Armies of Liberation

Fawaz al-Rabie (convicted Limburgh bomber) escaped jail in February, he was recently killed by security forces. To follow is a summary of striking things his father said in an interview, followed by the interview. I find it all quite plausable and part of a larger pattern that at its best can be called appeasement.

His father says it is impossible to believe the story of the February escape asserted by authorities, that the authorities assisted in the escape. Why elements of the security forces would facilitate an escape of high level al-Qaeda is open to interpretation.

In June, while on the run, Al-Rabie visited his father in the hospital openly and without a disguise.

Years ago, Al-Rabie had worked in President Saleh’s Republican Palace as a clerk. Then he was encouraged to go to Afghanistan in 2000. The ones who encouraged him to go were the same ones hunting him when he came back.

Al-Rabie’s brother, Abu-Bakr, had a sham detention and trial to please the Americans. The President of the country personally assured ABu-Bakr nothing would happen to him. Abu-Bakr al-Rabie recieved a ten year sentence. Subsequently, he was actually at home when the US thought he was in jail. He did not spend one day in prison.

Al-Raibee’s brother, Abu-Bakr was in phone contact with security officials who only recently demanded that his brother surrender.

Here’s the article in Arabic (click here) for the Arabic speaking readers.

YO: My son lived as a lion and died as a lion, said Yahya Hassan al-Rabi’e, father of Fawaz al-Rabi’e, who was killed last week in clashes with security forces who believed he was “one of the most dangerous Al-Qaeda elements” in Yemen. “But this does not mean I approve of the killing of innocents or bombings that destroy our country,” the aged father told Yemen Observer in his modest house in the northern outskirt of the capital Sana’a.

“My son Fawaz, as he told me once in prison, wanted to live normally, wanted to get married, wanted to support me and his mother like anyone, but they did not let him do this,” he said. In his 60’s, al-Rabi’e lives with his wife Safia, who prefers to be called Umm Hussan, with their divorced daughter who works as a teacher. “Are you the journalists? It is my uncle, Fawaz, who was killed; it is my uncle who was killed,” the six-year-old girl introduced herself to reporters, when she came to escort them to the house from a neighbouring grocery. She is living with her mother, who was divorced because of her uncle Fawaz.

Al-Rabi’e has four daughters and four sons, seven of whom were born in Saudi Arabia. The 10-member family came back to Yemen after the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait in 1990. “Fawaz was always different from his brothers—different in his attitudes, in his talk—he would always speak about Jihad,” said the father, who referred to his son as “the martyr.” Fawaz was a very brave man, he said, citing a story about the time his son visited him in the hospital after the famous jailbreak of 23 Al-Qaeda suspects earlier this year.

“Fawaz visited me undisguised in the hospital of the Science and Technology about four months after the jailbreak,” said the father. The father had an injury in his left foot at the time that his son and 22 other inmates escaped from the intelligence prison last February. “I was put in the prison for three days without treatment; afterward, I kept going back and forth to hospitals, but finally doctors decided to amputate my leg because I had diabetic gangrene,” al-Rabi’e said. His leg was amputated from above the knee. After the family’s return from Saudi Arabia, Fawaz, who did not complete his secondary school, had an official employment in the Republican Palace as a clerk.

“Then he was encouraged by senior security officials to travel to Afghanistan in 2000, where he stayed about one year,” al-Rabi’e said. “Unfortunately, those who encouraged him to go to Afghanistan were the same who were hunting him down when he came back here.” Three of al-Rabi’e’s sons were accused of being affiliated with Al-Qaeda. Fawaz was sentenced to death, his brother Abu Bakr to 10 years in prison, and Salman has been languishing in US detention at Guantanamo Bay for more than four years. The father said his sons Abu Bakr and Salman had nothing to do with Al-Qaeda at all.

“I sent Salman to look for his brother and bring him back from Afghanistan, but the war broke out and he could not come back, he was detained and put in Guantanamo,” he said. “As for Abu Bakr, he surrendered himself when his brother Fawaz was arrested here in Abyan and the officials—including the President of the Republic—reassured him that nothing would happen to him,” al-Rabi’e said.

“Abu Bakr’s trial was nominal. It was only meant to please the Americans,” said al-Rabi’e. “He did not spend even one day in the prison. The security would only take him from my house to appear in the court, and then bring him back after the court hearings. Even when the imprisonment sentence was issued, he was not in the courtroom,” he said. “He was not accused of anything, he was innocent, but the officials were under pressure from the Americans.” However, Abu Bakr was arrested only about two hours after the October 1st operation in which his brother Fawaz and his colleague were killed.

“The security soldiers stormed the house and arrested Abu Bakr, who was only in his underwear. Now we need him to go and get his brother’s dead body to be buried,” mother Safia said. Al-Rabi’e said the detention of Abu Bakr was meant to avoid any retaliatory act by him, adding that if his leg had not been amputated, he would have gone looking for his son’s dead body to bury it himself. “Only a few days before the killing of Fawaz, Abu Bakr received a phone call at this house from a senior official saying, ‘tell your brother Fawaz to come back to prison, or his head will be cut off,’ and this was very different from all previous calls we received,” he said.

With his high school certificate and some computer skills, Abu Bakr was supposed to have a job starting at the beginning of this month, in order to support his family. “He was guaranteed a job this month—if it were not for his detention after his brother’s killing,” mother Safia said. The father has misgivings about the story of the jailbreak of last February, saying it was a plan to get rid of his son and his colleagues to please the United States. “Anyone who knows the prison and the neighbouring mosque well, would never believe the story of the escape,” he said. “I know it well, it’s impossible for anyone to escape.”

Of the four sons, only Hassan, the eldest, has gotten married and is living in a separate house in Sana’a with his six children. He is working as a mini bus driver. “Hassan was put in prison for one year without any charges, only because his brothers were accused of belonging to Al-Qaeda,” mother Safia said. Fawaz had married a woman from Yahya Saleh Mujali’s (Abu Saif) family in Sana’a. Mujali was also killed with his wife in their Sana’a house, in clashes with security forces over terror charges.

The English translation skipped a few sentences from the original Arabic article. One mentions two high level officers who called and supported and sent Fawaz al-Rabie and others to Afghanistan in 2000. In the Arabic version it says that one of them is the undersecretary of the political security , and the other is a commander of a military Zone . Second , the translation didnt mention the relation of president directly , although it is openly written in Arabic version .