Armies of Liberation

Half of Yemeni children are stunted from malnutrition. That’s a stat from 2006, things are much worse now. A third of Yemenis are malnourished, and children suffer the most. However corruption, economic monopolies, wars and the diversion (and sale) of aid are among the most detrimental factors impacting Yemenis.

World Food Programme appeals for $23 million to help Yemenis women and children 9. July 2009

The World Food Programme (WFP) issued an urgent appeal on Tuesday for $23 million in “financial support from international donors for food aid to Yemen specifically targeted at women and children,” AFP/Google.com reports. (Read on …)

As bad as some of the discrimination is for certain classes of Yemenis, Christians are certainly dhimmis. Article from Orato

Millions of Ethiopian Christian immigrants are living under difficult social, cultural and economic conditions in Yemen.

Famine, starvation, unemployment, torture, abuse, and lack of freedom and democracy in their birth country force them to migrate to Yemen, one of the poorest countries in the world. In order to survive, a Christian in Yemen has to convert to Islam or be alienated.

The consequences of not converting can be felt in both life — and death. If an Ethiopian Christian maintains their religion, after death the Yemeni government will not permit them to be buried in Sana’a. The deceased’s name has to be changed (for a fee) to an Islam name by a known Muslim Ethiopian who has good contact with Yemeni officials. (Read on …)

Yemeni is a signatory to the Chemical Weapons Convention. The draft law is a bit late for the people in Sa’ada some would say. SABA

Yemen bans chemical, biological arms

SANA’A, July 07 (Saba)- The cabinet approved in its Tuesday meeting a draft law concern works of the National Committee to Ban Chemical, Biological and Poisonous Arms.

The cabinet directed concern officials to complete necessary measures to issue the draft law, which was presented by Ministry of Foreign Affairs. (Read on …)

Unless of course they come to some kind of agreement like they did in 2003.

Washington Post DUBAI (Reuters) – A Yemeni minister downplayed al Qaeda’s presence in the troubled Arabian Peninsula country, saying in comments published on Sunday reports of militants relocating there from Iraq and Afghanistan were “exaggerated.” ——— “Western think tanks say that al Qaeda has moved from Iraq and Afghanistan to Yemen but the truth of the matter is that this is exaggerated,” Abubakr al-Qirbi, the country’s foreign minister, said in Saudi-owned daily Asharq al-Awsat.

“A limited group of al Qaeda elements are trying to involve themselves with the Houthis and the secessionists to take advantage of the current situation,” he said… “Now with this moving into destructive (militant) activity, the government will have no choice but to take measures against them,” he said, vowing a tougher government policy.
(Read on …)

The relationship between Yemen and China is quite strong and well established. Yemen balances its external relations in a similiar manner to its internal affairs. Yemen’s alliance with the US is offset by its relation with China, Russia, Iran, even Cuba. Yemen supports the Chinese position on Taiwan, and China never pressures Yemen on Human Rights issues, of course. First up, we have Yemen quite understanding of the Chinese crackdown on the Uighur’s and insisting its some conspiracy, which is the standard line for the Yemeni government regarding civil unrest in Yemen.

CNN: The July 5 riot in northwest China’s Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region is an internal affair of China, the Yemeni ambassador to China said on Wednesday. Yemen supports China’s efforts to defend its national sovereignty, to safeguard its social stability, and the people’s security and property, Abdulmalek Mualemi said in a written interview with Xinhua.

The riot in Urumqi, the capital of the Xinjiang region, left 197 people dead and more than 1,680 injured….

“Considering the grave loss of lives and property caused by the violence, we believe the incident did not happen spontaneously as some people have claimed, instead, it was premeditated and organized,” he said.

AQAP may target Chinese interests in Yemen- report.

Bloomberg: Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb said it will target the 50,000 Chinese workers in Algeria and Chinese nationals and projects across northwestern Africa, said Stirling Assynt, which has offices in London and Hong Kong….“Some of these individuals have been actively seeking information on China’s interests in the Muslim world which they could use for targeting purposes,” Stirling Assynt said, adding locations included North Africa, Sudan, Pakistan and Yemen. Other militant groups may make similar threats and al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula “could well target Chinese projects in Yemen,” according to the report.

