Armies of Liberation

ABC reports today the news that we reported on December 25, Anwar Awlaki survived the airstrikes in Shabwa last week:

A week after U.S. and Yemeni officials said the radical Yemen cleric Anwar Awlaki may have been killed in a U.S.-backed Christmas eve air strike, a Yemeni journalist says Awlaki has surfaced to proclaim, “I’m alive.”

“He said the house that was attacked was two or three kilometers away from him and he was not there,” the journalist, Abdulelah Hider Shaea, told ABC News. He said he talked to Awlaki on the phone and recognized his voice from previous interviews.

One week ago, officials said the Christmas Eve attack had targeted a suspected meeting of al Qaeda leaders in Rafd, a mountain valley in eastern Shabwa province.

A statement from the Yemeni embassy in Washington said Awlaki was “presumed” to have been at the site of an al Qaeda meeting south of the capital city of Sanaa.

That Michelle is so spot on.

Yahoo: Yemen human rights activist and blogger Jane Novak has reported for years on how Yemeni intelligence and military officials have facilitated al-Qaida training camps — often providing “safe houses, training and passports to the jihadists that travel to Iraq to attempt to kill U.S. troops.”

The Yemeni government, Novak points out, has also used al-Qaida mercenaries to fight northern rebels and train tribal militias. Jihad spiritual advisor Anwar al-Awlaki, linked to the Sept. 11 hijackers and Fort Hood mass killer Hasan, also calls Yemen home — and reportedly blessed the Crotch Bomber attack, according to The Washington Times.

Now, the Yemen government has the gall to blame the West for not providing enough assistance to stop the breeding of hundreds of future flying Crotch Bombers.

The woman really has a way with words, read it all.

Do we really have to do this over and over and over again? It has been going on since 2000 and President Saleh has never been sincere, he just comes up with better BS. To go forward on the premise that Saleh achieved any level of rehabilitation after a good talking to is ludicrous.

The US believes Saleh rehabilitated in July when presented with evidence the Al Qaeda fanatics were planning assassinations against top officials. Al Alimi, perhaps? Its a huge mistake to trust Saleh on any level at any time. It is a threat to US security to under-estimate the level of enmeshment between the Yemeni state and al Qaeda, from al Qaeda local to al Qaeda central, from mid level security officials up to the President of Yemen.

Washington (CNN) — “Solid intelligence” from U.S. and Yemen services finally persuaded Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh last summer to accept increased help in fighting al Qaeda in his country, a senior U.S. official told CNN.

After years of pressure from the United States to crack down on al Qaeda in Yemen, Saleh was persuaded to accept help after he was presented with intelligence that al Qaeda “was targeting inner-circle Yemeni leaders,” and that there was a growing number of terrorist training camps in Yemen, the official said… (Read on …)

Anwar’s been a busy bee, issuing fatwas, negotiating tribal alliances, and meeting with would be suicide bombers. In his recent public statements and interviews, Awlaki justified attacks on US military personnel as legitimate jihad. Apparently he also promoted attacks on civilians as acceptable (if not required) by Islamic law. LAT:

Under questioning by the FBI, Abdulmutallab has said that he met with Awlaki and senior Al Qaeda members during an extended trip to Yemen this year, and that the cleric was involved in some elements of planning or preparing the attack and in providing religious justification for it, officials said. (Read on …)

President Saleh is an extremely irrational player, and has never learned from his mistakes. Maybe thirty years in power makes you go nuts. Look at Khadaffi… Saleh makes the same plays over and over, with the same results. In addition, the fractured nature of the regime means the government is often at odds with itself. Its important to keep in mind the Yemeni government tactics in dealing with internal civil unrest. In the south, as HRW recently found, the Yemeni government is shooting peaceful protesters in the head and engaging in mass arrests, and has been for well over a year. Dozens have been killed. In the north, the Yemeni military is bombing civilian areas on a regular basis and blocking the delivery of international aid, creating a humanitarian crisis in Sa’ada, long called “Yemen’s Darfur.” Do we want to equpt this slaughter? Any arms or equipment to Saleh will go straight to Sa’ada or Aden, with some show raids on al Qaeda, big announcements and underlings rounded up as the main facilitators and figure heads escape unmolested as they have done for years.

WSJ: But Mr. Saleh is struggling with two rebellious provinces, dwindling financial resources and a significant weakening of his once-strong influence over Islamists in his country. His courting has been a source of debate within the administration: Some officials are concerned he is more interested in seeking American aid to crush local insurgencies than target Islamist militants.

“President Saleh is not a consistent and rational player,” said another senior military official. “That’s the other major worry we have there: What will he do for himself versus what he’s doing against al Qaeda.”

Yemen’s government on Tuesday reiterated its desire for more foreign military aid, with foreign minister Abu Bakr al Qirbi telling the British Broadcasting Corp. that Yemen’s battle is being undermined by a lack of financial and military support.

