Armies of Liberation

I certainly hope so. Their magazine is so lame anyway. All the other internet is censored, why not al Qaeda? Updates below.

Newsweek: Brooklyn ‘Computer Wiz’ Accused of Conspiring With Al Qaeda Affiliate in Yemen, Mark Hosenball

A New York-born man described by a law-enforcement official as a computer expert is at the center of the latest investigation into Americans who have tried and, in some but not all cases, succeeded in hooking up with Al Qaeda elements based overseas. Wesam el-Hanafi, a 34-year-old Brooklyn, N.Y., native, is one of two men indicted by Federal authorities in Manhattan on Friday on charges of conspiring to provide material support, including computer expertise, to Al Qaeda—more specifically to Yemen-based elements of Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, a spinoff of the now Pakistan-based terror network founded by Osama bin Laden. (Read on …)

The material support was computer systems modernization and technical advice. The indictment is here. The time frame is November 2007 through March 2010. Hasanoff received $50K in Nov. 2007. Hanafy traveled to Yemen in Feb of 2008. In March 2008 through May 2008, Hanafy ran a software program that enabled secure internet communication with al Qaeda.

CBS Two United States citizens residing in Brooklyn, N.Y., have been charged with trying to aid Al Qaeda terrorists. According to the indictment obtained by CBS News, the men, Wesam El-Hanafi, 33, and Sabirhan Hasanoff, 34, are charged with one count of “conspiracy to provide material support to a foreign terrorist organization.”

The charge carries a maximum sentence of 15 years in prison.

Also according to the indictment, “the defendants would and did agree to provide al Qaeda with, among other things, computer advice and assistance, services, and currency, knowing that al Qaeda had engaged and was engaging in terrorist activity[.]”
(Read on …)

Nationally, one third of Yemenis are malnourished and half the kids are stunted from chronic hunger. The refugee population of a quarter million are teetering near starvation already, and the cut in food rations will mean many more deaths from starvation. The US pledged about $5 million in humanitarian aid, and $50 million in military aid. France 200,000 Euros. The other donors, including Saudi Arabia, zippo. The UN will also be cutting food aid to other recipients in Yemen including Somali refugees, girls in schools and children under 5.

(AlertNet) The U.N. food aid agency says a lack of funds is forcing it to cut rations for people driven from their homes by fighting in northern Yemen, endangering a fragile ceasefire between rebels and the government.

From May, the World Food Programme (WFP) will reduce food assistance for 270,000 displaced people by half until donors provide more money or the funds run out altogether, the organisation’s Yemen director Gian Carlo Cirri said on Friday.

“WFP is really concerned about the negative impact this cut is likely to have on the ceasefire in the north and about the overall stability in the country this severe shortage of food aid might (affect),” he told AlertNet.

Yemen Times

Dr. Mohamed Jubran, professor of economics, to the Yemen Times:
Money laundering is responsible for the devaluation of the Yemeni riyal

He is often quoted by local newspapers and television channels on economic issues, and is well-known among economic reporters and business editors. He used to be a member of the Islah party, but now only focuses on the economy.

In his sitting room at the week-end, he finishes writing up a research paper on his laptop and scans a study about the economy of Yemen. This is Dr. Mohamed Jubran, professor of economics at Sana’a University and he is the person who always finds the courage to speak his mind on any activity related to the economy, business or banking. (Read on …)

Rashid Al Masiri says all the financiers, planners and equipment suppliers of the terror plot have been arrested, a major achievement for the security forces.

News Yemen: Interior Minister Mutahar Rashad al-Masri has said that the security authorities have captured masterminds behind terrorist attack on UK diplomat last Monday.

In his speech at the annual meeting of senior security commanders, al-Masri said: “The key planners who planned and funded the terrorist attack on the UK ambassador to Yemen have been captured.”

He did not name the arrested terrorists but said that the capture of terrorists in a short period of time was a great achievement by Yemeni security. Al-Masri said his ministry gives the development of security services more attention.

(Read on …)

The father called the PSO in Taiz to report him missing. Yemen Observer

Ali Noman al-Selwi, the father of the suicide bomber who targeted the convoy of the British ambassador to Yemen, told Yemen Observer that his son went to a religious institute with some al-Qaeda suspects.

“ My son, Othman, completed studying Quran at Ibn al-Ameer institute in the secondary years and then was imprisoned along with a few groups of his colleagues studing Quran, too,” said al-Selwi. (Read on …)

Dammaj??? Why would the Houthis want to hold a rally in Dammaj? A ceremony for the families of the war dead. (I guess Dammaj wasn’t bombed during the war, and the Yemeni and Saudi air forces only made terrible bombing “mistakes” on pro-rebel villages.) The article aptly describes Dammaj as a pro-government stronghold. It also among the main Salafi strongholds in Yemen and includes the world renounced Dammaj Islamic Institute, headquarters of the Dar al Hadieth chain of schools. Dammaj has faced allegations for years of recruiting some or maybe a few of its students for al Qaeda.

Seven were killed in the clash between the rebels and the “pro-government tribal fighters.” Much of Yemen’s pro-government tribal fighters were trained or include known al Qaeda figures. For example, Ammar al Waeli is there now, although the government says he is dead. In the fifth war, 2005, it was Khalid Abdul Nabi who, oddly enough, the government reported as dead in 2004. This is really an odd development.

Update: It was in the context of a week long series of rallies to highlight the thousands of orphans and widows who need support.

WaPo: SANAA (Reuters) – A gunfight between Yemeni Shi’ite rebels and pro-government fighters killed seven people in the deadliest clash since a February truce calmed a northern war, officials said Thursday.

The clash broke out after dozens of armed rebels descended on a village — said to be a pro-government stronghold — for a rally in support of families of rebels killed in the war that raged on and off since 2004, a local official said.

The tribal fighters, who fought alongside the state in the war, tried to stop the rebel rally, and a melee erupted.

“The Houthis wanted to hold a rally in Damaj but the locals prevented them. They engaged in a quarrel, which escalated to an armed clash in which three tribesmen and four Houthis were killed,” a local official said, referring to the rebels by the clan name of their leader, Abdel Malek al-Houthi. A rebel official confirmed a clash had occurred.

Families in Yemen are big and often include extended family, so 200 families could easily be 2000 people. A flood in Hadramout in 2008 displaced over 20,000 and relief and reconstruction efforts were a disaster. These poor people in Hodeidah are calling for help from the government that may never come.

Yemen Post Torrential rain has submerged tens of houses in the district of Zabeed in Yemen’s western province of Hodeida.

About 200 families are now homeless after the main valley in the district flooded on their homes taking away all properties inside.

Most of the displaced are children, elderly and women of the poor families in the area, according to some locals. They have called on the authorities to intervene and help them.

Ali Ibrahim al-Rahman was arrested when he went to visit his brother in jail in 2007, and later charged with involvement in the fifth war’s battle at Bani Hushaish, although he was in jail since the fourth war. He was tried, convicted and sentenced to three years in May 2009. In February, Ali was eligible for release counting time served, but he is back in the PSO prison and remains among hundreds of other innocents jailed in regard to the Sa’ada Wars.

Al Esheraki- Ali Ibrahim al-Rahman (21 years old) students and a Yemeni national who lives in the area Shoveler – the Yemeni capital Sanaa

2- تم اعتقاله قبِل ثلاث سنوات وتحديدا بتاريخ 14ابريل 2007م أثناء زيارته لأخيه عبد الخالق اِلسياني في اِلسجن المركزي بصنعاء بدون أي مسوغ قانوني ولا يوجد عليه أي تهمة 2 – he was arrested three years ago, specifically on April 14, 2007 during a visit to his brother, Abd al-Khaliq al-Saiani in the central prison in Sana’a, without any legal justification and there was no charge

3- تم سجنه في الأمن السياسي ومن ثم السجن المركزي لمدة عام تقريبا 3 – was imprisoned in the Political Security Central Prison and then for almost a year (Read on …)

Good Luck!

State.gov: Mr. Feierstein, a specialist in Near East and South Asian Affairs, entered the Foreign Service in June 1975 and has served overseas in seven postings: Islamabad (1976-78), Tunis (1983-85), Riyadh (1985-87), Peshawar (1989-92), Muscat (1995-98), Jerusalem (1998-2001), and Beirut (2003-04).

In Washington, he has served as Deputy Assistant Secretary, Directorate of Programs in the Office of the Coordinator for Counterterrorism, desk officer for Nepal, Pakistan, and Egypt; Deputy Director in the Office of Arabian Peninsula Affairs, as Director of the Office of Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Bangladesh affairs, and as Director of the Office of Regional Affairs in the Near East Bureau. Mr. Feierstein holds a B.A. in Philosophy from Point Park College and an M.A. in International Relations from Duquesne University.

Negotiations afoot one would think. Sami Dyan’s group made a deal with the Defense Minister during the battle of Ja’ar.

Yemen Times: SANAA, April 24 (Xinhua) — A Yemeni military soldier was killed in the restive southern province of Lahj, where separatist sentiments are deeply rife, local news website almotamar.net reported….Meanwhile, the report said that security forces arrested a most wanted man in al-Habilain city of Lahj province, one of the leaders of a brutal criminal group in the province.

“The man, identified as Bassam Abdullah al-Said, was captured while he was hiding in a hotel in al-Habilain,” said a security official.

“The group includes al-Qaida’s member Samiee Daiyan and other killers,” said the official, adding that “al-Said and his group were accused of killing several citizens and government troops, as well as committing acts of terrorism.”

Its such a bad training video, really pathetic. Do they think the music will make everyone not notice what a bunch of bumbling idiots they look like, so they released it again???

ABC news: The new al Qaeda video of accused bomber Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab at a desert training camp included footage that had been released previously, in January, 2009, according to a frame by frame analysis by terrorism expert Evan Kohlman of Flashpoint Global Partners. (Read on …)

because two of the defendants weren’t brought from prison to attend the session… If Saleh wanted them out, they’d be eating lunch at home by now.

Mareb Press: أجلت المحكمة المتخصصة في قضايا وامن الدولة النظر في القضية الجنائية المرفوعة من النيابة الجزائية ضد رئيس تحرير صحيفة الأيام الموقوفة منذ مايو الماضي ، الي يوم الأحد القادم نظرا لعدم حضور كافة المتهمين الذين من بينهم نجلي رئيس التحرير هاني ومحمد اللذان يقبعان في سجن البحث الجنائي Court adjourned specialized in the issues and state security in a criminal case filed by the prosecutor’s office against the editor of the days suspended since last May, to next Sunday due to failure to attend all of the defendants, among whom two sons, editor in chief, Hani and Mohamed, who MSV prison CID (Read on …)

Update: News Yemen reports that British investigators arrived in Sana’a, and the father of the bomber says its his other son that is studying in the UK, and that he notified security when his son when missing.

Original post: Wow that’s huge, not because its true- and it is likely true that it was a political act- but because Saddiq is saying it.

al Tagheer: “Sheikh Al Ahmar warned from deteriorating conditions during his meeting with heads of tribes. Security situation is worse,saying what happened to Dr. Abd Al wahab Mahmood and the British ambassador in Sanaa is a good example of that’s. Al Ahmar regrets what happened since there is security department and political security and have soldiers represent 10% of nation.

