Armies of Liberation

WFP hunger hotspots: Yemen – 20 Nov 2009
Source: United Nations World Food Programme (WFP)
20 Nov 2009

Lack of funding has kept the CP on hold since June; under the HFP EMOP, 40 percent of mothers and children will not receive nutrition assistance for six of the 12 planned months. Overall, limited and late funding will leave 1.4 of nearly 1.7 million beneficiaries of the CP without assistance in November.

Following a three-week blockade of supply routes to Sa’ada town in October, WFP has been able to re-supply. Planned distribution to 55,500 IDPs in the town and camps is expected to begin 17 November. (Read on …)

The inability of small businesses to get a credit line is actually a huge issue, dull perhaps but consequential. It impedes the diversification and growth of the economy by region, product and ownership. As the recent tightening of credit globally stunted the world economy, in Yemen negative result of the failure of banks to grant credit to small and medium businesses is magnified by other economic factors including corruption and the lack of infrastructure including electricity and roads. At the same time the banks make a wide range of inappropriate loans to “influential persons”, a practice that lead to the seizure of the Watani bank a few years ago.

Micro-credit has been one of the most effective methods globally of raising poverty stricken groups to self sufficiency. When people have an opportunity to better their future, they usually do, and work very hard doing it. The heart of a healthy economy is small businees, and in Yemen there are so many monopolies and unfair practices. Factionalism and identity politics are the norm, with marginalized groups also excluded from credit and therefore economic opportunity. Its another detrimental offshoot of the unipolar configuration of the political landscape and the increasing consolidation of economic structures (including land ownership) in the hands of the elite (Saleh and his gang). The Yemen Post reports on a study by the IFC:

The Yemeni banks are unwilling to grant credits for small and medium enterprises or they may give conditional credits for high profits due to high risks, a study has said.

The study conducted by the International Finance Corporation also noted that most of the small and medium enterprises in Yemen are not much qualified for loans because they don’t have enough guarantees. The ratio of credits to deposits is very low, about 33 percent, it finds, adding that only 4 percent Yemeni people have bank accounts. (Read on …)

On the average half of kids even have access to a school in walking distance, and for girls that access is even more limited by the shortage of female teachers. (Related issues include corruption in schools, the withholding of teachers pay, punative teacher transfers, and the failure to fully implement the 2005 Wages Strategy, all of which will become more severe as the oil money runs out.) The original press release and contact info from Seyaj is below the fold and I’ll add the raw data:

HODEIDAH, 19 November 2009 (IRIN) – Nearly half of children in rural areas of the western Yemeni governorate of Hodeidah, have no access to basic education, according to a new report by the Seyaj Organization for Childhood Protection (SOCP) and the Yemen News Agency.

A survey was conducted on a random sample of 3,249 boys and girls from 1,542 families in the districts of Lihyah, Zahrah and Beit al-Faqih, said Fahd al-Sabri, lead author of the report.

The survey results, announced on 18 November, indicate that 45 percent of boys and 52 percent of girls in the 6-15 age group have no access to basic education – for several reasons, including vulnerability of their families, lack of schools and teachers, or schools being far away from their homes, al-Sabri told IRIN. (Read on …)

From al Teef, this is a google translated part of an longer article.

Spectrum network – report – and a serious public

حقيقة ما يدور في جعار..!! The truth of what is going on in Jaar ..!!

