Armies of Liberation

A Strafor article discussing Sada al Malahim issue number 12

Summary

In an article called “The Secrets of the Innovative Bomb” published Feb. 15, al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula discusses its innovative designs for improvised explosive devices. The article offers useful insights into the group’s use of such explosives, highlighting the growing threat to security screening. (Read on …)

8% registered with the state…

Yemen Times: The Authority of Civil Status and Civilian Records, yesterday, launched an ambitious strategy to update the records by 2015.

The authority, which is responsible for issuing birth certificates, personal and family identity cards as well as death, marriage and divorce certificates, has so far issued only the personal identity cards, automatically. The service, which is available at the governorate centers covers only 20 districts from a total of 333 districts around the country, as of today and expanding this service is one of the main objectives of the strategy including transferring the archives to a digital system. This venture also entails constructing new premises with adequate space. (Read on …)

News Yemen: The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) has today accused the Yemeni authorities of “brutal inhumanity” in their treatment of a leading editor who has been subject to kidnapping, detention and denial of access to basic medical treatment for six months.

“The ordeal of Mohammed al Maqaleh is a scandalous story of neglect and brutal inhumanity,” said Aidan White, IFJ General Secretary. “We fully support our colleagues in the Yemen who demand his immediate release and an end to all the violations of his rights.” (Read on …)

Carnegie, click here, a good report

After a bit of a lull following the December air strikes, the campaign may be resuming. Lets hope the intel is spot on, after the 43 civilian deaths in the December 17 strike.

Update: There was the one on Sunday that reportedly killed two and three more strikes Monday in Abyan. Jamil Nasser Abdullah al-Ambari, 25, believed to be the leader of Al-Qaeda in southern Abyan province, was one of two militants killed in the overnight raid, the security official told AFP, requesting anonymity.

Almotamar.net – Security and local sources in Abyan province told Almotamar.net Monday that Yemeni air force dealt an air strike more than an hour ago to a hideout for the Qaeda organization in Yemen, in the district of Modia…in an area called Al-Hamra Thiraa Mountain Jeezat Al Ghanam in the district of Modia, province of Abyan, pointing out that the area has lately witnessed noticeable activity of elements from the Qaeda organisation and was monitored by security authorities.

AQIY announces death of fundraiser:

Al-Malahim Media Foundation, the media arm of the Yemen-based AQAP, identified the militant as Ibrahim Saleh Mujahid al-Khalifa (alias Abi Jandal al-Qisaimy), saying the militant is a Saudi national.

“Al-Qisaimy was responsible for collecting and raising money from inside Saudi Arabia and transferring them into al-Qaida wing in Yemen,” al-Malahim said in a statement posted on the Internet. It added that “al-Qisaimy was also the coordinator behind smuggling groups of wanted Saudi militants to Yemen through the Saudi-Yemeni joint border.”

Yemeni al Qaeda investigated in in Jordan:

Amman – A Yemeni was on Sunday interrogated by the public prosecutor of Jordan’s State Security Court on suspicion of belonging to al-Qaeda and plotting acts of terrorism inside the kingdom, judicial sources said. The Yemeni national, Ammar Barouti, is believed to be one of al- Qaeda’s leaders in Yemen, tasked with recruiting fighters before sending them to Iraq for fighting US forces there, the sources added.

Barouti was arrested at Jordan’s Queen Ali International Airport five months ago during a flight from an Arab country on his way home. “He was suffering from wounds during battles he fought against US forces in Iraq,” the judicial sources said, without giving into further details.

PBS:

JEFFREY BROWN: And to another part of the world, as Margaret Warner begins her reports from the Middle East nation of Yemen, a place that has attracted urgent new attention in the U.S.

MARGARET WARNER: The call to prayer sounds five times a day in Yemen, as it does across the Arab world. This ancient nation on the Arabian Peninsula boasts a glorious architectural heritage, along with grinding poverty and a new and increasingly deadly franchise of the global al-Qaida network.

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Facebook Twitter Digg StumbleUpon Reddit Delicious The outfit calls itself al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula, or AQAP. The top leadership includes two Saudi-born former Guantanamo detainees. While some have taken cover in the capital city, Sanaa, most members are believed to be sheltered in Yemen’s rugged tribal provinces, far from central government control.