Al Ahmar wondered by asking: How Yemeni government and security could discover the ID of the bomber in two hours inspire the Yemeni gov has no lab to reach the DNA? Adding sarcastically : “ only if the bomber had been sent by politic security.

Politics motivation is behind the two incidents (the attempted murder of the British Ambassador and the shooting at the head of the JMP).

(Read on …)

Abdul-Wahab Mahmoud got shot at in his car, last week I think it was. I think it may have been more of a message than an actual attempt to kill him; they couldn’t just send an email, they sent a guy with a gun to get the point across. The pressure on the opposition leaders is very great, and the leadership vacuum is no accident, but the country, or at least the population, is on the very brink of catastrophe.

Sahwa Net – Yemeni politicians have described the attack the Joint Meeting Parties chairman, Abdul-Wahab Mahmoud as a dangerous indication towards democracy future and bears messages of moving toward repressing of the opposition parties. (Read on …)

Roads to Iraq picks up a report from Barakish:

Last infor­ma­tion revealed that sui­cide bomber (you can see his decap­i­tate head here), is stepped out a black car with tinted car-windows five min­utes before he com­mit­ted the sui­cide attempt (I don’t think Al-Qaeda mem­bers are dri­ving in the cities with tinted car-windows, P.S. in Yemen and most Arab coun­tries, you need a per­mis­sion to drive such cars).

There are some inter­est­ing analy­sis says that this is an attempt planned by the Yemeni gov­ern­ment to force the coun­tries who promised to donate for the devel­op­ment of Yemen (and broke their promises).

One deduction we can make about the plot against the UK ambassador is that it was hatched by the same planner who previously attacked South Korean investigators in March 2009, also by bouncing an explosives laden youth off of a moving car. In that attack as well, no one was killed but the two suicide bombers.

The other relevant fact of the earlier attack is that al Qaeda admitted their operatives received inside information from the security forces. Even the Yemeni Parliament said the attack was proof the security forces were compromised. If we assume the same planner, we can then reasonably assume the same connections into the Yemeni intelligence and security forces still exist. The yet unconfirmed report that the youth arrived in a black car five minutes before the ambassador passed may indicate that the attacker knew the route and was laying in wait, as in the earlier instance. In the current case, the question remains, did Saleh call in a favor or did al Qaeda?

Its just so much worse when its the police: Yemen Observer

Heron Bin Salem, 22, a member of the Jewish community, was awaiting his cousin in front of al-Mustakbal School when an officer along with four security members approached him, “trying to get rid of his unfamiliar look,” Yahya Yousif, the head of the Jewish community in Sana’a told Yemen Observer. (Read on …)

(Update: its his brother at university in the UK.)The 26Sep.net, a Web site linked to Yemen’s military and security service, identified the suicide bomber in Monday’s attack on a convoy carrying the British Ambassador as Othman Ali al-Selwi, a 22-year-old student from the southern city of Taiz.

(Head of Central Security and presidential nephew) Yahya Saleh’s newspaper, Naba News reports the suicide bomber studied in Britain for nearly two years on a scholarship awarded by the British embassy and returned to Yemen a few months ago. He had no overt extremist leanings his family said. Naba’s sources theorize that he was radicalized in the UK or else the bombing was a reaction to a personal issue with the Embassy related to his studies.

Other sources say the 22-year old al Selwi was imprisoned in Sana’a and he paid regular visits to the National Security’s headquarters in Sana’a upon his release. News Yemen reports that al Selwi attended a technical institute in Marib after he graduated high school and was jailed for two years in a PSO jail on charges of belonging to al Qaeda.

This, though, is a ridiculous suggestion: WaPo: A statement by the Yemeni Embassy in Washington suggested that the attack may have been in retaliation for a Yemeni operation that killed two suspected al-Qaeda operatives in the western city of Hodeida on April 18.

If we recall, the two “al Qaeda operatives” killed were carrying IDs from the National Security and one was an agent of the Central Security.

An earlier attack on an official convoy targeted South Korean investigators in March 2009. They were in Yemen following the murder of three South Korean tourists. The route of the motorcade was disseminated to the so called al Qaeda by subverted elements within Yemen’s security forces, Parliamentarians charged.

Update: Yemen rounds up usual suspects, father confirms the bomber was recently released from jail:

Reuters, WaPo; Yemeni police arrested dozens of al Qaeda suspects in sweeps a day after a suicide bomber tried to kill Britain’s ambassador to Yemen, security officials said Tuesday.

At the 22-year-old bomber’s home near Sanaa, his father told Reuters that he condemned his son’s actions and that he had tried to get him to marry and find a job, before the young man went missing around six weeks ago.

Othman Ali al-Sulwi, who wore an explosive belt when he threw himself at a convoy taking Ambassador Tim Torlot to work Monday, had spent two years in prison before being released at the start of this year, his father said.

Naba sent the “He studied in the UK” story out as an email alert. Maybe mistaken identity. Update: yes, its his brother.

Update: The Interior Ministry denies the Reuters report of seven arrests in connection to the attack.

Southern Protests Threaten Stability a report from IRIN: Aidarous al-Naqeeb, a member of parliament from the opposition Yemeni Socialist Party (YSP), told IRIN up to 150 protesters had been killed and more than 500 injured since the SM emerged in 2006.

Reuters Three people were wounded in a north Yemen city market as rebels exchanged fire with pro-government tribes who then cut the road between the northern rebel stronghold and the capital, officials said on Tuesday… The pro-government tribe cut the road in revenge for rebels killing a tribe member four days earlier, officials said.

Rebels said “government elements” opened fire on shoppers in a market on Monday and later cut off the main road to Sanaa. “They put the province under blockade conditions, showing that they are getting outside support in order to stir anxiety and chaos once more,” a statement on the rebels’ website said.

What a pathetic bunch of losers if there ever was one…

ABC: New videos produced by al Qaeda in Yemen show the accused underwear bomber Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab and others in his training class firing weapons at a desert camp whose targets included the Jewish star, the British Union Jack and the letters “UN.” (Read on …)

One of the opposition leaders asked if Majawar was the Prime Minister of the government or the GPC, but the two are so well blended there’s little difference anymore. This speech took place at the government induced rally, where civil servants and students were forced to attend or face punitive actions.

WaPo SANAA (Reuters) – The Yemeni government accused the country’s opposition party of allying with armed elements fighting the state in the north and south, reducing prospects for national dialogue in a fractious country.

Separately, the government put 18 southern separatists on trial on Sunday on charges of incitement and threatening national unity, a move that could further increase tensions a day after four others were sentenced to jail terms of 10 years.

“Those who call themselves the opposition … have entered into suspicious alliances with groups outside of the system, the law and the constitution,” Yemeni Prime Minister Ali Megawar told a pro-government rally on Saturday.

“Your cheers are a condemnation of those who take up arms in the southern provinces,” he told the protesters, making a similar reference to northern Shi’ite rebels….

Will this cause consternation among Awlaki’s English language devotees? Stay tuned for next week’s episode of Anwar and the Pussycats. The vid at least puts an end to the speculation as to whether Anwar is an official and operational member of AQIY, although that was pretty clear in 2007.

Meanwhile its interesting that Awlaki is trying to blame violence against Muslims on some super secret western plot, when the al Qaeda terrorists in Iraq and Afghanistan and Yemen take credit for it themselves, and his boy toy al Wahishi gave a whole dissertation on why it is legitimate for them to murder Muslims who happen to be standing near a Western visitor in Yemen. Update at Jarret Brachman: Forum Members Debate Awlaki Contradictions

The Indian: Anwar al-Awlaqi claimed to have trained UK-educated Nigerian Islamist Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab who attempted to blow up a jet bound for Detroit Dec 25, 2009. He also said he was “proud” to have trained radical Islamist Nidal Hassan, a US-born doctor of Palestinian descent who shot dead 13 people and wounded 30 others at the Fort Hood military base in Texas in November last year.

“I am proud to have been their teacher,” al-Awlaqi, who has dual Yemeni-US citizenship and was an imam of mosques in San Diego and Virginia, said in a video aired by Al-Jazeera channel.

(CNN) An– An American-born Muslim cleric has appeared in a video released by al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula for the first time.

Anwar al-Awlaki, an al Qaeda recruiter and supporter based in Yemen, is on the United States’ list of al Qaeda leaders targeted for capture or assassination. He has appeared in other videos but has never before been featured in an official video by AQAP. (Read on …)

Time after time, after time after time, Saleh makes promises and fails to deliver. The Bahsraheel sons are still in jail after last week’s announcement of their impending release and 30 prisoners in Hadramout are on a hunger strike to force the president to live up to his word that political prisoners in the governorate would be released. The strikes by a variety of unions are related to the failure of the state to implement the 2005 Wages Strategy that was devised following the fuel riots.

Yemen Times SANAA, April 20 (Xinhua) — Up to 30 Yemeni political prisoners arrested over anti-unity counts went on an open hunger strike, protesting not being released, security officials said Sunday.

The prisoners began an open hunger strike on Saturday to press local authorities to free them upon a pardon granted by the country’s president early this month, according to a statement signed by the relatives of the detainees. (Read on …)

The donated tents are being diverted into the black market for smugglers to use as tarps on their shipments while thousand in an unofficial refugee camp are near death from starvation and disease.

HOOD: After preventing a Qatari aids :Five thousand displaced persons face death in Haradh,

Translated by:Nisreen Shadad

More than five thousand displaced persons (IDPs) face death in al-Qufl camp; unofficial camp, as a result of the lack of humanitarian aids.

The number of the IDPs is increasing and so their pitiful situation worsens. The Heavy rains affected IDPS’ health because of the contaminated and stagnant water, which is infectious diseases.

Moreover, the high temperature and living in a terbal (a type of tent or cover made of plastic) let their lives unbearable.

“The Local Council prevented a Qatari aid to provide them with tents,” said one the HOOD authentic sources. “There are a big number of international aids, that are smuggled to the black-market and used to cover the traders’ goods,” the sources added.

The IDPs demanded the humanitarian organizations to rescue their lives, otherwise they will die out of hunger
(Read on …)

Update: Saudi Ambassador, four were kidnapped by a tribe not the Houthis and released, Yemen Post

There is just so much of the Yemeni regime’s propaganda coming out of Reuters lately. I wonder how much it costs to buy a wire service. In this case, the Saudi government says it has no knowledge of a Saudi citizen kidnapped by the Houthi rebels as Reuters earlier reported. Saudi Gazette

SANA’A – A Saudi diplomatic source at the Kingdom’s embassy in Yemen said that he has no information about reports that Saudi citizens were kidnapped and then released by Houthi rebels near Amran Province 30 km north of the Yemeni capital.

The source emphasized that the embassy has been following up these reports with the responsible authorities at the Yemeni Ministry of Interior in an attempt to verify them.