More from Yemen Observer and al Sahwa.

Next: Chinese investment in Yemen, the overt kind. China needs to secure energy supplies and is one of Yemen’s main trading partners.

July 14 (Saba) – Yemen and the Chinese Commercial Vessel Building Company reviewed on Tuesday benefits and investment opportunities provided to investors in Aden Free Zone (AFZ).

Vice-chairman of the General Authority for Free Zones, and Head of the AFZ Abdul-Jalil al-Shuaibi re-invited, during his meeting with deputy general director of the company, Chinese investors to invest in Yemen, especially in establishing a factory for Chinese cars in the country.

Finally the Chinese massage parlors in Sana’a targeted by the Virtue and Vice Commission. The Chinese girls trafficked to Yemen as sex slaves were left crying on the street.

Al Arabyia: Yemeni religious police were out in force Tuesday in a major crackdown that saw many massage parlors and Chinese restaurants in the capital Sanaa shut down for allegedly promoting prostitution and vice.

The Yemeni religious police, modeled after Saudi Arabia’s Committee for the Propagation of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice, targeted popular tourist areas in Sanaa.

Authorities dragged Chinese women working in several spas and restaurants to the streets and sealed the businesses after posting a sign reading “closed by the authorities,” an eyewitness told Al Arabiya.

The number of Chinese restaurants and spas in the capital has increased significantly in the capital despite the fact that none of them have a legal work permits or Ministry of Health authorization, said an official who supervised the clampdown but spoke on condition of anonymity. (Read on …)

President Saleh calls for dialog as he prevents the opposition party form holding its conference. Am I the only one who sees the irony here? al Sahwa

Sahwa Net- The Assistant Secretary-General of the Islah party Mohammad al-Saadi has expressed sorrow over the involvement of President Ali Abdullah Saleh in preventing the Islah party in Adhala’a province from holding its congress. (Read on …)

This story is from earlier in the month, but Im cleaning up the drafts, so here it is. And a bizarre little story it is, and not the first time that a person has been charged with treason for giving information on al Qaeda to a foreign country. There was another person sentenced to death last year for telling the Egyptians there was a terror plot in the works, known to the Yemeni government, targeting tourists in Egypt. The charge was revealing state secrets. SABA

Man contacted with foreign country to be tried next week
SANA’A, July 08 (Saba) – The Specialized Penal Court is to start next week a trial of a man accused off contacting with a foreign country, the state-run 26sep.net reported on Wednesday.

A judicial source said that the prosecution has finished investigations with the defendant and his file would be sent to the court on Wednesday.

The man called M. Mujali is a relative to al-Qaeda’s member, the source said. The man has claimed that he has been threatened by Al Qaeda members. Then he contacted with a foreign embassy asking for protection. He gave him phone numbers of some al-Qaeda men, he said.

Officials in the embassy provided him a car belongs to the embassy for transport purposes, as he claimed.

The solution is not to hide the truth but to change the truth. Report from the Yemen Post:

Sana’a: The reporters of Al Jazeera satellite channel in Yemen were threatened to be killed if they did not stop covering the protests in the south of the country, said the director of the Sana’a-based office on Sunday. Murad Hashem, director of the office, said he received a call at 10:30am, telling him to stop covering what’s happening in the south….Murad Hashem and his colleagues received many similar threats, especially for covering the protests. Earlier this month, an MP from the ruling party called for closing the office of Al Jazeera in Yemen.

Computers and phones stolen by three persons, two dressed as sanitation workers, who broke into the offices at 7 am Sunday according to a press release.

Al Sahwa

Sahwa Net – The correspondent of Sahwa Net and Alsahwa newspaper in Hodeida province Abdul-Hafeez al-Hattami was attacked by gunmen on Wednesday, while he was covering tribal disputes on lands.