The Obama administration has praised Mr. Saleh’s government in recent weeks for intensifying its campaign against al Qaeda, which includes two major offenses against suspected terrorist camps earlier this month.

Mr. Saleh, 63 years old, reiterated his support in combating terror in a telephone call to President Barack Obama two weeks ago, according to the state-run Yemeni press agency. But the U.S. has been frustrated by his unwillingness to open a serious dialogue with the Houthi rebels in the north, a move officials believe would allow Mr. Saleh to focus his attention on al Qaeda.

According to the former military official, Mr. Saleh has asked for weapons that he could use against indigenous rebels, including hundreds of tanks and Humvees. Sana’a has claimed the Houthi forces are receiving arms and funding from Shiite Iran. The Obama administration says it has found no such evidence.

The Yemeni security forces- whenever the heat is on- does lot of storming and hunting for al Qaeda, but very little catching. Sometimes some low level guy is rounded up, brought to trial and found guilty of something like document fraud. Later on appeal, with much less fanfare, the sentence is usually reduced and the convict is out the back door within a short time.

(AP): Yemeni security forces stormed an al Qaeda hide-out Wednesday in a principle militant stronghold in the country’s west, setting off clashes, officials said, as a security chief vowed to fight the group’s powerful local branch until it was eliminated.

A government statement said at least one suspected al Qaeda member was arrested during the fighting in Hudaydah province. The province, along Yemen’s Red Sea coast, was home to most of the assailants in a bombing and shooting attack outside the U.S. Embassy in 2008 that killed 10 Yemeni guards and four civilians.

A good TV program on the lives and tremendous challenges of refugees from Somalia and Ethiopia when they arrive in Yemen is available here at France 24’s website.

An excellent editorial from The Daily Star:

The strife and warfare that has shaken Yemen in the last few months raises disturbing parallels with another Arab country, one that has experienced years of misery and woe. There might not be an exact fit between the regimes of President Ali Abdullah Saleh and the regime of the late Saddam Hussein, but the broad outlines are there, and don’t bode well.

Like Saddam Hussein, Ali Abdullah Saleh is an autocrat with a fair amount of blood on his hands, perched atop a decades-old security-oriented regime.

This regime does some things well, such as managing a personality cult, but it’s much less proficient at other tasks, such as running the country’s tribal and regional politics and generating stability.

Saudi Arabia and Egypt have stood with Saleh and the US is now getting heavily involved, providing the regime with missiles, sending unmanned drones to bomb areas affected by the Houthi rebellion, and dispatching covert military teams to join Yemen’s Army in pursuing threats to stability, under the rubric of the “war on terror” policy.

And like Saddam, Saleh deals with a large part of his country as if it’s the enemy. Iraq’s Kurds suffered atrocities in the weapons during the Saddam era, while the southerners of Yemen have also been treated horribly by the Saleh regime, and we’ve heard calls for secession from the central government in both countries.
(Read on …)

After years of delay during which this bill was brought forth and then rejected by Parliament, Yemen passed a counter-terror financing law. The argument against the law was that it would hamper efforts to fund “legitimate resistance” movements like Hamas and other charitable giving. Also recall in 2005, when the UN circulated a list of 144 bank accounts associated with al Qaeda and/or the Taliban, Yemen closed one and took no further action in subsequent years. See also my category Parliament.

SABA: The parliament ratified on Tuesday the International Convention for the Suppression of Financing of Terrorism.

Concluding its second session for the second term of the seventh annual round, the parliament also approved a law draft against money laundering and terrorism financing as well as a law draft of amending some articles of the civil procedures law.

Ratifying the International Convention for the Suppression of Financing of Terrorism by the parliament comes within the state efforts to combat terrorism in all its forms.

Washington Post

SANAA, YEMEN — The Yemeni American cleric at the center of investigations into last month’s massacre of 13 people at Fort Hood, Tex., became more openly radical in Yemen, following a path taken by other extremists in this failing Middle East nation with a growing al-Qaeda presence, according to relatives, friends and associates in Yemen. (Read on …)

The leader of the Abyan Aden Islamic Army is calling for the establishment of an Islamic state in southern Yemen. Scary, yes? However as with all things Yemen, its important to look beyond the initial shock value as the Yemeni President is the King of Spin™. The Yemeni government has been trying to pin the terrorist label on the southern independence movement, so Nabi and his statement deserve a little scrutiny.