This is such a bizarre story, not readily believable. The Houthi rebels intercepted communications from al Qaeda in Yemen to an anti-Hamas Salafi group in Gaza and they sent it to Haaretz. Al Qaeda in Yemen is planning to send Somalis from Yemen to Gaza for attacks and also to attack Jews in Yemen and launch a rocket from Saudi Arabia on a nuclear reactor in Israel. The Houthis, in sending the letters, are trying to demonstrate the difference between their ideology and al Qaeda’s in a bid to elicit US support for their cause, which they say is an end to discrimination by the Yemeni government.

Haaretz

The Yemen-based arm of Al-Qaida is examining the possibility of infiltrating terrorists into Israel disguised as Somali refugees crossing the border from Egypt or even as new immigrants from Ethiopia.

Shi’ite rebels yesterday sent another letter to Haaretz, the latest of several, in which they quote from a letter sent by Al-Qaida to members of a Salafist group in the Gaza Strip that is opposed to Hamas. (Read on …)

A good listing by RSF of the journalists in jail and on trial, calls for international intervention:

Reporters Without Borders strongly condemns a sharp decline in the press freedom situation since the start of the second half of 2009. “What is happening in Yemen now is very serious,” the organisation said. “The situation of the media is getting worse by the day, with one prosecution after another. The international community must intercede as a matter of urgency.”
(Read on …)

No injuries except to the bomber. Some reports said it was a suicide bomber but the Brits say small bomb. The state news agency SABA says the device was a suicide vest and the bombers head was found three houses away. News Yemen identifies the attacker as 22 year old Othman Ali al-Selwi, who was trained in Mareb province. The attack on a convoy is not the first. In March 2009, al Qaeda attacked the motorcade of South Korean officials who were in Sana’a to investigate a lethal suicide attack on South Koran tourists days earlier.

(CNN) — The British ambassador to Yemen survived an attack on his convoy in the capital, Sanaa, Monday morning, the British Foreign and Commonwealth Office said.

“There was [a] small explosion beside the British Ambassador’s car. He was unhurt. No other Embassy staff or British Nationals were injured,” a statement said. Initial reports said two Yemenis — a man and a woman — were injured in the attack and taken to a nearby hospital. The convoy carrying Tim Torlot, 52, was near Berlin park and a short distance from the British embassy at the time of the blast.

Nearly related: The Debka spin is Saleh used US counter-terror funds to bribe al Qaeda to leave for Somalia: Failing to eradicate the al Qaeda presence by force, Salah summoned the tribal chiefs harboring al Qaeda centers and through them offered to pay the Islamists to leave the country. The bribe of an estimated $15-20 million was accepted and on April 7, 12 al Qaeda leaders, presenting themselves to the Somali Al-Shebab Islamist rebels as emissaries of Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), turned up in Somalia to scout suitable areas under rebel control for new bases, their pockets well lined with US dollars to pay for their lease.

Its like a pro-government rally in North Korea or Cuba but the adoring crowds are less synchronized and color coordinated. Yemen Post

Thousands of Yemeni people, students and state employees gathered on Saturday at the Al-Thawra Stadium for the carnival called and organized by the General People’s Congress, the ruling party, the National Coalition Parties and civil society organizations within the celebrities on the 20th anniversary of unification. (Read on …)

AFP SANAA — A Yemeni court sentenced four southern separatists activist to 10 years in prison on Saturday for “harming national unity,” Saba state news agency said.

Abdullah Rajeh al-Yahari, Salem Ali al-Habshi, Nasser Mahfuz Baqazquz and Nasser Abdullah Bamithqal were convicted by a criminal court in Hadramut of “committing criminal acts aimed at harming national unity,” it said.

The list of charges included “violating the constitution, instigating armed rebellion, mobilising people to disobey constitutional authorities and the laws and spreading false information aimed at jeopardising peace and security.” The same court jailed Khalid Khamees Batalila to one year, followed by a year under surveillance, after convicting him of “chanting slogans that called for disobedience,” Saba said.

السلام مع الكرامه في اليمن . هل يمكن ايقاف دوامه الحرب ؟

ان جميع حروب صعدة الستة في اليمن هي نسخة من صورة واحدة ، باستثناء ان عدد القنابل اصبح أكبر و الأطفال اصبحوا اكثر معاناة والسجون أكثر ازدحاما. لقد منعت الحكومة اليمنية الغذاء والدواء والمساعدات الدولية للمدنيين في محافظة صعدة شمال البلاد كأسلوب للحرب منذ حرب عام 2004 اما القصف العشوائي للحكومة في حربها الثانية عام 2005 فقد شرد اكثر من 50،000 من المدنيين. وبحلول نهاية الحرب الخامسة فقد شردت 120،000 لاجئ. اما الحرب السادسة التي بدأت في آب / أغسطس 2009 فان القصف اليمني السعودي المشترك هدم أكثر من 9000 مبنى بينها المساجد والمدارس ، وقرى بأكملها مع وقف اطلاق النار في شباط / فبراير 2010 ، كان عدد اللاجئين الداخليين قد وصل الى ربع مليون نسمة. وقد دعت هيومن رايتس ووتش الى اجراء تحقيق في احتمالت جرائم الحرب.

افرج الحوثيون في شباط / فبراير عن 178 مدني وعسكري كانوا محتجزين لديهم ، واعادو عدد من جثث الجنود السعوديين ايضا. و أعلنت اليمن بالإفراج عن 161 من المعتقلين الحوثيين لكن المنظمة اليمنية للدفاع عن الحقوق والحريات (هود) : قالت بانها تم أطلاق سراح 32 معتقلا فقط من أصل 2,000
(Read on …)

I think President Saleh is hallucinating and US and European policy makers are in their own pipe dreams. Attariq publishes in the state run 14 October’s building. When al Hubaishi enters the 14 October building, he has some drummers and musicians precede him like he’s a king, seriously. And the two Bashraheel sons are still in jail.

SANA’A, Yemen: Soldiers stormed the building of 14 October, a national media company based in Al-Ma’ala, in the southern province of Aden, on the evening of 21 April in order to seize the latest issue of Al-Tariq, a daily newspaper it publishes. The building remained surrounded until yesterday morning. (Read on …)

In 2006, I wrote an article ( A Day in the Life of a Failing State) about a chickenpox outbreak in a remote village and how devastating it can be. There was some progress since (after one of the Dar al Hadeth Sheiks reversed his position that vaccines are a Zionist plot), but in Sa’ada, there are tens of thousands of children who were born since 2004 that have never seen a doctor. The following from IRIN

SANAA, 19 April 2010 (IRIN) – A 12-day measles and child polio vaccination campaign began on 17 April in parts of the troubled northern Yemeni governorate of Saada, targeting over 209,000 children, health officials say.

All under fives in seven of the governorate’s 15 districts will be vaccinated against both measles and polio. Those aged 5-15 will be vaccinated against measles, Hinbush Hussein Hinbush, head of the Public Health and Population Office (PHPO) in Saada, told IRIN.
(Read on …)

All of a sudden Nabi is al Qaeda again. Last year, he was leading a group of jihaddists for the state during the battle in Ja’ar. In the years before, state officials insisted he was a peaceful farmer and then that they captured him after a five year chase. In 2004, they reported al Nabi dead to the US. In 2005 (after Saleh visited Bush) Nabi was jailed and in an interview said that they were only jailed when the regime needed to use them as mercenaries against opposition of some sort or another.

AFP SANAA — Yemeni authorities arrested three alleged Al-Qaeda members accused of killing two policemen and blowing up an official’s vehicle in the southern province of Abyan, the defence ministry said Wednesday.

The three men, identified as Mujib Hafsah, Mohammed al-Bakawi and Mohammed Ismail, were arrested in the southern province of Aden on Sunday, the ministry’s news website 26sep.net said, citing a security source.

They are accused of blowing up the car of a local government official on April 19, while Bakawi and Ismail are also suspected of killing two policemen, the website said.

“During interrogations, the suspects admitted that they were appointed by Khaled Abdulnabi, a member of Al-Qaeda in Abyan province,” it said.

Abdulnabi was a leading member of the Aden-Abyan Islamic army, an armed group which was active in the south before it went into oblivion a few years ago.

They want a UN supervised referendum on unity. Thats about the only thing they agree on. They have done little to create a standardized representative mechanism throughout the South or even in the hot spots of Lahj and Dhalie. Its a rather comprehensive poll of southern leaders, but I think Nuba is missing and also that guy in the mountains, Shatour. There are also regular southern citizens who want a just system not necessarily separation.

Survey made by Aden News Agency: Southern Movement leaders refuse dialogues with Sana’a except under supervision of UN, and independence

Provinces / Aden News Agency / Exclusive / 22-04-2010

Leaders in the Southern Movement revived their absolute refusal to make any dialogues with the Yemeni government, except under an international supervision, and to discuss what they call it “disassembling the unification and leaving the land of the south”.

Leaders in the Southern Movement said through different talks to “Aden News Agency”, that they refuse any call of dialogue aims to exhaust time, and does not have international guarantees, indicating that any dialogue will be refused, except when the regime of the Yemeni president Ali Abdullah Saleh confess that it occupied the south, and that it represents an occupation force. (Read on …)

The Yemeni military has bombed mosques and engaged in other acts of irreverence. In this case, police wanted to shoot protesters from the roof.

Sahwa Net – Three people were injured on Thursday during confrontations between security forces and precipitants of a funeral possession of a person who was killed by security men during prior protests.

Meanwhile, security forces arrested a mosque Imam Adel al-Jaadi as he refused to allow soldiers to up on the roof of the mosque and shoot fire on protestors. Al-Jaadi explained in a statement to Sahwa Net that the mosque was boycotted (surrounded?) by soldiers who centered on the mosque ground, so the women could not perform prayers inside the mosque.

No surprise there. Update: When I wrote the last article, I wasn’t sure of the break down between the rebels and the arbitrarily arrested, but if we take Abdelmalik’s figure of 1000 rebels in jail and Hassan Zaids figure of 1000 innocent civilians plus 500 disappeared, we come up something around HOOD’s figure of 2000 imprisoned in relation to the war.

Yemen rebel group asks government to free 1,000 detained members, Earth Times

Sana’a, Yemen – A Shiite rebel group that fought the national army in northern Yemen for more than five years called upon the government Friday to free around 1,000 members of the group captured during the conflict that ended in February. (Read on …)

Quite a logical manifesto by one of Yemen’s leading female activists

Marriage of the Small Girls, and the Absence of Religious Renewal and Reform

By / Tawakkol Abdul Salam Karman*

In our jurisprudence heritage there is a wide place for harmony and compatibility with the claims of banning the marriage of small girls and determining the age of eighteen as a minimum for marriage for girls, and this is exactly what is deemed by the Maliki school.. It is exactly what was transformed by Ibn Abbas, whom he said 23 years old, and 25 said by others, and who knows maybe there is space for what is higher.

In light of the broad claims by engaging the need to complete the process of religious reform and renewal, it is painful that we find that the horizon is narrower than the eye of a needle; since it was supposed to accomplish many of jurisprudence that achieve urgent requirements of the times .. and provide evidence that Islam is valid for all times and places. They are glued deep in the heritage and are looking for fatwas that are closer to the shackles and handcuffs which ,in the best situations, are no longer valid since hundreds of years.