Hadi Heij, an opposition leader in Hodeida hold the authorities responsible for protecting journalist, pointing out that some security members were available as al-Hattami was attacked , but they did nothing, according to him. (Read on …)

Rebels target soldiers after military set up a post in a neutral zone.

Sahwa Net – Bloody confrontations have gone on since Thursday, killing at least six soldiers. Soldiers were also wounded and captured in the violence which erupted on Thursday .

Local sources in Saada said that Al Khamis area, 6 Km away from Saada city, witnessed violent clashes between al-Houthi rebels and the military.

” It is likely that the military sent a number of soldiers to a military point in Al Khamis area which was agreed to be evacuated form both sides” sources in Saada said.

These incidents came on grounds of killing an army officer and wounding two soldiers in an ambush on the Saada-Sanaa road, according to a defense ministry.

The protesters shot themselves, the regime says… Dhalie was protesting against the slaughter earlier in the week in Zanjibar. The protest in Zanjibar was calling for the release of the thousands of southerners detained earlier in Aden, many in shipping containers.

Maktoob One person was killed and four wounded, three of them police, as demonstrators clashed with security forces in the southern city of Dhaleh on Saturday, Yemen’s Defence Ministry said.
(Read on …)

Saleh suffered a bruise and was hospitalized (Thursday) for a few days, but he’s been released and apparently fit for his duties. There’s no constitutional plan for transfer of power in the event of a presidential disablility or death. One of the Arabic papers postulated the three most likely to follow Saleh are Prince Ahmed, Yahya or Hamid. But without an agreed legal mechanism, there certainly would be instability if not violence.

Sana’a, Yemen – Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh was on Saturday discharged from a military hospital after being treated for injuries he suffered while doing physical exercises, government officials
said.

The officials, who asked not to be named, told the German Press Agency dpa that Saleh also resumed his daily office activities at the Presidential Palace in Sana’a.

Sahel, 68, was admitted to the military hospital at the Defence Complex in Sana’a on Tuesday after he ’suffered bruises during a regular exercise,’ the official Saba news agency reported.

The veteran leader was first elected in July 1978 by the Constitutional Assembly (parliament) in north Yemen following the assassination of former president Ahmad al-Ghashmi. M&C

Southern representatives say that about 6000 protesters have been “arrested”. When the prisons first started overflowing, regime used the military camps to house the detainees. Now its shipping containers- those 40 ft. metal boxes uses to transport cargo. Its hot in Yemen and its difficult to imagine being packed inside a metal container under the sun with no water or bathroom facility. Its an astoundingly inhumane act.

List of the Southerners been killed Thursday July 23 by the Yemeni security forces in Abyan South Yemen.

1- عوض احمد الدابيه Awad Ahmed Aldabia
2- مهدي عمر القعيطي Mahdi Omar Alkoaiti
3- عبدا لله الحر شه الشعوي Abdulah Alhersheh
4صفوان سيف عبدا لكريم Safwan Saif Abdelkareem
5- علي سالم القاز Ali Saleh Alkaz
6- عبدا لكريم عيد روس احمد Abdelkareem Aidaroos Ahmed
7- محمد صالح عبدا لله النوبي Mohamed Saleh Abdullah Alnoobi
8- محسن الحدي Mohsen Alhadi
9- صالح طالب العمري Saleh Taleb Alomari
10- قاسم لسيد المار مي Kasim Alsaid Almarmi
11- علي مقفع الوضيع Ali MAkfa Alwadee
12- سعيد مقفع الوضيع Saeed Makfa Alwadee
13- رمزي العطار Ramzi Alatari
14- عبد الله العميري Abdullah Alomari
15- محمد سالم Mohammed Salem
16-خضر ناصر سعيد السعيدي Khader Nase Saeed Alsaedi

Partial list (350) of the thousands of Southerners arrested-most of these are being detained in metal containers:

