The UPI Reports on Yemen’s Weapon Trafficking
UPI:
International concern is rising over Yemen’s position as a freewheeling arms bazaar. Weaponry channeled through Yemen is supplying terrorists, as well as militants in Sudan, Somalia, the Palestinian Authority territories, Eritrea and Saudi Arabia.Adding to the problem of halting the arms transfers is the fact that besides the black market, until recently the Yemeni government allowed surplus legitimate military purchases to be marketed. The government had cancelled third party licenses, which allowed local businessmen to purchase weapons abroad for the government, with surplus stock being sold to citizens through dealers.
Both the United States and the United Nations remained concerned about the trafficking.
Estimates of the quantity of small and light arms in Yemen vary between nine and 60 million weapons. Ambassador Gasem al-Aghbari, head of the Europe Directorate of the Yemeni Ministry of Foreign Affairs said that over the last few years the government had spent more than $44.4 million to buy weapons from the public.
The Yemen Times reported that besides diversions of Yemeni military equipment to the black market, local arms-trafficking gangs in Serbia, Slovakia, Montenegro, Croatia and Kosovo were shipping weapons from Adriatic ports to Yemen.
Despite being the poorest nation in the Arab world, Yemen is among its top weapons purchasers. Yemen’s military budget tripled from 1998 to 2003. In 2003, the CIA estimated Yemen’s military expenditures at $885.5 million. The lavish arms expenditures were paralleled by a growth in weapons trafficking activity, an enterprise reputedly supervised by a top officer who is close relative of President Ali Abdullah Saleh.
The massive covert arms trade is having an impact across the Red Sea. According to the four-member United Nations panel monitoring the arms embargo on Somalia, Somali President Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed is receiving massive shipments of Yemeni arms. Yemen openly admitted flouting U.N. Security Council Resolution 733, which in 1992 imposed an arms embargo on Somalia by giving Ahmed’s forces “5,000 personal arms.” The most recent report by the U.N. panel suggests that Somalia also received Rocket Propelled Grenade launchers, heavy-machine guns and anti-tank mines from Yemen.
I’m thrilled. It seems their analysis closely matches mine as laid out in Yemen 20 in the Yemen Times. This is fantastic.