The following day to the protest of Aleeman University in front of the Yemeni parliament opposed to enact a law forbids marriage of small girls, it was quoted by the news that ((a handicapped girl had been raped by several persons)), unless they will not hear in the future that there is a similar demonstration will emerge to claim the application of the punishments of God in the perpetrators, so I will claim from now, that the law of God has nothing to do with all this drivel, and what is required is a show of force and political presence, which is closer to the bad exploitation of religion for instantaneous political purposes.

* Anomaly and the psychological deviation (Read on …)

That’s big. The Parliamentary elections are scheduled for next year, and the ruling party and the JMP have been at an impasse on the reforms. The terms of the agreement are still unknown, even to their memberships. The opposition had held its first round of demonstrations in Sana’a and other cities recently.

Nationally, the Sa’ada war is over for now, and the Houthis are in discussions with the National Dialog Committee. Saleh was in Egypt talking to the “moderate” southerners and Fadhli had already reached an individual truce with the authorities. The main organized outlier is still the pro-independence southerners.

Ruling Party, Opposition Sign Deal for February Agreement

The General People’s Congress, the ruling party, the Joint Meeting Parties JMP, an opposition coalition in Yemen, have signed an amended minute on the February Agreement 2009 on the upcoming parliamentary elections, the News Yemen citing sources at the JMP reported on Thursday.

The deal was signed at the house of political advisor for President Saleh Abdul Karim Al-Eryani, the sources which gave no details were quoted as saying.

The two sides signed in February 2009 an agreement under which the parliamentary election was delayed until 2010 to have enough time to implement electoral reforms.

But later, disagreements over and commitment to the deal emerged with the two trading accusations of violating it. Wednesday’s minute comes as a good sign amid alarming political stalemate and deteriorating economy and security situations.

That would be very good.

France24: AFP – Yemeni authorities have reached agreement with management of the banned Al-Ayyam daily to free three detained staff members, the newspaper’s director told AFP on Wednesday.

Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh met with Al-Ayyam staff members Tuesday and promised to ensure the trio would be freed, said the director, Bashraheel Hisham Bashraheel.

He named the three as Hani Hisham Bashraheel, Mohammed Hisham Bashraheel and Arhab Hassan Yassin. (Read on …)

Peace with Dignity in Yemen, Can the Cycle of Endless War be Broken?

Each of the six Sa’ada wars in Yemen was a photo copy of the one before, except the bombs got bigger, the children more frail and the jails more crowded. The Yemeni government systematically denied food, medicine and international aid to civilians in the northern Sa’ada province as a tactic of war since the first in 2004. Indiscriminate government bombing in the second round of war in 2005 displaced over 50,000 civilians. By the end of the fifth war, 120,000 were refugees. In the sixth war that began in August 2009, a joint Yemeni-Saudi bombing campaign flattened over 9000 structures including mosques, schools, and entire villages. With the state’s Pyrrhic victory in February 2010, the number of internal refugees had swelled to a quarter of a million. Human Rights Watch is calling for an investigation into potential war crimes.

In February, the Houthi rebels released 178 civilian and military men in their custody and returned the bodies of several Saudi soldiers. Yemen announced the release of 161 Houthi detainees. However the Yemeni Organization for the Defense of Rights and Freedoms (HOOD) said only 32 detainees were released out of a total of 2,000.

The failure of the state to release imprisoned rebels signals the eventuality of a seventh war Dr. Abdullah al Faqih, political science professor at Sana’a University, explained. “The fact that the regime is still holding the Houthi prisoners means that hardliners within the regime are still planning a new round of war. With the Houthi joining the Preparatory Committee for National Dialogue, the prospects of a new war seem greater,” he said.

Opposition politician Hassan Zaid estimated that about 1000 prisoners are still in jail with an additional 500 disappeared, “Most of the arrested are innocent…They were taken simply because they are belonging to the Hashimite or Zaidi sects,” Mr. Zaid said. Other estimates go as high as 3000.

A History of Broken Promises

Some rebel fighters and innocent bystanders have been in jail for years, although the Sana’a regime repeatedly announced their release. After mediation in May 2005, President Ali Abdullah Saleh promised to release approximately 600 persons imprisoned without charge. He issued an unnumbered pardon decree on 25 September 2005. On March 3, 2006, Yemen’s state-run media announced the release of 630 prisoners after 80 parliamentarians visited Sa’ada.

On March 22, 2006, The Arab Sisters Forum reported, “Most of the relatives told us that only about 150 detainees had been released so far.” In April 2006, rebel leader Abdelmalik Al-Houthi said many of his followers were arrested as they returned home following the general amnesty. He said no more than 80 of his followers had been released. The rest of the freed prisoners were victims of arbitrary arrest who had no connection to the rebel forces.

A prisoner exchange was also part of the peace agreement negotiated by Qatar ending the fourth war in June 2007. The rebels released 96 prisoners of war during Ramadan in September. On September 20, despite the president’s written instructions to release 500, only 67 rebel fighters were freed along with several arbitrarily arrested citizens.

In 2008, the Yemeni government repeatedly announced that 380 more prisoners were released, but many of the prisoners named actually were freed a year earlier and were not rebels. A government appointed fact finding committee was jailed after reporting that the state failed to implement several terms of the 2007 cease fire including the release of rebel prisoners.

Arbitrary arrests

Beyond capturing and often torturing rebel fighters, the state engaged in “preventive arrests” based on religious identity, geographical location or family associations. Human Rights Watch broadly categorized the civilian prisoners as state hostages, Hashemites, or Zaidis traveling in hot zones or suspected of sympathizing with the rebels. Journalists who reported on the war were also arrested.

The Yemen Times reported in May 2005, “Government and security forces would assault villages looking for Houthi suspects and demanded that all males are to come out and give themselves up…The prisons are packed in Sa’ada with hundreds – some say thousands of suspected Houthis, most of whom do not have any clear charges against them or even have any links with the Houthis.” The pattern continued through 2009.

For example, in September 2007, the Dignity Organization for Human Rights appealed for the release of 47 including juveniles detained for over a year in al-Noseirya central prison in Hajjah. The Geneva-based organization said Yemen’s Political Security Organization (PSO) had randomly rounded up innocent Zaidis. The Hajjah prisoners made the news when they refused to break their Ramadan fast at the same time as the prison guards, five minutes earlier than Shia dictates allow, and were shackled in leg irons and beaten.

Six members of the Tamy family who disappeared over three years ago along with five from the Moid family were recently discovered in the PSO prison in Hajjah. Another 28 men found there were arrested without charge within the last year, including some after the peace announcement in February 2010. Several sources have said that arbitrary arrests in Sa’ada are continuing despite the latest peace deal.

The children of some of the detainees appealed to President Saleh last week, presenting drawings of their missing fathers. The event, organized by the Women’s Media Forum and HOOD in Sana’a, was entitled, “I have the right to live with my father.” Ali al-Dailami, director of the event, said some of the children hadn’t seen their fathers in years. Arbitrary and incommunicado imprisonment of innocent citizens throughout Yemen diminishes the legitimacy of the state and stokes social tensions.

Many children are also in jail and subject to routine torture. In 2007, Ahmed Saif Hashid, an independent Member of Parliament, conducted a survey of prisons and found 16 juveniles, aged 10 to 16, in the PSO prison in al-Hodeida. The children were arbitrarily arrested in connection to the Sa’ada War.

In one interview, 12 year old Nabil old said he was taken from his class room to prison. “We have been beaten by the soldiers and officers, we have been beaten with sticks while we were handcuffed. They beat us and lay us faces down”. Hussein, 13, told Mr. Hashid, “We have been beaten, handcuffed. They beat us as soon as we arrived before even interrogating us. I saw Qasem fainted while his head was bleeding. Some of us have been made naked and they took off all our clothes.”

Starvation in Peacetime

The children in prison are not the only Yemeni kids in mortal jeopardy. Tens of thousands of children in Sa’ada are on the verge of starvation including two year old Hassan. The toddler lives in a cave with his pregnant mother, her grandmother and several other family members. Their house was destroyed in the fifth war. On a good day, Hassan eats a little bread and drinks dirty water.

When the boy hears an airplane, he falls to the ground and covers his head. A UN Children’s Fund survey in 2008, before the expansive sixth war, found that 92% of Sa’ada children had been exposed to armed conflict. Most exhibited symptoms of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, on a level at par with traumatized populations in Palestine and Nepal.

In the sixth war, dozens of children were killed in their own homes, in markets and in refugee camps by Saudi and Yemeni bombs.. Many starved to death and many more will. Of the 250,000 internally displaced, only about 30,000 are in the abysmal UN refugee camps.

The UN is short about $40 million it needs to continue distributing life saving food rations in Sa’ada beyond June. Nationally, over two million rely on UN food aid. The US announced a grant of $4.8 million in food and cooking oil for Yemen, and an intended donation to Yemen’s Special Forces of a $39 million dollar military transport aircraft. Yemen’s other donors have not contributed to the UN fund. In years past, corrupt officials embezzled millions of dollars in international aid.

A third of Yemenis are malnourished and a seventh war would exacerbate the crisis. Yemen’s performance in several ceasefires since 2004 is a tale of failed expectations: no reconstruction occurred, the military failed to pull back, and disengagement was never completed. The state needs to enact confidence building measures with the rebels to sustain the fragile peace, a vital priority for the nation. However hundreds if not thousands of rebel prisoners and innocent civilians remain in jail, and arrests are continuing. While the Sana’a regime is propped up by warmongers with financial interests in resuming the conflict and hard liners with ideological motives, western donors appear at a loss for an effective strategy in Yemen. Clearly only Yemenis themselves can avert the looming national catastrophe.

-Jane

AFP – Paris-based media watchdog Reporters Without Borders (RSF) criticised on Tuesday the situation of press freedoms in Yemen, saying it was worsening by the day.

RSF “strongly condemns a sharp decline in the press freedom situation since the start of the second half of 2009,” the organisation said.

It described the situation in the war-stricken country as “very serious”.

“The situation of the media is getting worse by the day, with one prosecution after another. The international community must intercede as a matter of urgency,” it said. (Read on …)

ISRIA: Studies affirmed that the main reason of the low education in Yemen is the less qualified teachers. ‘Statistics showed that 43.9% of the high school headmasters have only high school certificates or lower than that. As well as 10045 high schools are managed by non educated headmasters and this means 31.13 %,’ he added.

SEYAJ is such a good organization, advocating for children on such issues as tainted formula, child labor, child marriage, child imprisonment, child abuse, child soldiers, education. Its amazing what a few determined individuals can do when they put their minds and efforts on a goal, even a goal as large as rescuing millions of kids.

News Release: Emad’s story chosen to participate in Aljazeera International Documentary Film Festival (Read on …)

Random guys, wanted al Qaeda, and/or security forces

News YemenTwo wanted, allegedly al-Qaeda suspects, were killed in an exchange of fire with security forces in the province of Hodeidah, west of Yemen early Sunday.

