President Saleh: the King of Spin
Yemen’s President is very good at manipulating the media and the West. Just today, he pulls out three Iraqi guys, in jail without lawyers for two years, and puts them on trial to demonstrate his continuing cooperation in the WOT.
SANAA — Three former Iraqi intelligence officers are to stand trial in Yemen today charged with plotting to attack Western targets, a judicial source said yesterday.The three men are to face charges of forming an armed group and conspiring to blow up Western targets, including the British and US embassies in the Yemeni capital Sanaa, the source told DPA.
What the media is failing to note is that Yemen actively recruited Saddams generals after the fall of Baghdad and many are currently active in Yemen’s military. Further, there have been reports that “Yemen is home to training camps for exiled members of Saddam Hussein’s Baath party….the camps are run by subversive (al-Qaeda) elements from Yemen’s secret services.” Further the top Yemeni Shia cleric said that Saddams generals in the Yemeni military “encouraged Saleh to kill Shiias in the country as did Saddam in Iraq.” And apparently he took that advice, as the slaughter in the Saada region has been termed a jihad by Sistani, and according to witness testimony, its very damned bloody. So I’m not saying the three Iraqis are guilty or innocent, I’m just saying its no indication of cooperation in the WOT, although its designed to look that way.
Update: This also may or may not be true- The accused pleaded innocent, insisting they were coerced into confessing to the plot. Defendant al-Zubaidi told the court his confession was extracted by force and that he came to Yemen in January 2003 as an import-export businessman.
And while we’re on the subject of cooperation in the WOT (not the struggle against extremism), this article says the UNSC sanctions committee is unhappy with Yemen’s level of compliance and there is additional concern about the movement of arms from Yemen. (Remember the 143 terrorist bank accounts not frozen, the Yemeni weapons pipeline? I have to find this new report in English. ) Update: this will do:
The United Nations have made renewed demands to Yemen for detailed reports on the measures that have been taken concerning nine persons and organizations accused of having links with and financing Al-Qaeda.
Media sources have reported that the requests relate to financial connections between those organizations and branches in Yemen, and the Taliban movement and Osama Bin Laden.
UN sources said: “The UN committees to combat terrorism and to control arms regard Yemen as one of the countries not providing reports on the action it has taken against individuals and organizations named by the committee for combating terrorism….
The American demands included, in addition to the Al-Qaeda-linked persons, the government’s policy towards weapons and the local arms market.
Yemen News website quoted the UN report as saying that Yemen was one of the countries that has failed to respond to 19 questions the UN had sent a year previously, related to the movement of arms and arms dealers, even though Yemeni law was very clear about arms.