One clear example of the duplicity of Yemeni President Saleh’s regime is the official propaganda involving Khaled Abdul Nabi, leader of the Abyan Aden Islamic Army. The Yemeni regime told the US in 2003 that they killed al-Nabi in a shoot-out. Yemeni officials admitted that, no actually they let al-Nabi go, after he was later spotted breathing. This was noted in the State Department’s Patterns of Terrorism report issued in 2004. In 2005, top Yemeni officials claimed Nabi was completely rehabilitated and living the life of a peaceful farmer. Beginning in 2005 and through 2007, local media reported Nabi and his band of fanatics were training tribal paramilitaries for the government to battle Shiite rebels in Sa’ada. (Read on …)

Fox News: CAIRO — Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula on Monday claimed responsibility for the attack on a U.S. airliner bound for Detroit on Christmas Day, saying it was retaliation for a U.S. operation against the group in Yemen. (Read on …)

The Yemeni government knows EXACTLY where they are.

Washington (CNN) — U.S. officials are privately acknowledging they have provided secret intelligence on several al Qaeda targets to Yemen’s government, but they won’t say if U.S. fighter jets or armed drones are involved.
(Read on …)

IN light of the recent developments in Yemen, I made a rough timeline of what we actually know happened in the last two weeks. There were two rounds of air raids on al Qaeda training camps in Yemen. First round was 12/17 on two targets: a camp north of the capital Sana’a in Arhab and another in Abyan that was near a Bedouin village. (And yes, the villagers had complained to the local officials who did nothing.) Al Qaeda leader Qasim al Reimi managed to slip away before the raid in Arhab. Yemeni officials claimed 60 al Qaeda were killed but some were al Qaeda family members or the nearby villagers.

Abyan is south Yemen, which has been in Intifada mode since 2007, with ever larger peaceful protests countered by live fire and mass arrests by security forces. Many southerners and opposition members of Parliament assumed the Yemeni government had begun bombing the south (under the guise of counter-terror) like the carpet bombing the north, with Saudi help, since August, creating massive displacement. The Yemeni government uses the terrorism card against its opponents regularly.

On Christmas Eve, there was another round of air strikes in Shabwa where internet jihaddist, Anwar Awlaki lives. The target was actually USS Cole bomber, Fahd al Quso’s farm where a high level meeting was supposedly taking place to plot revenge for the first attack. None of the terror leaders were killed, and so far two casualties have been identified as Abdul al-Monim Salim Al-Qahtani and Muhammad Aldjadni Aldgari . Although the Yemeni government says 30 were killed, more reliable local reports put the number at seven.

On Christmas Day, a Nigerian tried to blow up a plane as it was landing in the US using explosives obtained from al Qaeda in Yemen, a type that had been previously used in a murder attempt on Saudi Prince Naif. (The Butt Bomber also used PETN.) An additional 25 Brits are thought to be under going training in Yemen for suicide missions in the west.

The al Qaeda training camps are well known and often supported by members of the government. We have pointed out the location of several camps here and the fact that they are often facilitated by the Yemeni intelligence services. Count on that. I have been whining for years about the fact that it is the Yemeni military that often provides the safe houses, training and passports to the jihaddists that travel to Iraq to attempt to kill US troops.

And while it is true that vast swaths of Yemen are beyond the government control, the thing the MSM is missing entirely is the Yemeni government uses al Qaeda as mercenaries in various ways. The Yemeni government has used jihaddists since 2005 to fight the northern rebels in the Sa’ada war and to train tribal militias.

To follow, the latest ramblings from the Yemeni al Qaeda fanatics in response to the first air strike, posted at NEFA in which they condemn the raid in Abyan and

“And lastly, we call upon the proud tribes of Yemen—people of support and victory—and the people of the Arabian Peninsula, to face the crusader campaign and their cooperatives on the peninsula of Muhammad, prayer and peace upon him, and that’s through attacking their military bases, intelligence embassies, and their fleets that exist on the water and land of the Arabian Peninsula; until we stop the continuous massacres on the Muslim countries.”

I’ve always been concerned that al Qaeda in Yemen would launch some type of “naval jihad” against the assorted western navies which are on anti-piracy ops in the Bab al Mendab. To the extent that Somali and Yemeni al Qaeda are in contact, and the pirates are already paying for intel on where the ships are, the sea is a potential theater of operations as it was in both the 2000 USS Cole and 2002 Limburg attacks.

NEFA also notes in what seems a foreshadowing of the airliner plot: On October 29, 2009, Al-Qaida’s network in Yemen (AQIY) released the 11th edition of their official magazine Sada al-Malahim, which included an article written by the top commander of AQIY, Abu Basir al-Wahishi, titled “War is a Trick.” In the article, al-Wahishi advised would-be Al-Qaida members on how to utilize all available weapons to kill “apostates” and Western nationals. He urged them to target “airports in the western crusade countries that participated in the war against Muslims; or on their planes, or in their residential complexes or their subways.”

You can also see my archive of articles that dates back to 2005 detailing the relationship between the Yemeni government and al Qaeda and all the ploys they have concocted to deceive the US about its efforts.