The three men refused to stop at a checkpoint in Hodeidah and started gunshot with security forces, who killed two and arrested the third one, official sources told News Yemen, but declined to identify the three men as al-Qaeda suspects. Reuters quoted a security as claming that the three men are suspected al-Qaeda members.

AlSahwa Net quoted security sources as saying that one of the three suspects, identified as Qais al-Jabobi, was carrying an ID of the National Security and the two others were carrying IDs of the Central Security.

Update: Or maybe they were random al Qaeda with ID from the National Security:

Yemen Post: Two wanted people were killed and an officer was injured on Sunday in an exchange of gunfire between three fugitives and police in western Yemen.

Security sources said that the fugitives whom the Interior Ministry alerted the security authorities about their car as wanted a week ago clashed with police at Alshamalia checkpoint in Hodeida province.

Before the incident, the three convinced other checkpoints they were national security officials using forged IDs, according to the Alsahwa website. But when the checkpoint was alerted about them, they could not pass and then started firing at police, forcing police to return fire.

As a result, two of them were killed identified as Qais Al-Jabobi, holding a national security ID, and Majed Saleh, a central security soldier. The third was arrested and is now being investigated to know the motives of the shooting.

The civilian fatalities seem low. I’ll check with the record keeper of the south.

Update: According to southern sources, “the report figure is (36) Southern civilians. Some were killed while protesting, and some killed at security forces check points, their houses, farms, or assassinated by northern security forces.”

SANAA — Eighteen people were killed and 120 wounded in south Yemen violence during the first quarter of 2010, according to a report presented to parliament on Saturday by the deputy interior minister.

Ten members of the security forces were killed and 48 wounded while eight civilians were killed and 72 wounded, the defence ministry’s 26sep.net news website quoted the report by Saleh Zuari as saying.

The unrest centred on the southern province of Daleh and some districts in Lahij and Abyan provinces, said the report, according to the website.

The report also said there were “245 protests and strikes” and “87 bombings and shootings” in the same areas during the first three months of the year.

The following list names 39 men jailed in relation to the Sa’ada War, suspected of Houthism although they were not engaged in the war at all, who remain in jail despite the February ceasefire:

1 Name Location((zone)) in the prison from..
2 1 Abd urahman Muhamme Tamy Washa/Hajjah 3 years *ago
3 2 Muhammed Abd Ulkarym Tamy Washa/Hajjah 3 years
4 3 Esma’ail Ali Tamy Washa/Hajjah 3 years
5 4 Ali Hussayn Tamy Washa/Hajjah 3 years
6 5 Mahmud Ali Hussain Tamy Washa/Hajjah 3 years
7 6 Ali Muhammed Hasan Tamy Washa/Hajjah 3 years
8 7 Muhammed Ali Al Moa’aid Washa/Hajjah 3 years
9 8 Ali Hussayn Al Moa’aid Washa/Hajjah 3 years
10 9 Aziz Hussayn Al Moa’aid Washa/Hajjah 3 years
11 10 Abd Ulhakim Al Moa’aid Washa/Hajjah 3 years
12 11 Ali Muhammed Al rukhmy Washa/Hajjah 5 months
13 12 Ahmed Nasser Al waghirah Washa/Hajjah 5 m
14 13 Abd Ullah Abd Ullah Mashyb Washa/Hajjah 7 m
15 14 Jaber Hussain Mashyb Washa/Hajjah 7 m
16 15 Tawfiq Muhammed Haddan Sa’ada 2 Years
17 16 Ali Muhammed Al Moa’aid Aflah / Hajjah 3 years
18 17 Saleh Sa’aid Al hamdany Kutaf/Sa’ada 7 m
19 18 Qassim Hussain Daqea’a Haydan/Sa’ada 7 m
20 19 Jamal Hussain Hamed Athamer/Sa’ada 7 m
21 20 Muhammed Yahya Hamed Athamer/Sa’ada 7 m
22 21 Ahmed Hussain Al ssofi Athamer/Sa’ada 7 m
23 22 Abd Ulaziz Al mahbashi Al muhabisha/Hajjah 18 m
24 23 Ahmed Ajlan Al ne’emy Al muftah/Hajjah 18 m
25 24 Abd Usalam Al ne’emy Al muhabisha/Hajjah 7 m
26 25 Abd Ullah Muhammed Al muhadwary Al muhabisha/Hajjah 7 m
27 26 Fahd Mansowr Al aqhumy Kuhlan asharf/Hajjah 1 year
28 27 Abd Urahman Khaled al ne’emy Kuhlan asharf/Hajjah 1 year
29 28 Mattary Al muqrany Haydan/Sa’ada 7 m
30 29 Hameed Yahya Al muqrany Haydan/Sa’ada 7 m
31 30 Jaber Hussain Juhayz Aferah/Sa’ada 2 m
32 31 Jaber Al hezzy Aferah/Sa’ada 2 m
33 32 Abd Ulaziz Al awathy Ibb 2 m
34 33 Jaber Hussain Jabhan Razeh/Sa’ada 2 m
35 34 Sadan Hussain Jabhan Razeh/Sa’ada 2 m
36 35 Hasan Al rahwy Kuhlan asharf/Hajjah 3 m
37 36 Esma’ail Ahmed Al madwamy Al muhabisha/Hajjah 3 m
38 37 Jubran Hussain Majash Munabeh/Sa’ada 5 m
39 38 Abd Ullah Muhammed Al tha’eny Washa/Hajjah 5 m

That’s Yemen for you.

Yemen Post Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula AQAP rejected on Wednesday reports including statements by a Somali minister that it had relocated to Somalia, the News Yemen reported.

On the other hand, an official source said that security authorities had freed an Al-Qaeda-linked detainee, Arif Mujali who escaped from the Central Prison in Sana’a in 2006. Mujali was charged with attacking the French oil tanker off Mukalla port in 2002. Mujala was recently arrested among a group that planned to attack foreign missions in the country including the British embassy.

Once the Yemeni government starts releasing al Qaeda, we have to look to see what’s happening on the other side of the deal. Its usually a quid pro quo or a powerful military commander.

Update: the opposing view

LAT Sheik Mohammed Hamzi, an official of the Islamist Yemeni opposition party Islaah and the imam of the Al-Rahman mosque in the Yemeni capital of Sana, is one of those who staunchly opposes a legal ban on child marriage… “I am against the child marriage law because it restrains the freedom of others. When a certain age [for marriage] is set, it violates the rights of others. For example, imagine a young man of 13 or 14 years of age who wants to have sex. … This is a violation of his rights,” Sheik Hamzi told The Times in an interview at his Sana home last week.

Wow, how warped is that thinking? Boys have a right to have sex whenever they have the urge, but girls do not have the right not to be raped. On to the original post, an article published by the Yemen Times:

There is no law in Yemeni legislation that defines a minimum age for marriage. However, there are Islamic legislations that prevent men from forcing their wives into intercourse. Renowned religious scholar Mohammed Hassan said that the Islamic Jurisprudence prohibits forced intercourse between the husband and wife.

“If a woman is forced to bed by her husband, she should know that he is committing a sin and should be punished according the jurisprudence. She should not think that Islam discriminates against women, it is the sole act of this man,” he said.

He emphasized that, in Islam, marriage is a relationship based on kindness and empathy as read in the Roman’s Chapter in the Quran verse 21: “And among His signs is that He created spouses for you from yourselves for you to gain rest from them, and kept love and mercy between yourselves; indeed in this are signs for the people who ponder.”

“The essence of the marital relationship is passion and the husband should make his wife feel that he wants more than just her body for early pleasure but also her companionship and emotions, and so should the wife. Aggressiveness and violence in the bedroom is not acceptable in Islam,” he added.

The Prophet Mohammed (MPBH) had said: “Do not fall onto your wife like an animal, and have a messenger between the two of you.” He was asked: “What is this messenger?” He replied: “The kiss and the conversation.”

thats new

Yemenis protest against surging prices, south ‘violations’
All Africa.com

Thousands of Yemenis demonstrated on Thursday following a call by opposition parties to protest against rising goods prices as well as the authorities’ “violations” against southern activists.

Around 10,000 people gathered in a Sanaa stadium to protest against a recent 15 percent rise in custom duties on 71 types of imported goods, which pushed prices up in the impoverished country, an AFP correspondent reported.

“No to hunger, no to intimidation,” chanted demonstrators, referring also to Sanaa’s policy in dealing with southerners. (Read on …)

Its a google translation but you can get the idea. Arabic below:

In the name of God the Merciful
Saada, Yemen
2010/4/14

Brothers in / Human Rights Watch Distinguished
Greetings:

We appreciate your concern to the beginning of the safety of civilians and we thank you for your efforts you have made in this humanitarian issue, and you have some observations on what was in your latest report on the sixth war in northern Yemen.

First: that your condemnation of the Government of Yemen and Saudi Arabia does not rise to the level of horrific massacres against civilians, although we documented these crimes and we have published on the media and the testimonies of the citizens and the injured. (Read on …)

Anwar Awlaki’s brother Omar verbally attacked and threatened a Salafi researcher on al Qaeda as he was leaving a mosque in Sana’a yesterday. Saeed Obaid Jamahi said in an interview with al Tagheer (The Change), an independent news site, that Omar Awlaki confronted him and threatened to kill him in front of dozens of worshipers. Jamahi told al Tagheer the attack surprised him because he sympathizes with Awlaki’s cause and believes Awlaki should not be hunted or killed without clear evidence of wrong doing. Jamahi urged the Ministry of the Interior and Attorney General to do their duty and take the threats seriously.

Update from a witness: Saeed Ubeid was interviewed at his home by a western TV channel which was conducting a series of interviews for a program on Anwar al Awlaqi. As Anwar’s home was in the same neighborhood, the channel called Nassir al Alwalqi (Anwar’s father and a leading member of the ruling party) for an interview for the same program. But he instead refused to do, and asked the channel to stop “campaigning against his son” and insulted the channel aggressively. Afterward, Mr. Ubeid left his home for prayer in the neighborhood mosque, where he met with Anwar’s brother who insulted him, tried to physically attack him and threatened him with death. Update 2: Gulf News

See my article, Yemen’s Reign of Terror: Tortured Editor Al Maqaleh Comes to Bogus Trial, for background.

Near the Al Hurryia camp, a car bomb killed Colonel Nasser Saleh Al-Salim and wounded Ahmed Nasser Awad Antrdh Ateeqi. General Nuba accused the Yemeni government of the assassination. (Read on …)

Bingo! 32, that’s exactly what I needed to know. The prisoners are a huge issue and obstacle to peace. The Houthis had an official meeting with the JMP, that’s progress. It was al Alimi, one of Saleh’s oldest allies, that rescued the peace.

Yemen Times Because of technical disagreement on the implementation of these points, the peace process stopped and signs of conflict had started to show. However, personal intervention by Al-Alimi has succeeded and now the peace mediation committees are back to work in Harf Sufian and neighboring areas.