Each week, tribal and community leaders meet on the outskirts of Sanaa to strategize about how to counter the al-Qaida presence in their nearby Marib Province. They insist they’re confronting AQAP where they can, not harboring it.

MOHAMMED AHMED AL-ZAIDI, Yemen (through translator): Al-Qaida in Marib feels unwanted. They are shunned and hunted. The ethics, morals and ideals of al-Qaida completely contradict the ethics and morals of the tribal system in Marib.

MARGARET WARNER: They fault Yemen’s central government for shutting their province off to foreign tourists, while still not providing reliable electricity, health services or schools. It’s a combination, they say, that aids al-Qaida.

ALI AL-GHOLESI, Yemen (through translator): We have a saying here: Where the paved road ends, al-Qaida begins. And we have a lot of unpaved roads in Marib.

MARGARET WARNER: They also blame the United States for their plight.

ALI AL-GHOLESI (through translator): I would say with confidence that the U.S. reestablished al-Qaida, as we see some leaders of al-Qaida were in Guantanamo and wanted revenge.

MARGARET WARNER: And why, if you know where they are and they’re shunned, you don’t just turn them over to the authorities?

AL-HASBHI, Yemen (through translator): A tribal chief may extend refuge or help someone until he sees clear evidence that this person has committed a crime.

MARGARET WARNER: At his home in Sanaa, former Prime Minister and presidential adviser Abdul Karim al-Iryani says there’s something more at work.

ABDUL KARIM AL-IRYANI, former Yemeni prime minister: There is a traditional system of accepting anyone who comes and says, I need you to protect me.

But I believe, with regard to al-Qaida, I can’t imagine that a tribe will shelter al-Qaida for free. It’s not a free ride. And, I’m afraid, they have money.

MARGARET WARNER: We came to Yemen to explore why this country has emerged as home base to the most effective new al-Qaida offshoot. And we found a contradiction. Ordinary Yemenis seem very welcoming to outsiders. Yet, from the medieval Crusades to the anti-Soviet campaign in Afghanistan and beyond, Yemenis have punched above their weight in waging jihad abroad.

We asked the former prime minister to explain the contradiction.

ABDUL KARIM AL-IRYANI: Yemenis are well-known traders, well-known migrants. So, being traders, you have to be tolerant. Being an immigrant, you have to accept the other.

MARGARET WARNER: But when fellow Muslims are under attack, he said, Yemenis have always answered the call.

ABDUL KARIM AL-IRYANI: The concept of continuous jihad is not a Yemeni phenomenon. It’s not — it’s not very entrenched in Yemen. However, when the call comes, they do.

MARGARET WARNER: Squarely in that tradition was Nasser al-Bahri, who went to Afghanistan in the mid-’90s and became a bodyguard for Osama bin Laden.

NASSER AL-BAHRI, former bodyguard for Osama bin Laden (through translator): He was so calm. He was so self-confident. He was, for me, the only and best person who could confront the United States.

MARGARET WARNER: Though out of the action now, al-Bahri still considers the U.S. to be the world’s biggest menace to Muslims. And he says America is exaggerating the strength of AQAP.

NASSER AL-BAHRI (through translator): Al-Qaida in Yemen is weak. The real al-Qaida people in Yemen do not exceed 200, maybe a few more. The media makes it much bigger.

MARGARET WARNER: Yet, they were good enough to almost bring down a U.S. airliner on Christmas.

NASSER AL-BAHRI (through translator): This doesn’t mean that they have a huge number of people. They need only an idea, training, preparation, then implementation.

MARGARET WARNER: One of AQAP’s ideas is recruiting radicalized young Muslims from the west, sometimes using Sanaa’s world-famous Arabic-language schools as unwitting cover.

The would-be Christmas Day bomber, Nigerian student Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, showed up for classes here, but dropped out after three weeks to pursue his deadly mission. U.S. and Yemeni officials say, however, that most of AQAP’s foot soldiers are drawn from local families, who struggle, whether in the countryside or the city, to live on an average of $2 a day.

