assault, including the editors of the paper.

Aden / Aden agency news / special / January 11, 2010 – Last update: 04:30 م
The security forces in Aden South Yemen to arrest dozens of mourners for the funeral of “peace Yaf’i” morning after the completion of the burial ceremony, according to local sources. (Read on …)

Maybe this one will come through on the feeds, somehow the NBC widget isn’t doing it. And this one has no commercial!

Thats just smashing!!! For more, see my category, “9 hostages”, on the side bar.

BBC: German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle has made a surprise visit to Yemen, where five German nationals have been held hostage for six months. (Read on …)

For local news from Yemen, go to Yemen Portal, a Yemen news aggregator. Then click on the left sidebar’s “English translated pages” for the Arabic news translated, then on that right sidebar “page blocked sites” for the content of some of the websites the Yemeni government is censoring, handily google translated. That’s where the interesting stuff often is. The Portal even distinguishes between the government media and the independent and opposition, to give some important context on each story. In Yemen, there are some independent papers and websites, but traditionally each political party has its own news papers which advance the party line. The government’s media brings Stalinist propaganda tactics to a new level.

Oh my! A comedy routine shown on the popular US TV show “Saturday Night Live” about US General Patraeus, Yemeni President Saleh and the editor of the Yemen Observer. Faris, that’s you!!! (There’s a commerical before the skit starts, just wait it out.)

In Yemen, you could go to jail for a decade for something like that. Insulting the President is a crime, you know. Does anyone remember comedian Fahd al Qarni, imprisoned for being too funny? But its all good hearted joshing, yes? President Saleh is the guy who had a whole issue of a magazine pulled because he found one of the photos of him to be unflattering. I think it was this one:

Photo is from January 7, taken in Yafee, Lahj during a demonstration in support of the southern peaceful movement during which protesters where carrying both the flag of the former P.D.R.Y and the flag of the United States. They were “expressing their open minds and hearts towards all western countries and other cultures and civilizations in the world,” a commenter explained. They were likely hoping to draw support, since as President Obama says, we support people seeking justice.

Today there was a strike in Southern Yemen, a good way to demand civil rights as long as it stays peaceful. Unfortunately there were three injuries to police, unusual for the protests that began in 2007. Normally its the protesters wounded when police open fire.

Al Jazeera Residents in the south of Yemen have staged a general strike to protest government policy and claims of oppression. (Read on …)

1- This is not new. In 2005 it became clear that Judge al Hittar’s dialog program was an early release mechanism and little else and the program was discontinued. In June 2006, President Saleh and intelligence chief Gamal al Qamish began direct negotiations with al Qaeda, promising government jobs, more prisoner releases and an easing of travel restrictions in exchange for no attacks within Yemen on government facilities. After 23 high value al Qaeda escaped prison in 2006, those who surrendered were later released after a pledge of loyalty to Saleh. Although described by some Saleh apologists as a time honored tribal mechanism of conflict resolution, (”we have to understand the neighborhood,” they said), naturally the appeasement resulted in both the strengthening and legitimization of al Qaeda.

In January 2009, Saleh negotiated in person with dozens of jihaddists which culminated in the release hundreds of what the Yemeni government called “harmless and aged jihaddists” in exchange for the terrorists supporting the state in its efforts against the southerners. See my article, aptly named Yemen Strikes Multi-Faceted Deals with al Qaeda. Odd how all those al Qaeda training camps popped up in the South after that. Hmmm…

2- Saleh to this point has refused to negotiate with Southern protesters, who remarkably have eschewed violence. The police shoot those political oppositionists in the head and arrest them en masse, triggering more protests. Its little wonder they want to secede. Saleh also refuses to end the blockade on and carpet bombing of the northern Sa’ada province, although the Houthi rebels do not target civilians, unlike al Qaeda (and the Saudi and Yemeni air forces).

Lets look at the difference in the Yemeni government’s approach to the Houthi rebels, who the regime erroneously claims want to re-establish a Shiite theocracy, and their approach to al Qaeda, who do in fact want to establish a global caliphate.

Houthis: an all out relentless military attack, schools closed, preachers replaced, mosques bombed, mass arrests, labeled apostates, blockaded, censored, tortured, sentenced to death.
Al Qaeda: not.