Among the points of disagreement were the release of Houthi detainees still in the state’s custody and the presence of Houthi militants in state premises in the Sa’ada and Amran governorates. Moreover, the issue of demining the northern governorates is also one of the debatable points as the Houthis claim state-planted antipersonnel mines have already maimed more than 100 people in Sana’a.

Houthi-opposition alliance The Joint Meeting Parties collation of six opposition political parties held its first meeting last Thursday with representatives of the Houthi insurgency. The meeting in Sa’ada concluded with a memo on points of mutual interest, including the need for national reform, and demanding a non-exclusion policy in national dialogue. This is the first meeting of its kind officially publicized in this way.

The Houthi groups have also given voice to their cause through civil society, especially with regards to the release of detainees. ‘The right to live with my father’ Child participants in a seminar organized by the Women’s Media Forum in Sana’a under the title “I have the right to live with my father” demanded the release of their fathers who are detained on the charge of being Houthis. The state has announced the release of 161 Houthi detainees since last month, but HOOD, the Yemeni Organization for the Defense of Rights and Freedoms, said only 32 detainees were actually released out of a total of 2,000. Simultaneously, the Houthis released 178 civilian and military men who had been detained by them during the recent war.

The law is regressive, tyrannical and stupid. A free media would enhance stability.

Sahwa Net:- Yemeni academics and politicians have described a new media draft law the Yemeni government plans to endorse it as a project for raising a crisis and ending what is remained of Yemen’s fledged democratic margin, demanding the government to drop such draft law. (Read on …)

ABC: An 11-year-old Yemeni girl who was was married to a man in country’s Hajja province was hospitalized today with genital injuries, said a human rights group in Sanaa.

It was the second incident involving a child bride in the last week. A 13-year-old girl died after being sexually assaulted by her adult husband. Both girls were married in the country’s rural Hajja province. (Read on …)

Sana’a, April 14, 2010 ( Pal Telegraph, by Anwar AL-Shoaybi)- Yemeni police forces broke up a local gang involved in forging e-identity cards for fugitives and HIV-patients, security sources reported Monday. (Read on …)

Wow!!!!!! Double wow. President Obama signed an executive order freezing the US assets of Somali pirates and militants, and Yemeni Fares Manna for violating the arms embargo on Somalia. Nice move!!! I guess Manna’s smuggled shipload of Chinese weapons (and all the ships before) didn’t exactly escape notice. Yemeni arms to Somalia is a main cause of instability, the UN found. I have no idea if Fares Manna has US assets, but for sure he’s a leading regional arms smuggler. I’ve been saying that for five years. Fares Manna was also the Yemeni government’s prime negotiator with the Houthi rebels and his brother Hassan was the governor of the war torn Sa’ada governorate until Fares was arrested last month.

AP Obama’s action would allow the Treasury Department to sanction or freeze the assets of individuals involved in piracy off Somalia’s coast or militants who have done anything to threaten the shaky nation’s stability. (Read on …)

Yemen’s Foreign Minister Abu Baker al Qirby urged Anwar Awlaki to turn himself to be tried under Yemeni law, vowing that no Yemeni citizen would be extradited to the US or any other country.

The US announced last week that it had authorized Awlaki’s kill or capture, having determined he is an active al Qaeda operative. Awlaki was previously known for brainwashing vulnerable persons on the internet. Awlaki holds duel Yemeni-American citizenship.

“Yemen is going to prosecute those within its territory, and they will be punished according to the law if found guilty of any crimes punishable by the law,” al-Qirby said in an interview published by the quasi governmental Yemen Observer.

There is one small problem. Yemen’s law does not criminalize jihad abroad in defense of occupied Muslim lands. If Anwar Awlaki, or any other Yemeni jihaddist, is guilty of conspiring to commit murder in the US, there’s no law in Yemen that prohibits or punishes it. Yemeni courts have explicitly accepted jihad as a viable defense.

In one notable terror trial in July 2006, the defendants admitted to fighting in Iraq against coalition forces as well as training suicide bombers. “This does not violate [Yemeni] law,” the judge found. “Islamic Sharia law permits jihad against occupiers,” he said.

Jihad on American Soldiers and American Civilians

What is jihad? A lethal shooting spree at Fort Hood, according to Anwar Awlaki. Awlaki was in contact with Nidal Hassan prior to the attack and issued a statement after, entitled “Nidal Hassan is a hero.”

Personable and easy spoken, Awlaki is the calm western voice of al Qaeda’s bloody fanaticism that slipped under the door of many English speaking homes. His logic of random slaughter is chilling: “Nidal opened fire on soldiers who were on their way to be deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan. How can there be any dispute about the virtue of what he has done?” Some of Yemen’s religious authorities also consider US troops as legitimate targets of terrorism.

Yemen’s Koranic dialog program, aimed at reforming al Qaeda terrorists, never discouraged fighting in Iraq. An expedited release program, the dialog program discouraged religious fanatics from defining the regime of President Ali Abdullah Saleh as an apostate. The program’s director, Judge Hamoud al Hittar said in 2005, “Iraq is not a subject of the dialogue.” Al Hittar has since become Minster of Endowments. Some state clerics in Yemen call for harm to the US in weekly prayers.

The Yemeni judicial system and religious authorities have found that US soldiers are legitimate targets. Does it matter if they are in Iraq or the US? Yemeni courts would likely agree with Anwar Awlaki that Fort Hood is a legitimate target of jihad.

Awlaki goes further and defines ordinary Americans as sanctioned victims of terrorism. Awlaki was joyous in praising Umar Farouk Abdulmutalla, who tried to blow up a Detroit-bound airliner on Dec. 25. Exploding a jet plane in mid air is legitimate under Islamic law, he says, because “the American populace is living within a democratic regime and they hold the responsibility of its policies.” Awlaki defines all Americans civilians as worthy of a death sentence because they are “participant in all the crimes of their government.”

Yemen’s President Ali Abdullah Saleh openly supports many external resistance groups. Hamas and Hezbollah both have official offices in Yemen. A variety of other regional death cults maintain informal offices.

as we reported yesterday. Its funny how often media hoaxes happen in Yemen. The following from the quasi-governmental Yemen Observer, the English language propaganda arm of the regime:

Al-Qirbi said that al-Awlaki should hand himself over to Yemeni government, and at that point he will be able to defend himself and prove his innocence. “Yemen won’t hand over al-Awlaki or any other Yemeni citizens wanted by the United States, or any other countries. Yemen is going to prosecute those within its territory, and they will be punished according to the law if found guilty of any crimes punishable by the law,” al-Qirbi added.

In the meanwhile, Sheikh Abu Bakr Ben Farid al-Awlaki, a sheikh in Shabwah province, denied that there was a tribal forum in al-Awalek’s tribe, regarding Anwar al-Awlaki. A statement, allegedly attributed to the al-Awalek tribes, had been distributed to Yemeni media outlets warning against any cooperation with America in helping arrest or kill al-Awlaki.

Ben Farid said that his tribe’s stand is the same as the state’s and that they are avoiding any further confrontations with the state. “We do not know al-Awlaki’s whereabouts,” said Ben Farid to NewsYemen website.

Yemen MP on hunger strike

Abdullah Qaid- For Armies of Liberation

Sana’a, Tuesday, 13/4/2010

Mr. Ahmed Saif Hashid, Yemen Member of Parliament, starting this morning at 10:00 am went on a hunger strike of 24 hours inside the House of Representatives protesting on the confiscation of his parliamentary rights and duties by the Presidency Council of the House of Representatives.

“I decided to go on hunger strike as a result of forbidding me to practice my parliamentary rights and oversight duties in questioning ministers and exercising activities including visiting prisons, particularly the prison of Political Security in Sana’a”, Hashid sad. “My request based on the item No. 97 of the Yemeni Constitution and the items No. 154, 155, 156 of the Regulation of the House that every member of the House has the right to question the Prime Minister, his deputies and Ministers”, he added.

Yesterday, Hashid brought two written requests to the Speaker of the House; the first was to question the Deputy Prime Minister of Defense and Security Affairs and the Minister of Interior being responsible to prosecute the free murders of three of his constituents in Habeel Jabr, Lahj Gov., the second was to allow him to visit the prison of Political Security in Sana’a in which 9 persons were arrested for more than 5 years illegally without bringing them to the court, but the speaker of the House neglected both of my requests completely and eliminated them to be included even in the record of the session of yesterday Monday, 12/4/2010.

On the 9th July, 2009, three persons, worked as sweet-makers and belongs to Hashid’s constituency 70, al-Qabaita district, were killed in Habeel Jabr by a person alleged Ali Saif al-Abdulli, the crime which draws the attention of press and was covered by many media outlines due to its horribleness to become a case of public opinion.

In this respect, Hashid, among other MPs, raised the case in the House which adopted a decision on 12th July, 2009, in which it fixed 48 hours as an opportunity for the Deputy Prime Minister of Defense and Security Affairs and the Minister of Interior to catch the murderers, unless their offices as Ministers will be withdrawn by the House, but neither any one of the murders has been captured nor any serious security action has been taken to arrest them by the concerned ministries. Moreover, no action has been taken by the House concerning the two mentioned ministers.

Although, Hashid previously brought a written request, approved by 43 MPs, to the Speaker of the House to question the Deputy Prime Minister of Defense and Security Affairs and the Minister of Interior, no one of the ministers has been questioned.

Referring to that, Hashid informed the House before that he will go on hunger strike, if the House will not enable him to practice his right in question the abovementioned Ministers.

A former f-16 pilot is going to engage US and military officials and defense contractors on behalf of Yemen, hire a public relations firm, make introductions, get financing, etc etc… But does Yemen need to buy more weapons? I hope he understands who he is dealing with; who would want to be the rep for a mass murderer?

The Hill: A former U.S. Air Force F-16 pilot is in talks with the government of Yemen to become its lobbyist in an effort to boost the country’s defense forces. (Read on …)

Seyaj’s contact info and the Arabic version below the fold. Related Saba news article here.

Press Release: A letter to the Minister of Interior about the trafficking of kidneys

Seyaj organization for childhood protection demanded the Minister of Interior to bring a number of detainees including citizens from Arab nationalities to the prosecution and justice on the charge of trafficking in human organs of Yemeni citizens including children. (Read on …)

Related: 1) Al Fadhli suspends truce with government, 2) Youtube video shows dead protester being dragged around by security forces, 3) Aden Press Agency reports a military build up in advance of a funeral march and 4) Women visiting hospital arrested in Aden.

DALEH, Yemen (AFP) – A bomb wounded two Yemeni civilians in Daleh on Thursday, as police fired warning shots to disperse protestors in the southern town hit by a series of strikes, activists said. (Read on …)

A good article with a historical overview, click here.

Four to trial on charges of spying for Iran:

Yemen put four Shi’ite rebel supporters on trial on Monday on charges of spying for Iran in a move that could strain a truce to end a northern war that drew in neighboring oil giant Saudi Arabia last year.

Prosecutors asked for the death penalty for the men, a prosecution official said. The four were accused of handing Shi’ite Iran photographs of security and military installations as well as ports and islands, the indictment said. (Read on …)

The Sheik of the Awlaki tribe in Yemen denied that tribal leaders held a meeting regarding Anwar Awlaki or threatened Yemeni citizens as is being widely reported in the Western media.