ما أن تطال قدماك مدينة جعار وشوارعها ينتابك إحساس وشعور غريب ما يجري في دهاليزها المخيفة, مع تعتيم على حقيقة الوضع هناك، فهي تعاني كثيراً من المشاكل والصراعات “الكيدية” بين اتهامات السلطة ومقاومة المجاميع المسلحة التي تنتقم لجماعاتها وأقاربها الذين قتلوا في مواجهة حطاط”2003″م وما لحق بهم من أضرار بين ما كان يسمى بجماعة خالد عبد النبي المتهم بزعيم جماعات الجهاد الإسلامي جيش عدن أبين, وبين قوات الأمن والجيش في ضل غياب الحقيقة واعتماد الرأي العام على المصدر الرسمي , وتعتمد عليه الكثير من وسائل الإعلام المختلفة, دون البحث عن حقيقة ما يجري في أرض الواقع. What your feet do not reach the city of Jaar and streets you just get a strange feeling and a sense of what is happening in the corridors frightening, with blackout reality of the situation, they have a lot of problems and conflicts, “malicious” charges between power and resistance to armed groups that are retaliating to their own and their relatives who were killed in the face of Hatat “2003 “M and the damage suffered what was called the group Khalid Abdul Nabi, the accused leader of the militant groups Islamic Army of Aden-Abyan, and between security forces and the army lost in the absence of truth and public opinion on the adoption of the official source, and depend upon a lot of different media, without searching for what is happening on the ground. (Read on …)

Nice!

Demonstration will be held at City Hall in Dearborn, MI 1:00 pm to 2:00 pm every Sunday. Click the link for more photos.

YAATC: Yemenis, Iraqis and Lebanese يتظاهرون امام مبنى بلدية ديربون الامريكية للمطالبة بوقف الحرب والتدخل السعودي في اليمن Demonstrating outside the Dearborn City Hall to demand the U.S. stop the war and intervention in Yemen, Saudi Arabia

تظاهره اليوم الاحد 15 من نوفمبر2009 امام مبنى بلدية ديربون في ولاية مشيغان الامريكية العشرات من ابناء الجالية اليمنية والعراقية واللبنانية والامريكين من اصول يمنية وعربية للمطالبة بوقف الحرب في اليمن فورا واطلاق سراح كافة المعتقلين والسياسين والكتاب والصحفيين المخطوفين الى سجون الامن السياسي والقومي وعلى راسهم صلاح السقلدي ومحمد المقالح وعسكر جبران وفؤاد راشد والدكتور حسين العاقل وغيرهم كما طالبوا بجلب مجرمي الحرب في اليمن الى العداله ومساعدة النازحين جراء الحرب .وادان المتظاهرون التدخل السعودي في الحرب على اليمن وحذروها من عواقب Sunday’s protest 15 November 2009 in front of City Hall Dearborn, Michigan U.S. dozens of people from the Yemeni community and Iraqi, Lebanese and Americans of Yemeni descent and Arab demand an end to the war in Yemen and immediately release all detainees and politicians, writers and journalists kidnapped to jails political and national security, led by Mohamed Salah Alsaglde Maqaleh and Askar Gibran and Fouad Rashid, Dr. Hussein rational and others as demanded by bringing war criminals to justice in Yemen and assistance to persons displaced by the war. (Read on …)

Update 2: Released unharmed, November 24.

Update: The governor of Sana’a says he is still with the original group of tribal kidnappers and negotiations are underway. Yemeni officials do not have a great record of telling the truth but in this case I hope its true.

If the imprisoned tribesman is 22, then he was 14 when he went to fight in Iraq??
“Sources at the Inferior Ministry confirmed that he person from Arahab tribes because of who was the kidnapping incident is accused of his affiliation to al-Qaeda organisation, who is Hussein Abdullah Hussein Qoub, fought in Iraq for two years and settled in Syria for one year and in Lebanon for another year and he was arrested after his return from Iraq four years ago.”

Original Post: Damn. An earlier report here. As an aside, the reason the 22 year old was held by the state without charges after fighting in Iraq is that jihad (murder) abroad is not illegal in Yemen and is often encouraged by the President on national TV, for example during the Lebanon crisis.

Hammoud Mounassar, AFP Al-Qaeda gunmen have seized a Japanese engineer from his tribal kidnappers in Yemen, a tribal source who has been seeking to negotiate his release said on Saturday.

“The hostage was seized by elements of Al-Qaeda, who took him to an unknown destination in the Maarib region,” east of the capital, Sanaa, one of two tribal mediators told AFP on condition of anonymity. (Read on …)

An excellent article:

Saudi Arabia’s Attack on Yemen by Rannie Amiri

The Saudi attack on northern Yemen is the epitome of military adventurism and opportunism. It allows them to use – for the first time – advanced weapons purchased from the United States against an ill-equipped band of rebels in the midst of a destitute, malnourished, and displaced population, notes Rannie Amiri.