Now they fear the desperation will grow, as terrorism takes a toll on Yemen’s all-important tourist trade. The medieval stone and plaster structures of the Sanaa’s Old City used to draw world travelers to look and to spend.

Usually, how many sales would you make a day?

SHOPKEEPER: Two hundred dollars, $300. It depends. Sometimes more, and sometimes less.

MARGARET WARNER: And now?

SHOPKEEPER: And now maybe $200 a month.

MARGARET WARNER: Shopkeeper Karim al-Faqi took us on a tour to show the wider impact.

Last month and this month, it went down. But, before, it was busy. Locals, it is no — no money coming from outside the country.

MARGARET WARNER: So, all of this, in a way, you’re saying is a little deceptive? There’s not enough really happening here?

SHOPKEEPER: That’s right. Too much stuff, and few people to buy.

MARGARET WARNER: Another risk? Too few teachers or jobs for the legions of restless young men in Yemen’s overcrowded and underfunded schools.

AMIN AL-ANDRISI, high school English teacher: For me, myself, I can’t keep — memorize all the names of the students.

MARGARET WARNER: High school English Amin al-Andrisi, mobbed by his students during a break, feels he’s letting them down.

AMIN AL-ANDRISI: You can get in some classes more than 80 students. Sometimes, we are reaching 120. Yes. Yes. You can’t believe that. No, you believe me. And you can ask any student here.

MARGARET WARNER: And he fears Yemen will let them down, too, when it comes to getting a college education or a decent job.

AMIN AL-ANDRISI: You know, you are teaching teenagers who are between 16 to 19 years old. This is the age which the students, they think, themselves, that they are very strong and very power and they can do whatever they want.

MARGARET WARNER: Whatever they want — in a country that too often doesn’t provide good choices for its youth.

JEFFREY BROWN: Margaret will continue her reports from Yemen later this

News Yemen

The right party condemns the targeting of the Great Mosque in Sana’a, and holds the Minister of Awqaf the responsibility of creating sectarian conflicts (Read on …)

The US State Department report on Human Rights Practices in Yemen 2009 is accurate and thorough. I thought they might dumb it down a bit considering the increased level of US support, but they didn’t. Click here for the report.

Other reports have Mobley as a low level, if that, terrorist wanna-be who never actually hooked up with AQAP. This is an interesting angle though considering the Nasir al Wahishi, Emir of AQAP, spoke about a nuclear attack on the US in a January 2009 interview. Update: AOL News: He also said Mobley studied at Dar al-Hadith Dammaj institute in Saada, a well-known Salafist school in Yemen’s northern province, which was decried as a “known terrorist training center” during tribunals for Guantanamo Bay detainees. Reports say that between 3,000 and 5,000 foreign students live and study there,” said Abdul-Salam al-Korary, a local journalist who has covered Yemen for several decades. “It is a very radical school.”

AJC: From 2002 to 2008, Mobley worked for several contractors at three nuclear power plants in New Jersey, PSEG Nuclear spokesman Joe Delmar said. Mobley carried supplies and did maintenance work at the plants on Artificial Island in Lower Alloways Creek, and worked at other plants in the region as well.

He satisfied federal background checks as recently as 2008, Delmar said, adding that the plant is cooperating with authorities. Mobley moved to Yemen about two years ago, supposedly to learn Arabic and study Islam, a former neighbor said.

Numerous people are injured with gunshot wounds. They even arrested blood donors: Local sources said that the security forces in Aden governorate arrested on Saturday night, more than five persons who were near the hospital, Captain of Aden, on the background they come to donate blood for a number of injured in the demonstrations on Thursday in Dali and developed the plaza, as well as several of their relatives.

Many doctors were arrested during the Sa’ada War for treating injured civilians or suspected rebels. The state denied MSF access to the injured as well. These barbaric tactics have become the norm for the Yemeni state.

Update: And of course the only logical thing to do at this point is confiscate al Jazeera’s transmitter: Argument Net: press reports revealed that the security forces on Thursday raided the Office of the channel “Al Jazeera” in Sanaa and the confiscation of the transmitter of the Office because of his coverage of opposition protests. The development of the past after violent clashes erupted between Yemeni security forces and elements of mobility in the southern Dali and pilgrimage. al Masdar has an interview with Al Jazeera correspondent Murad Hashim in which he reports threats from the authorities to take this step if al Jazeera broadcast news of the southern protests.