Reuters reported receiving a faxed statement last week from the Awalki tribe that said, “We warn against cooperating with America to kill Sheikh Anwar al-Awlaki” after the Obama administration announced that it authorized operations to kill or capture Anwar Awlaki, who holds duel Yemeni American citizenship.

News Yemen, a reliable independent news website, interviewed the head of the Awlaki tribe, Sheik bin Fareed, who denied a statement was issued. “We haven’t held any meeting of our tribe regarding Anwar Awalki. What has been published doesn’t reflect our tribe’s attitude,” the Sheik said

Sheik bin Fareed said his tribe is loyal to the government, and that they are working to keep their tribe from becoming embroiled in any acts of violence or revenge. “We can’t let government down,” he said.

Sheik bin Fareed added that the responsibility for the arrest of Anwar Awalaki lies with the government’s forces, not the tribe’s, saying, “We don’t know where Awlaki is. The government is the one who knows where Anwar Awlaki is and is capable to arrest him, because she is responsible for that.”

Reuters reported the “heavily armed” Awalki tribe warned it would “not remain with arms crossed if a hair of Anwar al-Awlaqi is touched, or if anyone plots or spies against him.” The purported statement also said that tribal leaders held a meeting and denounced “the reckless act by the U.S. government to allow the killing of the brave sheikh.”

Reuters employs President Saleh’s personal translator as a stringer in Yemen, and its reporting is often biased in favor of the Yemeni government. (Read on …)

God help us all.

Boston Herald: A 13-year-old Yemeni child bride who bled to death shortly after marriage was tied down and forced to have sex by her husband, according to interviews with the child’s mother, police and medical reports.

The girl’s mother, Nijma Ahmed, 50, told the Associated Press that before her daughter lost consciousness, she said that her husband had tied her up and forced himself on her. “She looked like she was butchered,” she said about her daughter’s injuries.

Elham Assi, 13, bled to death hours after she spoke to her mother and just days after she was married to a 23-year-old man. She died on April 2 in the deeply poor Yemeni village of Shueba, some 200 kilometers northwest of the capital. Her husband, Abed al-Hikmi, is in police custody.

The practice of marrying young girls is widespread in Yemen where a quarter of all females marry before the age of 15, according to a 2009 report by the country’s Ministry of Social Affairs. Traditional families prefer young brides because they are seen as more obedient and are expected to have more children.

Legislation to ban child brides has been stalled by opposition from religious leaders. There has been no government comment over the case.

The girl — one of eight siblings — was pushed into marriage after an agreement between her brother and her future-husband to marry each other’s sisters to avoid having to pay expensive bride-prices — a common arrangement in Yemen, the poorest country in the Middle East.

According to police notes from the interrogation of the husband, he was upset because he could not consummate their relationship and felt under pressure to prove his manhood.

Assi’s mother said she also tried to persuade her daughter to have sex with her husband so as not to shame the family.

Al-Hikmi took his young bride to a nearby medical clinic, asking a doctor there to administer her tranquilizers so she would not resist his advances. The clinic said it refused.

Al-Hikmi then obtained performance enhancing pills, according to the police interrogation, and that night completed the act while she screamed.

The next day, he returned to the same medical clinic carrying Assi because she could not walk.

“I told him not to go near her for at least ten days,” said Dr. Fathiya Haidar. She said Assi’s vaginal canal was ripped.

A forensic report obtained by the AP showed that Assi’s injuries were much more extensive, including extensive tearing around the vagina and rectum, suggesting that there might have been additional intercourse after the clinic visit.

Her mother said she visited Assi later that day, where she found her daughter fading in and out of consciousness.

“She whispered in my ear that he had tied her up and had sex with her violently,” she said. “I said to her husband, what have you done, you criminal?”

She said al-Hikmi told her that the young bride was just possessed by spirits and said he would take her to a folk healer to cast them out. Hours later, Assi was dead.

“She asked me to stay beside her,” her mother said. (Read on …)

This poor guy is in jail for a year for publishing news of the southern unrest on his website.

Sahwa Net – Editor-in-chief of a Yemeni news website, Faud Rushdi was attacked on Thursday by a group of prisoners inside the Central Prison in Sana’a’.
(Read on …)

Yemen’s National Dialog Committee published an English language summary of its National Salvation Plan yesterday. The document is available at http://yemenvision.wordpress.com/ The National Dialog Committee (NDC) is an important Yemeni civil society coalition dedicated to creating a forum and consensus on a peaceful route to popular empowerment.

The National Dialog Committee is comprised of members of the opposition party alliance, the Joint Meeting Parties (JMP) along with independents, some of the ruling General People’s Congress party members and prominent social figures including political leaders, tribal sheiks, businessmen and intellectuals. It is headed by Mr. Mohammed Salem Basandwah, an adviser to President Ali Abdullah Saleh. The JMP’s Hamid Al-Ahmer is its Secretary General. The group is dedicated to building a national consensus on the issues facing Yemen and implementing solutions through peaceful means.

Yemen is a hyper-political state where benefit accrues from proximity to President Saleh, his family and his tribesmen who control much of the military and security forces, the economy and political system. The high degree of cronyism means that state bureaucracies are dysfunctional and corrupt. Basic services are nearly absent and the black market is thriving. Yemen’s water shortage gave rise to water barons who thwart implementation of water strategies. Land theft by officials is overt and further centralizes the economy. The rule of law is absent; the powerful flout the law and the weak are subject to retaliatory verdicts. Yemeni children are the second most malnourished globally and half of Yemenis are under 24 years old.

The JMP faces criticism on the street as “the other face of the regime,” interested in retaining power, corrupt, disconnected from the citizenry, and restricting itself to complaining without opposing due to the Saleh government’s brutality. The political party system is dominated by historical personalities, rebuffing the energy of Yemen’s youthful population. However some members of the JMP have made dedicated efforts to expand the horizons of hope in Yemen, often with tragic consequences.

Years of Reform Efforts Blocked

The opposition Joint Meeting Parties contains ideologically diverse political parties joined together in a pragmatic quest, the rescue of Yemen. The architect of the rapprochement between the Yemeni Socialist Party and the Islamic Reform Grouping, Jarallah Omar, was assassinated in 2002 by a fundamentalist who, authorities claim, was working alone.

In 2005, it became obvious that economic reform was vital to the survival of the nation. Depleting oil coupled with rampant corruption and abuse of power had distorted Yemen’s economy to the point where only a handful benefited from natural resources and foreign aid, unemployment was staggering and development stalled. But economic reform was contingent on political reform, the opposition parties found, as powerful interests continually blocked efforts to rationalize the economy. The JMP released a reform initiative calling for the establishment of a Parliamentary system of governance.

They were soon to learn that if economic reform is contingent on political reform, then political reform is contingent on electoral reform. In the 2006 elections, members of the ruling party had overwhelming advantage in local elections, and President Saleh won his re-election handily against his rival, the JMP’s Faisal bin Shamlan. The JMP agreed not to dispute the election’s results in exchange for an agreement with the GPC to overhaul the electoral system. Recommendations from the European Union’s Mission to Yemen were to be the starting point.

Following the election, Salah’s regime rounded up activists who campaigned for the opposition candidate, imprisoning some and firing others from civil service jobs. Electoral reform stalled when the JMP and GPC could not agree on the terms or scope of negotiations. The JMP also insisted on the release of political prisoners prior to discussions.

The Vision of Salvation

Yemen has since seen two brutal wars in northern Sa’ada and an exploding anti-government sentiment in the south provinces that eventually morphed into an independence movement, largely due to the states brutal response to the peaceful protests.

With electoral reform stalled in Yemen, and civil unrest threatening to drive the state to failure, the National Dialog Committee formed a broad coalition among predominant social groups to devise a plan for “National Salvation.” The grouping finds the central issue is “the personalization of the state” that has devolved into a clan-based structure dedicated to retaining power and acquiring personal wealth. In the absence of a functional parliament the NDC’s strategy for Yemen relies on a conference representing the people of Yemen and their communities. (Read on …)

The second most malnourished child population in the world is going to lose aid from the World Food Program unless donors step up to the plate.

YEMEN: Food crunch warning for July

Source: United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs – Integrated Regional Information Networks (IRIN) Date: 07 Apr 2010

Aid organizations are warning of a food crisis in Yemen unless international food aid funding is dramatically increased before June 2010.

The World Food Programme (WFP) says it has only received a quarter of its annual budget for 2010 (US$25.6 million out of $103.2 million), and will run out of food for 3.2 million people by the end of June. (Read on …)

What is that, about 400K US? And the story is the Health and Education Ministries withdrew the 400K for salaries from a bank in Zanzibar, Abyan and were driving back when they were highjacked and robbed, and no one could call the nearby military camp because the phone lines were cut by the state earlier in the month. There was an earlier bank robbery in Aden.

Yemen Observer Unknown gunmen seized a car carrying the salaries of the Education and Health Ministries in Loder District in Abyan on Wednesday in the biggest armed robbery operation. (Read on …)

A PSA from your friendly neighborhood dictator: Unity or Death!

The following is really an incredible interview. Saleh is quite delusional. Murdering your own citizens in “normal” and a regular democratic practice, he says. Everything is fine in the south, and there’s no cause for concern but the idea of federalism is aposty! Saleh also retracts prior accusations of Iranian support of the Houthi rebels.

He who calls for secession has no place among sons of the Yemeni people: President
Monday, 05-April-2010 Almotamar.net – President Ali Abdullah Saleh has emphasized that the Yemeni unity was founded to stay and protected by the will of the people and there is not worry about it from any tempests or bubbles emerging every now and then.

In his response to a question on the situations in the southern and eastern provinces, President Saleh said, “The situation in the southern and eastern provinces is ordinary and some media outlets rage or magnify what happens in Yemen, as it is considered a democratic country, whether those were sits-in or demonstrations or protests, happen in Yemen as it happens in any country in the world.” (Read on …)

This is from the guy who said women cant talk and remember at the same time. At least I think thats what he said because I can’t remember now that I’m talking. Sheik Zindani has a new statement that nine is a fine age to marry and any one who supports a ban on child rape is an apostate. Its not a small thing in Yemen to be takfired, and it comes with a level of risk. First though, the news that a 13 year old child died from bleeding four days into her marriage. The tragedy reminds me of the 12 year old who died in childbirth after four days of painful labor.

WaPo Some of Yemen’s most influential Islamic leaders, including one the U.S. says mentored Osama bin Laden, have declared supporters of a ban on child brides to be apostates.

The religious decree, issued Sunday, deeply imperils efforts to salvage legislation that would make it illegal for those under the age of 17 to marry.

The practice is widespread in Yemen and has been particularly hard to discourage in part because of the country’s gripping poverty – bride-prices in the hundreds of dollars are especially difficult for poor families to pass up. (Read on …)

Jane Novak, Yemen Times: The announcement that al Qaeda in Yemen’s (AQIY) leadership escaped to Somalia in recent weeks is not the end of Yemen’s terrorism woes, but may instead signal the Yemeni al Qaeda group is taking a leading regional role among al Qaeda factions from Saudi Arabia to Somalia and beyond.