SABA: SHABWA, Dec. 27 (Saba) – Yemen has said that Abdul al-Monim Salim Al-Qahtani and Muhammad Aldjadni Aldgari were among the dead in last Thursday’ attack on al-Qaeda in the southern province of Shawba.

The two were al-Qaeda suspects and wanted by authorities in connection with terrorist acts.

The preemptive operation carried out by Yemeni counterterrorism forces with support from the Air Force targeted the terrorists while meeting on their plans to attack several domestic and foreign interests in the country.

About 30 terrorists were killed.

I’ve always been concerned about that, “naval jihad” against the assorted western navies on anti-piracy ops in the Bab al Mendab. To the extent that Somali and Yemeni al Qaeda are in contact, and the pirates are already paying for intel on where the ships are, the sea is a potential theater of operations as it was in both the USS Cole and Limburg attacks. There was a statement from al Qaeda Central calling for naval jihad in Spring 2008, I think it was. To follow, the latest ramblings from the Yemeni fanatics in response to the first air strike, here at NEFA:

“And lastly, we call upon the proud tribes of Yemen—people of support and victory—and the people of the Arabian Peninsula, to face the crusader campaign and their cooperatives on the peninsula of Muhammad, prayer and peace upon him, and that’s through attacking their military bases, intelligence embassies, and their fleets that exist on the water and land of the Arabian Peninsula; until we stop the continuous massacres on the Muslim countries.”

How many of the “secret training camps” are actually “abandoned military bases” like the one found in Sa’ada when the Germans were doing a fly-over searching for the children? Or have been built with the assistance of subverted aspects of the security forces, and thats a generous description, like the one in the mountains near Ja’ar?

The Sun COPS fear that 25 British-born Muslims are plotting to bomb Western airliners. The fanatics, in five groups, are now training at secret terror camps in Yemen. (Read on …)

The Yemeni government traditionally skimmed a lot of oil revenue by under reporting both the volume and price of oil sales, and large amounts of subsidized imported diesel were smuggled abroad. Efforts at economic diversification were hampered by massive corruption, bureaucratic infighting and ineptitude and the lack of political will or perhaps comprehension. Its hard to see how they are going to make the civil service and military payroll going forward. The government payroll is the main reason why people in the north aren’t protesting, like those in the south. Jobs are very scarce in Yemen.

Yemen Post Yemen’s oil revenues sharply fell during the past ten months by 65 percent to $ 1.473 billion compared with $ 4.149 billion in the same period last year, government reports have said. (Read on …)

The following report is from the Yemen Observer, owned by President’s Saleh’s press secretary. In unconfirmed news, the YO reports the death of Abdul Malik al Houthi, leader of the rebel forces in the Sa’ada governorate where war raged since 2004. I wouldn’t underestimate Yousef al Madani’s capacity as a tactician and operational commander. Below the fold, various videos of the aftermath of the Saudi and Yemen bombing campaign in Sa’ada.

YEMEN – The top leader of rebels in Sa’adah, northern Yemen, Abdul Malik al-Houthi has died after he was seriously injured in an air strike two weeks ago, military and independent sources said Sunday. (Read on …)

“The Council for southern peaceful movement” headed by Tareq Al-Fadhli issued a statement on the 25th of this month, the link is here . Al Fadhli was a long time ally of President Ali Abdullah Saleh and handled “the jihaddist file” for the state. In March, al Fadhli defected to the southern independence movement. He has been mum about al Qaeda to this point, and this is the first explicit rejection of the terror group by al Fadhli. Its important to recall the southern independence movement is highly fractured. Several leaderships and factions share the same goal of a reversal of 1990’s unity agreement, but have been unable to coordinate effectively or establish a regional representative mechanism or body. None of the other factions have any history with al Qaeda, beyond being their targets in 1994.

What’s interesting about this statement is that al Fadhli confirms to the United States that Al-Qaeda is the product of the Sanaa regime. He warns of a plot by the regime to frame the southern movement for AQAP. He says he rejects the terror group and their ideology and existence on the Southern lands. He asks all the southerners not to take this group lightly and to expel them from their territories.

My comments: Better late than never, but this is late. However, at least al Fadhli is in touch with reality. Yes, there are al Qaeda camps in the south. The question is the level of al Qaeda’s affiliation with the Sana’a regime of President Ali Abdullah Saleh, not whether it exists. Southern opposition figurehead, former President al Beidh, keeps claiming there are no terror training camps or al Qaeda presence in the south at all, and that reduces his credibility. Many southerners believe the recent air strikes (which missed all the leaders despite the Yemeni government’s hype) are solely an intimidation tactic against the protesters or a propaganda tactic for the benefit of the US. Some of the targets were authentic al Qaeda camps, and the leaders bugged out before the missiles struck.

Google translation follows:

Statement by the peaceful movement South on the recent strike by the Sanaa regime and Al Qaida (Read on …)