Yemen Post: Families in Yemen’s southern province of Dhale are fleeing the city to other safe places as security remains tight and raids on homes and arrests in connection with the search for outlaws and separatists continue.

Many families have left their homes after they came under attack since last Saturday when security forces imposed a security cordon around many districts in the province and started to bomb homes and arrest innocents. (Read on …)

Nothing like a crackdown, tanks assaults, tear gas and inflammatory language to bring stability.

NYT: Yemeni forces launched an attack Thursday to recapture a government building occupied by separatists in the south of the country, setting off a gunfight that killed two people, a local official and witnesses said. (Read on …)

It just never ends. A nice boy from New Jersey is an Qaeda suspect in custody in Yemen who was a) planning an attack b) wounded somehow and hospitalized last week and c) tried to bust out of the hospital Sunday in Yemen and killed a guard. His friends are shocked. I’m shocked too, I thought the shooter was supposed to be a German citizen of Somali origin. Fox also reports he is a a dual citizen, Yemeni-American.

NBC: Federal sources have confirmed that a man from Buena is in custody in the Middle East, and they say he’s believed to be an Al-Qaeda militant who’s accused of going on a deadly rampage.

“We don’t know nothing, we’re trying to hear something,” said Charles Mobley. Those were the only words he would share on camera about his son, 26 year-old Sharif Mobley. Federal sources have confirmed the 2002 Buena Regional High School graduate is currently in custody in the Middle East, suspected of being an Al-Qaeda militant. (Read on …)

03/03/10 News Yemen: The visiting US Department of State Assistant Secretary for Near Eastern Affairs, Jeffrey Feltman, said in an interview to official al-Thawra on Wednesday, the crisis in southern Yemen is a Yemeni internal affair, but he said issues behind the crisis should be solved.

Immediately afterward, Yemen cut the phone lines and launched an assault in the south that included night time raids of activists, arrests, and military assaults on Dhalie and other locations with tanks and armored vehicles. As the tanks are firing, Saleh invites the southerners to dialog, while the GPC pushes the line that whole thing is the JMP’s fault: “well-known leaderships in the JMP manage the action of those stray forces and deal with them as the military wing of the opposition.”

(Read on …)

No US response yet to the official finding that the December 17 air strike killed scores of civilians. The US issued many congratulatory statements on the raid, including by top military leaders and President Obama. However HRW urges the US and Yemen to be more careful and notes the risk of poor intel and “the potential for manipulation because of Yemen’s inconsistent approach to confronting al Qaeda,” meaning of course that Yemen will target its opposition and call them al Qaeda.

Yemen/US: Take Steps to Avoid Airstrike Tragedies
Civilian Deaths in US-Assisted Raid Underscore Risks of Military Force in Counterterror Measures

(New York, March 8, 2010) – The Yemeni government’s acknowledgment that an airstrike killed more than 42 civilians in December 2009 is a stark reminder of the need for careful targeting when using such counterterrorism measures, Human Rights Watch said today. (Read on …)

Of 250,000 Sa’ada War refugees only 30,000 are in the UN camps. Its too early to send them home, many have no homes to return to as cold weather and malnutrition threatens children. UN appeal is still unfunded, may cut programs for want of $16 million. A good report on
US funding notes that it overwhelmingly targets security not the population:

Congress has enacted roughly $218 million in US assistance for FY2010, of which $170 million or 78 percent has been in the security domain [Train and Equip (Section 1206), Foreign Military Financing (FMF), International Military Education and Training (IMET), Nonproliferation, Antiterrorism, Demining and Related Programs (NADR), and International Narcotics Control and Law Enforcement (INCLE)]. This dwarfs the development and diplomatic sums provided to Yemen and transparently communicates the American investment in President Saleh.

