Chlorine Bombs in Iraq
Chlorine as a chemical weapon…..hmmmm, now why does that sound oddly familiar? Yellow gas clouds and all.
I thought it was interesting that when Saleh went to Saadah for a visit in 2006, he went directly to Suleiman cave, referenced in an article I wrote in 2005 as the location of an alleged chlorine gas attack by the Yemeni military on the Shiite rebels:
Chemical Weapons: It is questionable whether the Yemeni military’s response to the Houthi rebellion was proportionate, reasonable and justified. The primarily Shiite region of Saada was decimated by a military force comprised of former Iraqi military men, Afghan Arabs and Yemeni military personnel, under the leadership of General Ali Mohsen al-Ahmar, a reputed Al Qaeda sympathizer and President Saleh’s half brother. Persistent news reports and published interviews have charged that General Mohsen used gas as a weapon during the conflicts in Saada.
Highly respected religious scholar Mohamed Almansour wrote a letter to President Saleh in March 2005, which stated, “We condemn all things that happened in the previous months such as excessive use of force by the government forces and the use of internationally prohibited weapons.” In May, Alquds Alarabia reported that rebel leader Abdelmalik al-Houthi said, “The government attacked us with internationally prohibited weapons like chlorine gas that caused an inability to breathe.” He also referred to “colored gas.” An article in the opposition newspaper al-Shoura in June listed the names of imprisoned children, including Bader Aldeen Abdula Moslih who was described as “12 years old, very ill from nervous system and skin damage as a result of chlorine gas used by the army in the first war last year.” In an internet interview the same month, a Houthi partisan and purported eyewitness described “some special missile which turns into many particles, yellow and then red. The cloud goes up slowly. When it explodes it is yellow, when the particles come down they are red.” The cloud caused an inability to breathe, he reported.
Yahya al-Houthi, an exiled Member of Parliament in the ruling party and brother of slain rebel leader Hussain al-Houthi, wrote in an e-mail “Most of the injured persons have died especially those who were hiding in Suleiman Cave. They were exposed to chemical gas … The area surrounding Suleiman Cave is still closed by the Army to prevent any one from taking samples to be analyzed by chemical weapon experts. The Army also burned all bodies in that area so they don’t leave any evidence for the international community.
“They used gas in the area of Alqari Mountain in the village of Neshoor … The result of the attack was the death of all 40 men who were protecting the area. The bodies of the dead still missing tell now. The government forces used the tanks to destroy the graves so no one can find the dead bodies if he or she needs to look for any evidence.” Certainly, the Yemeni regime could put these allegations to rest by inviting international inspectors into the region that remains closed off.