“We are upset and saddened by the recent bombings by the Saudi army to harm the much loved Yemeni people. Saudi Arabia’s intervention does nothing but feed the useless bloodshed on its border with Yemen.” – Mahdi Akef, Chairman of Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood, 9 November 2009.

“How can the Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques of Islam [King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia] bring himself to permit the killing of innocent Muslims in the forbidden months?” – Ali Larijani, Speaker of Iran’s Parliament, 15 November 2009 (Islam forbids waging war during four months in the lunar calendar, one of which is Dhu al-Qidah, coinciding with November of this year).

If there was any question about which country was interfering in Yemen’s civil war, Saudi Arabia provided the answer when its F-15 and Tornado fighter jets struck Zaidi rebel positions two weeks ago in the mountainous border region between the two countries, and beyond. (Read on …)

Dude! Sanhan is the President’s village. Somalia, yes. But who owns that website,Saru Hamyir? I never heard of it. From the Long War Journal:

Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula has opened a new training camp in the South. The new camp highlights Yemen’s value to al Qaeda in waging its global terror campaign.

The camp is based in the Al Jaza area in the district of Mudiyah in the southern province of Abyan. The camp is said to house more than 400 local and foreign fighters. Yemenis, Saudis, and Somalis make up the vast majority of the fighters.

The camp was established with the approval of the central government, according to a report in Saru Hamyir, an Arabic-language Yemeni news website. The existence of the camp was confirmed by US military and intelligence officials familiar with the region.

The weak Yemeni government is known to support al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula while targeting jihadi groups that do not adhere to a peace agreement signed in January. (Read on …)

No, sorry. Its not just extremely tacky; its a security risk. The Yemeni gov’t was crowing when she came to the YO as a pro-government female American journalist. I recall it quite well and the older stories of another high level western official caught up in a complicated and highly nasty plot. True or not true isn’t the issue, possibly true is good enough to demonstrate the vulnerability. The UK needs a new ambassador to Yemen, pronto. He’s a lovely guy according to all accounts, but thats not good enough in the modern world.

One explains: ‘Because she wasn’t registered, she wasn’t security checked for several months — this was a foreign journalist, with close contacts among pro-government Yemeni journalists, living in the Ambassadorial residence. Daily Mail

All militants are not jihaddis, and all jihaddis are not al Qaeda. In fact, most Yemeni jihaddis (and there’s thousands) are not al Qaeda in the strict sense of the term. In southern Yemen, the minute al Fadhli joined the Southerners, all his militants and jihaddists became “freedom fighters.” It was pretty funny considering the Southern spokesmen labeled them as terrorists before. My issue is the core values of the Southern Movement. Is it still the secularist, egalitarian, democratic movement it once espoused to be? Are women equal in southern Yemen or have they been thrown under the bus in order to appease the jihaddists? If the Southerners win at all costs, do they still win? Can anyone join the Southern Movement or only those who agree with its principles? And/or does it have principles anymore?

Jamestown

Earlier this year Tariq al-Fadhli, the prominent jihadist leader from South Yemen, broke his 15 year alliance with the Yemeni government of President Ali Abdullah Saleh. Al-Fadhli, who was a member of the anti-Soviet Mujahideen movement in Afghanistan, is often described as the founder of the jihadi movement in Yemen. His break with the government was reported in the mainstream Arab and Yemeni media but was also noted on pro-jihadist websites (Alflojaweb.com, April 18). Al-Fadhli’s new position provided momentum to the Southern Movement (SM) and its struggle for secession and he soon became a leading figure in the alliance. (Read on …)

Excellent. Its all true and worse.

GENEVA, Nov 20 (Reuters) – The United Nations Committee against Torture called on Yemen on Friday to end the widespread torture of detainees and investigate allegations of unlawful killings by its security forces.