The flight of al Qaeda’s leadership is at best a temporary move and at worst may be an indication of continuing collusion between Yemeni President Saleh and terrorists seeking to harm the US.

Al Qaeda in Yemen dubbed itself “Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula” in January 2009 after it integrated Saudi al Qaeda figures driven to Yemen by the kingdom’s harsh counter-terror measures. Last month Saudi Arabia announced the arrest of over 100 al Qaeda operatives including 51 Yemenis. Explosive belts were seized. Saudi authorities reported the group had been planning attacks on oil and security targets inside the kingdom on orders from leaders in Yemen, indicating the group’s continued focus on and capacity within Saudi Arabia. Al Qaeda’s movement from Yemen to Somalia is much different than its earlier shift from Saudi Arabia to Yemen.

By air or by sea?
The relative ease with which these wanted leaders exited Yemen is an indication of the weakness of Yemen’s effort in combating the group. One group of about 15 AQIY operatives including prominent leaders departed the al Mukalla port in early March, Yemeni sources reported. The exiled AQIY group issued orders from Somalia to cells in Yemen to cease activities, communication and meetings until the end of June by when they expect Yemeni security efforts to relax.

Mukallah is a primary debarkation point for illegal weapons flooding into Somalia. The UN monitoring group on the Somali arms embargo found that the lack of regular Coast Guard patrols in al Mukalla “means that arms traffic continues unabated.” The port is under the control of the Republican Guard, headed by President Saleh’s son, and the Central Security, headed by his nephew and is notorious as a drug smuggling hub as well.

Somali sources tell a different story. An al Qaeda group arrived in Somalia from Yemen via plane disguised as humanitarian workers. Somalia officials said 12 Yemeni commanders arrived in the last two weeks of March and were carrying cash to aid the al Qaeda linked al Shabab’s recruiting efforts. Somali Treasury Minister Abdirahman Omar Osman said that AQIY’s purpose in Somalia was to “assess the situation to see if al Qaeda may move its biggest military bases to southern Somalia since they are facing a lot of pressure in Afghanistan and Iraq.”

The designation of AQIY as al Qaeda Central’s forward scouts and terror tutors in Somalia indicates the predominance of the group among all regional affiliates, a function of the comfort level that the core al Qaeda has with its Yemeni affiliate.

Hybred al Qaeda
Al Qaeda in Yemen is unique among terror groups due to its enmeshment with the state. The Yemeni government portrayed al Qaeda’s exodus as an indication of its success in cracking down on the terror group, but President Saleh’s regime has a long history of appeasement and facilitation of al Qaeda. Aspects of the security, military and intelligence forces have long been co-opted by al Qaeda operatives, sympathizers and veterans.

The Yemeni al Qaeda and Al Qaeda Central, specifically bin Laden and Zawaheri, have long standing ties with President Saleh. Bin Laden notoriously advised his minions in Afghanistan to surrender, not fight, if they were captured in Yemen. Ayman al Zawaheri was reportedly in and out of Yemen through the 1990’s and again in 2001. Saleh released Khalid bin Attash from jail at the request of bin Laden in 1999, the 9/11 commission found. Attash later went on to a leading role in the terror attack on the USS Cole.

State resources comprise an essential part of al Qaeda in Yemen’s infrastructure. Conversely, the Yemeni regime has used al Qaeda as mercenaries in the Sa’ada Wars (2004-2010) and trains them in state run camps.

While President Saleh may lack both the will and capacity to combat al Qaeda, Yemeni tribes resent the intrusion of al Qaeda, their foreign ideology and norms, and have created an inhospitable environment in many areas. A study by Sarah Phillips at the Carnegie Foundation found that “Al-Qaeda’s goal of establishing an international caliphate, propensity for extreme violence against civilians, and hard-line religious ideology conflict with local norms and weaken al-Qaeda’s appeal to the Yemeni people, including the tribes.”

A new deal?
The relocation may be the fruition of an earlier offer by President Saleh bribing the group to leave Yemen. The Telegraph reported that in January 2009, Yemen offered to free all imprisoned al-Qaeda militants if the group agreed to leave the country. President Saleh also offered money to the AQIY’s leadership. Yemen released over 100 jihaddists as a good will gesture to al Qaeda and then defended the release internationally as good governance. According to a former government official, Tariq al Fadhli, the men were al Qaeda members and the move was part of the broader negotiation with al Qaeda.

The duplicity of the Yemeni government is notorious, extensive and sometime comical. Authorities announced the death, three times, of AQIY leader Qasim al Reimi although he is alive. A March report by the Yemeni weekly Attagammua indicated that Ammar al Waeli, reported killed by the authorities is fact in Saada, alive and well and recruiting for al Qaeda. Al Waeli was listed on a US 2002 seeking information bulletin, implicated in the 2007 murder of eight Spanish tourists and two Yemeni guides in Mareb and declared dead by Yemeni authorities on January 15, 2010.

This level of duplicity is long standing. In 2004, Yemen reported to the US that Aden Abyan Army leader Khalidabdul Nabi was killed in a firefight when in reality he had been captured and let go.

Until they release the photos, here’s some photos and witness testimony from 2005: click here and here and here and here and here.

Amnesty International via News Yemen The scale of the devastation caused by Yemeni and Saudi Arabian aerial bombardments of the northern Yemeni region of Sa’ada has been revealed in hundreds of images obtained by Amnesty International.

The pictures, given to Amnesty International by an independent source and taken in March 2010 in and around the town of al-Nadir, show buildings destroyed between August 2009 and February 2010 during the latest in a series of clashes between Yemeni forces and supporters of a Shi’a cleric.

Among the damaged or destroyed civilian buildings photographed are market places, mosques, petrol stations, small businesses, a primary school, a power plant, a health centre – and dozens of houses and residential buildings.

“This is a largely invisible conflict that has been waged behind closed doors. These images reveal the true scale and ferocity of the bombing and the impact it had on the civilians caught up in it,” said Philip Luther, Deputy Director of Amnesty International’s Middle East and North Africa programme.

“This information has only now come to light through Yemenis who fled the conflict and have reached other parts of the country.”

International humanitarian law forbids the targeting of civilian objects, as well as indiscriminate and disproportionate attacks on civilians, during conflicts. If such attacks are carried out deliberately, they are war crimes.

I thought I had posted this already, but I can’t find it. Its not only the PSO that is infested with jihaddis but also the military, security and National Security which is headed by President Saleh’s office manager since 1988, Ali al Ansi.

CIA and Yemen playing a doubles game
If Yemen seems like a terrorist playground today, the answer might be that its top intelligence service is run by jihadis.

According to a report in the reliable Paris-based Intelligence Online newsletter, White House counterterrorism adviser John Brennan, “who has traveled twice to Yemen in the last six months, has been told by his advisers that Yemen’s Political Security Organization has been infiltrated at the highest levels by jihadists active in the country.”

A Brennan spokesman declined to comment on the report, which most likely originated in the region. But it came as no surprise to a top former CIA counterterrorism official, who said with a chuckle: “that report is stating the obvious.” (Read on …)

Anwar as the number one terrorist threatening the US and the driver behind AQIY’s apparent shift to targeting the US homeland, questionable. Related: Awlaki issues audio calling for attacks on US.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The Obama administration has authorized operations to capture or kill a U.S.-born Muslim cleric based in Yemen, who is described by a key lawmaker as Americas’s top terrorist threat, officials said on Tuesday. (Read on …)

I really hope this is true, not only for the individuals detained but also for the chance of a lasting peace in the Sa’ada War. It would be the first evidence of learning I’ve seen yet, usually its the same mistakes over and over, and bigger and bigger. The political prisoners are a hot button issue that just creates more instability and resentment. Of course this is coming on the heels of the sentences in the south including the college professor sentenced to three years for an article. As always the same caveat, I’ll believe it when I see it. The regime announced the release of 635 Houthis several times from 2005-2008, but they were never actually released. Now they are announcing 161 prisoners were released but no one can confirm it yet. Another tangential question is, are there going to be al Qaeda mixed in, as an accommodation to the fact that some of the leadership fled to Somalia.

News Yemen: President Ali Abdullah Saleh ordered the release of all detainees in connection with anti-government protests in Hadramout province over the past months including journalist Fuad Rashid.

President Saleh’s order came in response to a call by leading members of the Joint Meeting Parties, political and social figures and members of the local authority and the Shura Council for the release of all detainees, MP for Islah party Mohsen Basura told News Yemen.

The JMP’s members have urged President Saleh to release detainees in order to pave the way for a national dialogue and making peace in Hadramout, Basura said.

On Monday, President Saleh ordered the authorities in Hadramout to release journalist Awadh Kashmim who was detained for two weeks.

The authorities have also recently released 161 Houthi rebels arrested during conflict with the army in northern Sa’ada.

Last Wednesday, the opposition Joint Meeting Parties demanded that the authorities release detainees and stop pursuing political activists and journalists as one of several conditions to start a real dialogue on political and economic reforms in the country.

Scaled down attacks, pleading with lone wolves to attack and bypassing controversy by keeping focus on the US are all indications of weakness.

Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (Part 1/3)

Yemen Times
(Read on …)

WaTi In Yemen, it is also difficult to know where Islamic fundamentalism ends and support for al Qaeda begins, said Yemeni political analyst Ali Saif Hassan. Yemen’s conservative Salafi branch of Sunni Islam is growing rapidly, he said. But he noted that just because Salafis share ideological roots with Osama bin Laden, it does not mean they support al Qaeda. Salafi religious zeal has made it easy to recruit believers who have nothing to do with al Qaeda to fight socialists in the south, and northern Shi’ite rebels. “They support the government and have free reign to operate,” Mr. Hassan said. (Read on …)

In another version of the story, the police threw the bomb at the inmates. The Yemen Times recaps the protests and violence in Lahj and Dhalie. Update: 26 September says Interior Ministry denies the report (this is version four of the story) and says the media is repeating the news in an effort to create confusion.

SANAA, April 1 (Xinhua) — More than 30 detainees escaped on Thursday after a bomb attacked a prison in the troubled southern Yemeni province of al-Dhalee, security officials in al-Dhalee told Xinhua.

The attack took place early morning when pro-independence protesters took to street and headed to the Security Administration building in the capital city of al-Dhalee, demanding the release of their fellow jailed people, said the sources.

“They approached the security building in an attempt to break in and threw a bomb at the nearby door of the building’s prison,” said the security official on condition of anonymity.

“The explosion almost smashed the prison’s door,” said the source, adding that “undetermined (number of) inmates and policemen were wounded and more than 30 prisoners escaped.”

Additional security troops were deployed around and in the city of al-Dhalee in a bid to chase the escaped prisoners and arrest the rioters.

Meanwhile, in southern Yemeni province of Lahj, at least one southern protester was killed and two others injured Thursday when a demonstration to demand the release of pro-separatist prisoners sparked into clashes with security forces, according to the same source.