Ambassador : Qasm Askr Gbran
General : Aeedrus Hqees
Ahmd Bamalm
D: Hassan Al-Aaql
Fadee Baaum
General : Alee Muhammad As-Sadee
General : Qasm Athman Ad-Daaree
Media : Ahmd Al-Qna
Media : Slah As-Sqldee
Media : Fu’ad Rashd
Media : Alee Shayf Al-Hreeree
Media : Fwaz Ar-Rbeeaee
Hassan Zeed Bin Yehya
Amr As-Sbeehee
Fdl Salh Mftah
Salem Matr
Abd Allah Frg Abeed
Fares Naser Muhammad
Saeed Ahmed
Fkree Ali Abdh
Heedr Al-Bkree
Khald Bn Thalb
Abd Allah Salem Dyan
Ali Muhammad Salh
Ahmed Salh Nsr
Muhammad Gabl Abas (Read on …)

from Free Aden

Till this moment telephone networks are still shut down, and some badly injured citizen of South Arabia were as hostages. An eye witness who managed to go out of Zenjibar, said to us that injured were left on the streets, as the occupation forces shot on whoever help them, for hours and some may have died because of that.

The eye witness added that rocket launcher, tanks, and other non light weapons were used. He/she added the Mr. Al Fadli house was burning plus some armed vehicles were burning around his house by the time he/she was leaving out from Zenjibar which was evening time.

In addition, a hospital in the city of Aden have received some badly injured people, it has been said 6, of which are in critical conditions. On the other hand, a Press Release by the alliance of Marib and Al Jouf tribes has condemn the act of army and central security in the city of Zenjibar; and warns the regime of jeopardizing the life of Al Fadli.

This is disgusting.

SAN’A, Yemen AP — Yemeni security forces on Thursday opened fire on thousands of protesters in the south chanting anti-government slogans, killing 12 and wounding scores of others, medics and eyewitnesses said….

Eyewitnesses said hundreds of security forces opened fire on some 5,000 protesters in Abyan’s provincial capital of Zinjibar to disperse them…

“Government forces have committed a massacre against unarmed civilians, firing live bullets and killing 10 people,” said Ali Dehmes, an opposition member in the south, apparently referring to the protesters who died at the scene….

The Yemeni government issued a statement expressing regret about “the killing, sabotaging, and hostilities perpetrated by outlawed” individuals in Abyan….One eyewitness said that the special government plainclothes militia known as Unity Supporters used batons to beat up protesters and drag them across the ground into waiting police trucks.

Also see the English language South Arabia Times for updates where I found this vid:

People running with an injured person:

There’s fatalities in Zanzibar Abyan according to reports. Zanzibar is the hometown of Tariq al Fadhli. Will advise details as they become available.

First reports indicate five killed, five injured when security opened fire on a demonstration. The protesters fired back this time. Telephone service cut off, and the city locked down. al Dhalie as well. Clashes began at noon and sporatic gunfire continues. HT: Free Aden

Then there’s this report from the government tool, Naba News: the city is locked down, eight dead and 25 wounded.

The Yemeni government still has a large contingent of loyalist jihaddist fighters on the payroll- they are currently known as the “Unity Brigades”. Its too bad the regime shut down al Ayyam newspaper!!!! Both sides are coloring the story.

More reports- the military fired shells on al Fadhli’s house as he and his followers were about the leave for a rally. The house was surrounded and they fired back. Its shaping up that the demonstration was scheduled to be at al Fadhli’s house, in the courtyard.

Yemen Post In related news, military armored vehicles moved to new locations in the city of Zenjubar of Abyan province on Wednesday to siege the southern mobility festival that due to be held Thursday at Sheikh Tarig Al-Fadli house’s yard.

For the first time, female soldiers were shown searching women walking on the streets of the city of Zenjubar, local sources told the Yemen Post. According to the same sources, military forces have been encircling the house of Sheikh Tariq Al-Fadli, until this morning.

In spite of the siege, which triggered panic among the citizens neighboring the palace of Sheikh Al-Fadli, people are still arriving to the site of the festival, the sources added. At the festival, participants delivered speech, primarily for that purpose, including a speech of what was called the General Federation of Women’s Club of the South.

For his part, Al-Fadli called for demonstrations in the region of Abyan. He further denounced the northern regime that as he said was alien to the people of the South.