- Nasheri to military trial

- dated 2/14/10, Newsweek: In late January, an Al Qaeda operative headed from Pakistan on his way to Yemen was arrested in the Persian Gulf country of Oman, a U.S. counter-terrorism official confirmed…Even more noteworthy, the postings -written by a fellow Al Qaeda “brother” – reported that Al Eidan had with him 300 “important phone numbers” as well as pictures, names and documents from Afghanistan. (Read on …)

Libya? Faris Manna is a major weapons dealer, and was moving guns all around the region for years. He was also on the mediation committee representing the government in talks with the Houthi rebels. His brother Hassan was the governor of Sa’ada until he was fired after his brother’s arrest. When the shipment of Chinese weapons was seized, high ranking and influential Marib Sheiks blocked the road in a bid to persuade the government to release the cargo.

Sahwa Net- Al-Mithaq newspaper, the mouthpiece of Yemen’s ruling party, the General People’s Congress, has accused the former governor of Saada Hassan Mana’a of supplying weapons to the Houthi rebels in weapons… (after) he told a Yemeni newspaper, Al-Masdar, that (Deputy Minster of Interior, Mohammad) al-Quasi failed to run the battle with the Houthi in Saada.

Manna threatened to talk about who funded the purchases for the rebels, which usually results in appointment as an ambassador, a lethal raid, nasty articles and/or a government contract. (Read on …)

Yemeni film maker chronicles Akhdam women’s struggle for life and dignity in Yemen at HUB, click here for vid.

“Breaking the Silence” chronicles the lives and injustices against the Akhdam women in Yemen. The ‘Akhdam’ , singular Khadem, meaning “servant” in Arabic, are a social group in Yemen, distinct from the majority by their darker skin and African descent. Although they are Arabic-speaking and practicing Muslims, they are regarded as non-Arabs and designated as a low caste group, frequently discriminated against and confined to unskilled and menial labor. In a society already riddled with patriarchy and poverty, the distain and discrimination against the Akhdam renders Akhdam women easy targets of violence and abuse. Akhdam women are subject to hate-based attacks and sexual assaults without any type of legal or social recourse.

This video, produced by Sisters Arab Forum for Human Rights and WITNESS, featuring the stories and voices of these three women, Haddah, Qobol, and Om Ali recounting their stories of violence, injustice and forced poverty uncover the legacy of discrimination the ‘Akhdam’ live with daily and the necessity for urgent action against these atrocities.

Update: Malek Samulski is in South Africa or was a few years ago anyway.

Original: Its the continuation of an old story. New developments from The Australian: an Australian terror suspect had his 2004 attempted travel to Yemen arranged by Masek Samulski, one of the eight westerners, including the Ayyoub boys, arrested and then released (despite their confessions) in 2006 on charges of trafficking weapons to Somalia. The 2006 arrests were triggered by Awlaki’s arrest a few months earlier according to news reports at the time.

(See 3/1/08, appeal upholds sentence , or 11/03/06 arrests hinder counter-terror op or maybe this one is the most complete: 12/14/06 Terror arrests: from the American to al Sakhi to the Australians who go free.)

COUNTER-TERRORISM agencies are increasingly concerned about deepening links between a group of Australians under surveillance because of their connections with the Sydney terror cell and Islamic militants in Yemen, widely regarded as “the new Afghanistan” for al-Qa’ida.

Security agencies are monitoring the movements of at least 20 Australians who have travelled to Yemen in recent years, including friends and family of the nine men recently convicted and sentenced to up to 28 years in prison for preparing for a terrorist act in Sydney. (Read on …)

I didn’t realize Skype was illegal in Yemen. Previous reporting: 9/30/09, US owned VIOP smuggling phone calls. Arabic, SABA. The YObserver heavily redacted their original article, this is what’s left:

An international phone call trafficker was apprehended in his house in the south by the secretariat of the Criminal Investigative Department (CID). The detained, Ayman Ahmed al-Surmi, is being interrogated by the CID while the search for other suspects, including al-Surmi’s brother, continues…. The ease in using the Voice Over Internet Protocols (VoIP) tempted many local traffickers to cooperate with service providers outside Yemen to traffic calls. These outside providers traffic international phone calls through the internet without going through Yemen Telecommunication (TeleYemen) the local body responsible for regulating all international phone calls..International phone call trafficking goes through satellite connections or through broadband services, the traffickers receive it and then redistribute it through the local network by using local phone numbers (mobile and fixed phones) paying the tariff of local calls while receiving double this fee. (Read on …)