VOA: Yemen’s President Ali Abdullah Saleh says he is willing to negotiate with al-Qaida members who renounce violence and lay down their weapons. The offer goes against the aims of the United States and other nations that are seeking to help Yemen vanquish the local al-Qaida off-shoot. (Read on …)

WASHINGTON: Twenty other young Muslim radicals have been trained to blow up planes by al-Qaida in Yemen, a young Nigerian charged with trying to blow up a US airliner has told FBI.

Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, 23, has told FBI that close to 20 other young Muslim men were being prepared in Yemen to use the same technique to blow up airliners, CBS said in an exclusive investigative report.

US surprised by AQAP’s links to Pakistan? Say it aint so…

Newsweek: U.S. officials have been surprised by what they’ve discovered about the resurgence of Al Qaeda in Yemen in the aftermath of the Christmas Day bombing attempt by a Nigerian student who says he was trained and equipped there. Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), as this offshoot is called, is linked directly to the “core” group in Pakistan and it is now “one of the most lethal” affiliates, White House counterterrorism coordinator John Brennan said at a news conference.

Times Online:

Yemeni security sources believe that of the 15-20 Britons recently recruited by Al-Qaeda, most have undergone training in camps in Rafad, a mountainous region in the southeast. It lies in the province where Abdulmutallab is thought to have met Anwar al-Awlaki, a radical cleric who is viewed as a big influence in luring foreign recruits to Al-Qaeda.

One institution popular with British Muslims is Dar alHadith in Dammaj, northern Yemen. US defence officials have described the institute as a “known terrorist training centre”. This has always been denied by the institute.

Students can access weapons there, and teachings have traditionally been anti-western. Students are told that democracy is an enemy of Islam and locals are reported to refer to America as “the great Satan”.

Abu Muaz, head of the Salafi Youth Movement in the UK, said about 50 Britons had gone to study at Dar al-Hadith. “Most want to learn about Islam, but there are some jihadi supporters who decide to take up arms,” he said.

An in depth profile of Yemen’s ambassador to the US at Time today fails to note that Abdulwahab Abdulla Al-Hajjri is President Ali Abdullah Saleh’s brother-in-law.

Time: The reason his bosses have kept him there so long, he says, is that “they think it’s an investment, because they think you develop experience and an understanding of how the system works.” Yemen’s ambassador to the UN is also a relative of the president.

In Yemen, the concentration of power in the hands of Saleh’s family goes beyond their control of the instruments of force (military and security forces) and extends to the national economy. The NYT noticed recently that many of President Saleh’s relatives are top security commanders.

(Presidential son) Ahmed Saleh is head of the Yemen Republican Guard and the country’s special forces. The president’s nephews — sons of his late brother — include Amar, the deputy director for national security; Yahye, head of the central security forces and the counterterrorism unit; and Tarek, head of the Presidential Guard. The president’s half brother is head of the air force.

As the following listing I compiled in 2006 demonstrates, Saleh’s relatives also control a large segment of the Yemeni economy in addition to their duties as military leaders. They also “own” much of the land. One trigger for instability in Southern Yemen is widespread land theft by the ruling family. The corporations listed below are huge monopolies in various business sectors.

President Saleh’s Relatives’ Economic Interests

Ahmed Ali Abdullah Saleh, Special Forces and Republican Guards Commander, Eldest Son, Al-Haj Company For Heavy Equipments and Cars

Ali Abdullah Saleh, President, Partner of Tawfick Abul-Raheem, Sole Distributor of Gas and Petroleum Products

Ali Mohsen Al-Hamar Military Commander Northern and Western regions, Hawan For Petroleum Services and Alraida Group for Engineering.

Khalid Alarhabi Deputy Chief of The Presidential Palaces, Son in-law ,Yemen Space Company

Mohamed Saleh Al-Hamar, Air Force Commander, Half Brother, Alhashidi Petroleum Company

Yahya Mohamed Abdullah Saleh Commander Of Security Central Forces, Nephew, Al Mas Company For Petroleum Services and Ha Wi Cable Chinese Company
(Read on …)

That’s truely excellent news but I’m dubious about the claims of a joint Houthi- al Qaeda operation.