It voiced concern at reports of grave violations “committed in the context of (Yemen’s) fight against terrorism”. They included extrajudicial killings, disappearances, mass arrests, indefinite detention without charge or trial, torture, and the deporting of foreigners to states where they may face torture.

Political activists, journalists and rights defenders have been arrested arbitrarily and held incommunicado during fighting between the army and Shi’ite rebels which began in August, the committee said.

The rebels say they suffer religious, economic and social marginalisation and neglect. Their Nov. 3 cross-border raid into Saudi Arabia, the top oil exporter CLc1, has raised concern about the wider impact of instability in Yemen, one of the world’s poorest nations. [ID:nLJ386106]

Allegations of torture in Yemen are seldom investigated or prosecuted and there appears to be “a climate of impunity” for the perpetrators, the U.N. body said.
(Read on …)

That’s it, the little one. Its not actually a ship, now is it? It looks like a fishing boat. Not that anyone should be smuggling anything into (or out of) Yemen, but the story is overly hyped. A refresher from Radio Free Europe:

On 26 October an Iranian-crewed ship allegedly carrying weapons was seized by Yemen. This provided Yemeni authorities with an apparent direct link between the insurgents and their Iranian supporters, whom the Yemeni government referred to as “religious institutions.”… According to the Yemeni navy, the ship was intercepted in the Red Sea, west of Midi, a port in the northwestern province of Hajjah that adjoins the territory controlled by the insurgents. Confirming that five Iranians on board the ship were arrested by Yemeni security forces,

One of the Saudis recent bombing runs was quite near Midi Island. Also see this.

Yemen Tribune HAJJA, 16 Nov — Saudi fighter jets Monday night bombed a number of targets near the port of Midi in Hajja, the Islamist website, Alsahwa said quoting sources at Yemen’s coastguard in Midi. The sources said “the air strikes hit targets in Yemen’s Small Ashaq island near the Saudi Large Ashaq island,” adding “the shelling hit some areas near the island of Midi and intelligence officers from the Political Security Organization and military intelligence rushed to the scene to investigate.”

The intelligence officers were probably all running to see if their illegal contraband got hit.

The Twenty-Fourth Sit-In to Demand the Release of Alayyam Newspaper and Journalist Mohamed Almaqaleh and journalists Alsaglade and Rashid

On Tuesday 17/11/2009 hundreds of lawyers, politicians , journalists and relatives of kidnapped and forced hidden people, sit in the twenty-fourth protest in Freedom Square to demand the release of Alayyam newspaper and the release of journalist Mohamed Almaqaleh and journalists Alsaglade and Fouad Rashid, and for the lifting of the violations of Almasdar and Aldiar newspapers.

In the sit-in called by the Organization of Women Journalists Without Chains Sultan Alsamaee the parliamentary spokesman for the Movement for Justice and Change said the express of solidarity with freedom of expression, and with all the journalists against violations under scrutiny, and emphasized the importance of continuing the peaceful sit-ins in order to reach the rights and punish those who violated the rights of the people of this nation; journalists, jurists and citizens. (Read on …)

Tribesmen in Yemen have kidnapped foreigners for years in order to pressure the government for the release of family members, often held as official hostages by the state or as a result of a tribal dispute. The Yemeni government cares not a whit about kidnapped Yemenis, ergo its the foreigners who get snatched. In this case, the Japanese engineer is being held as ransom for an al Qaeda member, and the Yemeni government lied (again, no surprise there) about the success of the negotiations. The regime’s lack of a counter-terror posture and prior accommodations to terrorists only encourages this behavior. At the same time, the lack of equitable redress in the form of a functional legal system is the fundamental root of the kidnapping phenomenon.

Yemen Post According to sources close to the Japanese engineer who preferred to be anonymous, the kidnappers didn’t release the Japanese engineer yet.

“There were conflicting reports about the release of the Japanese engineer kidnapped in Arhab and I confirm that tribal mediation did not succeed so far in the release of the kidnapped Japanese”, the source said. (Read on …)

Iran accusing anyone of state terrorism is rather ironic.