Al-Fadli who was one of the symbols against the southern Socialist Party now is one of the loudest voices calling for secession of the south.

One thing that’s significant is the earlier formation of the Southern Women’s Union, their prominence at the rally and the regime now searching women on the streets.

One of the primary causes of the third outbreak of the Sa’ada war was that soldiers were searching women in the markets. Likewise, if the security (female or not) begin harassing women in the south, the southern mobility will gain new members motivated by sheer indignation.

AFP: At least 12 people were killed and dozens hurt in clashes between government forces and armed activists at a separatist rally in south Yemen on Thursday, witnesses said.

The demonstration at Jinzibar, 50 kilometres (30 miles) east of the southern port of Aden, was called by Tarek al-Fadhli, a local dignitary who supports secession of south Yemen from the north, the witnesses said.

Despite strict security measures aimed at preventing the protest, Fadhli supporters and other armed elements were able to fire shells at the local police headquarters and other public buildings, a local official told

The witnesses said soldiers fired live rounds to disperse the protesters and also shelled Fadhli’s house in the town.

Its still going on. Al Arabyia is reporting 16 dead and over 30 wounded.

Live blogging a massacre is rather disheartening.

The Saudi commander of al Qaeda in Yemen (AQAP) is Sa’id Ali Jabir Al Khathim Al Shihri (aka Abu Sufian al-Azdi) The following article from the Saudi Gazette has the details on his wife and step-son joining him in Yemen.

JEDDAH – Saoud Aal Shaye’ Al-Qahtani waits for a telephone call, a knock at the door, a sign, anything to give him hope that he will one day see his 10-year-old son Yousef again after he was taken by his mother to Yemen to join up with members of Al-Qaeda.
Al-Qahtani, speaking to Okaz newspaper, told of how he left his first wife and sought a new spouse of a more religious persuasion, and so contracted marriage in 2000 with Umm Yousef, whom he believed to be “moderate in her beliefs.” (Read on …)

Ding ding ding- Dominic Moran, from ISN via al Sahwa, as usual deserves a close read and the conclusion is spot on.

Update: here’s the ISN link: Violent secessionist protests in south Yemen are a symptom of wider dysfunction, which an obsessive focus on security will not address…

Ultimately, the failure of the US and other key foreign partners to push consistently and forcefully for civil, press and political reform and their obsessive focus on security issues will only exacerbate the current chaos enveloping the country and increase the prospects for long-term system collapse.

Read it all. ,

The last round of riots were also prompted by the state’s systematic exclusion of southerners from the military, one of the few steady employers in poverty stricken Yemen.

Yemen Post: For sixth days in a row, protests are still ongoing in Lahj province with dozens of young people demanding the officers of the military training camp based in Al-Milah area to contain and recruit them .

Denouncing what they described as nepotism and bribery in selecting the recruits, the young people blocked the Sana’a-Aden highway and set fire to tires to protest the mode selection.

Al-Sahwa.net reported that thousands of citizens in Radfan went to streets to mourn two young people who were killed 40 days ago in Al-Anad security check point.

The protestors demanded the authorities to disclose the killers and chanted anti-unity slogans. They also asked for handing over all those blamed for killing the Southern Mobility activists to be punished.

In their release, the protestors denounced the barbaric crimes that targeted Hamid Saeed, an owner of sweets shop, in Al-Askariah area. They further asked for continuing the peaceful struggle.

In related news, a young man was killed by two people on Saturday in Al-Habilin district’s Jamal area over a plot of land. The corpse is being kept in Bin Khaldon Hospital in Lahj.

The Sa’ada War didn’t start as a sectarian conflict but a political one. The concern here is the clashes were in Al Jawf. There’s infiltration into Hajjah and Amran also, the Yemen Post points out in a detailed article.

SANA’A, Yemen (AFP) –Ten people have been killed in clashes over control of a north Yemen mosque between Shiite Zaidi rebels and militants from the country’s main Sunni opposition party, both groups said Monday. (Read on …)