SANAA — Five Germans, including three children, and a British national who have been held by kidnappers in Yemen for the past six months are still alive, a top official said on Thursday.

“We have confirmed information that they are still alive. They are five Germans and a British national,” deputy prime minister for defence and security affairs, Rashad al-Aleemi, told a press conference. (Read on …)

Saleh has a blank check to target his domestic opposition with violence and the judiciary. Odds on how soon Yemeni authorities will try to re-package it as a counter-terror raid?

SANAA- Yemen police Wednesday arrested the owner and editor of the main southern newspaper, Al-Ayyam, following clashes between police and armed guards of the banned daily, a security official said.

Hisham Bashraheel, 66, was taken into custody over clashes since Monday in which a policeman and a guard were killed and seven people were wounded, the official said from the southern city of Aden. (Read on …)

Sounds hokey, hopefully its a false report, not that I would expect less of al Qaeda than to send a boy to murder himself and others to further their imperrialsit agenda. Now with the threat in Aden, Saleh can blame all the raids, checkpoints and round ups on the hunt for the boy. I wonder if they will say he was at the compound of al Ayyam newspaper that they they shot up and set fire to last night…

DUBAI — Counter-terrorism authorities are said to be hunting for a 16-year-old boy from northern Yemen suspected of having been recruited by Al Qaeda to be a homicide bomber at one of five foreign targets in the southern port city of Aden, according to Western sources close to Yemeni security officials. (Read on …)

I have been writing about the impact of the thousands of Iraqis in Yemen, and especially former top Saddamists, for years. One area is the Sa’ada War, where Iraqi Ba’athists in the Yemeni military aided and instigated the war efforts against the Shiite Houthi rebels, prompting Ayatollah Sistani to call it “a pact of evil from Baghdad to Sana’a” in 2005. (And what an uproar there was…) Another area of influence is the facilitation of jihaddists from Yemen to Iraq to aid the “insurgency” there. In 2005, I detailed the Baathist input into the training of jihaddis in Yemen by “subverted” members of the intelligence and military.

The reasoning for the US working with former Saddamists in Yemen presented in the article is that the PSO is too incompetent and subverted. And that’s true. The Iraqis at least have some professionalism. The US must be that desperate to find anyone to partner with, and there’s even talk of forming yet another Yemeni security agency. But its hard to stomach an alliance with these particular Ba’athists when we tally the numbers of US troops killed by terrorists that came down the Yemeni rat trail. They are already alligned with al Qaeda, as are certain sections of the Yemeni security forces and the Yemeni adminstration.

Telegraph: Co-operation with the former Baathist officers, who fled Iraq in the wake of the US-led invasion and the fall of Saddam, is expected to grow further in the wake of the failed terror attack in the skies above Detroit.

Both Britain and the United States have pledged to bolster Yemeni efforts to take on al-Qaeda’s local affiliate, al-Qaeda in the Arab Peninsula (AQAP), since it claimed responsibility for a thwarted attempt to bring down an American airliner on Christmas Day.

The US-Iraqi alliance was born out of frustration over the incompetence and suspected al-Qaeda sympathies of many within Yemen’s domestic intelligence body, the Political Security Organisation, or PSO. (Read on …)

“If Saleh wants to end the AQ threat for real, he KNOWS that the Houthis can do it with ease…”

This is from last week, and related to continued “unrest” in southern Yemen. Although its not widely reported in the English media, protests in South Yemen continue unabated in numerous cities as do the arbitrary arrests, detention of journalists and violence by police. This article also covers the protest at which Tariq al Fadhli gave out the megaphones, video below.

Update: Detainees held incommunicado. Torture is widespread in Yemen, the UN determined.

Yemeni security authorities to prevent lawyers and human rights organizations to visit detainees in CID Aden, and ill-treatment of detainees. (Read on …)

This is it in a nut shell, a snapshot of the entrenched difficulties of building a better dictatorship in Yemen, which seems to be the plan.