Kansas City: Iran’s chief of staff has warned Saudi Arabia over its military offensive against Shiite Yemeni rebels, saying it signals the start of “state terrorism” and endangers the entire region. (Read on …)

281 machine guns could spell trouble, Mumbai style. The cache is linked to the 44 arrested educated Saudis who were thought to be financing the weapons purchases. What is says about AQAP is a whole other story.

Saudi Gazette

RIYADH/DUBAI – New details have emerged concerning the discovery of the weapons stash at an “istiraha” rest house near Riyadh and the arrest of 44 suspected Al-Qaeda members which were announced at the beginning of November. (Read on …)

I think it was Dhalie but Im going back through all the things I need to post, so it may take a bit to get to it. (Update: yes it was in Dhalie) Also truck captured and burned in Dhalie. Things are much more violent since al Fahdli and al Beidh joined the movement. I hope rational leaders emerge, since the historical leaders are all involved in personal posturing around the globe. Its quite pathetic.

Reuters:
ADEN, Yemen, Nov 18 (Reuters) – One man was killed and two others wounded in clashes between anti-government gunmen and security forces in southern Yemen where separatist sentiment is strong, a news website reported on Wednesday. (Read on …)

Ah, in typical American fashion, the contents of murderer Major Nidal Hasan’s emails to Anwar Awlaki (Yemeni-American pro-sectarian-violence blogger) are starting to trickle out.

the Blotter: United States Army Major Nidal Hasan told a radical cleric considered by authorities to be an al-Qaeda recruiter, “I can’t wait to join you” in the afterlife, according to an American official with top secret access to 18 e-mails exchanged between Hasan and the cleric, Anwar al Awlaki, over a six month period between Dec. 2008 and June 2009. (Read on …)

Thank you. The fisheries have been irking me for years. The numbers do not and never did add up. The diesel smuggling is much clearer, but the level of smuggling and under-reporting on the fisheries is astounding. The black market economy in Yemen is the main wheel of industry. If the massive corruption is what underpins political instability, then dismantling criminal networks is a primary requirement and a job beyond the capacity of SNACC as the political and military elite are the beneficiaries of the current system.

Is this a new Fisheries Minister? He’s taking quite a stand. There were also statements a few weeks ago accurately indicating the level of corruption in the Ministry as well as the industry. Random fisheries factoid, Abdelmajid al Zindani was on the corporate board of the Yemeni Fisheries Company, but it never made any money (very high expenses) and investors lost on the stocks.

Yemen Times SANA’A, Nov. 14- More than 40,000 tons of shrimp and squid were exported illegally from Yemeni coasts during 2008 and 2009, said the Minister of Fishery Wealth, Mohammad Shamlan. (Read on …)

I’m speechless. These kids are IN the camp and theres not enough food or medicine apparently to save them. Imagine the families sheltering outside the camps without any support whatsoever. They must be starving to death even quicker. More than half of Yemeni kids are stunted from malnutrition on a good day. Those in the war zone and suffering the government’s blockade on food are extremely vulnerable. This article also has a good wrap up of Saudi troops fighting on Yemeni soil and the Saudi fatwa on the Yemeni rebels.

Yemen Times SA’ADA, Nov. 18 — Yemeni and Saudi forces continue their ground and aerial strikes against Houthi strongholds in the districts of Malahidh, Shada, Razih, Maqash, Hassana, and nearby villages. Houthis said that the Saudi army launches airstrikes and rockets while the Yemeni army fires mortar shelling and Katyusah missiles, plus intensive air raids on villages and farmlands stretching over 60km along the Yemeni-Saudi border. A Saudi official source said their troops used F-15 and Tornado jets, Apache fighters and heavy mortars in attacking Houthi hideouts.

Saudi King Abdullah Bin Abdulaziz said on Monday that the kingdom’s territory were cleared of Houthis, and clashes between Houthis and Saudi troops are taking place on Yemeni soil. (Read on …)