Yemen Times This protest came after the administration of Sana’a University suspended a group of professors after they formed an organization called “Academics Against Corruption”.
This organization was intended to reveal financial and administrative corruption at the university caused by the rectorship of the university.
The violations against professors by the rectorship included suspension from teaching, elimination, threatening, and interrogation by the university.
Protestors from teachers’ syndicate, doctors’ syndicate, members of the parliament, human rights activists, and college students raised billboards that said, “Stop violations against professors”.
“ The academics now have joined us in the freedom square against corruption and injustice,” said Sultan Al-Atwani, a member of the parliament.“ The government had considered the academics as supporters of its mistreatment, but the professors have proved this to be an incorrect assumption,” he added. (Read on …)

Its not a surprise the six detainees transferred from Gitmo to Yemen were released within a week of their return to Yemen, and its no surprise that the Saleh government in Yemen lied to the US with a promise of indefinite detention. What’s shocking is that anyone on the US side actually believed them to start with. (Read on …)

Thats why Yemen’s single largest foreign creditor by far is Russia. IPSN

According to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), one of the world’s best known think tanks researching arms control and disarmament, Russia accounted for nearly 59 percent of all major weapons deliveries to Yemen during 2004-2008, followed by Ukraine at 25 percent, Italy at 10 percent, Australia’s five percent, and the United States at less than one percent. (Read on …)

The Christmas airliner plot that originated in Yemen brought renewed focus on Yemen’s counter-terror efforts, but not on the crimes against Yemeni citizens systematically committed by the Yemeni government.

Let’s see what Yemeni President Saleh is getting a pass on, in exchange for temporarily going through the motions of hunting al Qaeda. There’s the collective punishment of civilians in the Sa’ada war, this includes indiscriminate bombing and intentional starvation. Then there’s the mass arbitrary arrests of political opponents, Hashemites and often relatives of wanted persons. In the south we have the repetitive murder of protesters by security forces and more arbitrary arrests. And, as you’d probably expect, widespread torture in prisons. Last on our list, the violent repression of the media. It is these practices that are at the root of the instability in Yemen, which Ms. Clinton referred to yesterday as a global threat. The Yemeni oligachy also loots the public budget and officials facilitate a variety of regional criminal enterprises including drug and weapons smuggling.

Update 3: Yemeni security forces attacked al Ayyam again at 2:49 am Tuesday morning, the attack is in progress with Yemeni security forces using live rounds and tear gas to attack the newpaper headquarters and residence of the editors.
(Read on …)

AT 4:07 pm today, Yemeni security forces opened fire with live rounds on a group of citizens holding a peaceful sit-in in front of al Ayyam newspaper in Aden, Yemen. The demonstrators were protesting the independent paper’s unconstitutional closure since May 2009.

Watch this, click here.

The Brits want to coordinate the counter-terror funding about to be funneled into Yemen, and offer Yemenis an alternative to al Qaeda. What Yemenis need is an alternative to President Saleh. Even the State Department notes that Yemenis are unable to impact the governance of their county, change it or hold it accountable. Could we start there? Or rather, let Yemenis start there?

Yemen was pledged 4.6 billion (yes thats a B) dollars in development funds at the 2006 donors conference. It didn’t do much good. What the western donors should be convening is a war crimes tribunal or, at a minimum, a major crimes tribunal like the one Ms. Clinton suggested for Afghanistan to help rid it of top level corrupt officials. Offer the Saleh family amnesty, and let them leave. All the al Qaeda problems will clear up much more quickly because without Saleh, al Qaeda will flee Yemen.

Times Online: Gordon Brown is to host an emergency summit this month on the terror threat posed by Yemen after the attempt to blow up a transatlantic airliner on Christmas Day.

The Prime Minister and Hillary Clinton, the US Secretary of State, will seek agreement on an international fund to help the Yemeni Government to drive al-Qaeda out of the country. (Read on …)

From what I can gather, there’s armed combat between Dammaj students and the Houthi rebels. There’s a great influx of students to Dammaj. Some Saudi scholars traveled to the southern border and are “educating” the soldiers, which could mean a number of things.

It became 1431 on December 18. “Raafidah” is an objectionable term that I can reproducing here only to keep the text original, since I’m not hotlinking it.

Timeline of Events in Dammaaj

The following is a brief summary of recent events that have taken place in Dammaaj, one of the few strongholds of the Sunnah and its people. It is taken from a post on sahab mostly by Abu ‘Abdullaah Husayn al Kahlanee. (Read on …)