Armies of Liberation

The story dovetails oddly with the entirely bizarre report from Haaretz of the intercepted AQAP communications detailing schematics for making a drone using a car engine… The al Qaeda operative was arrested about 25 days ago in al Baydha, which may indicate some movement of AQAP out of Abyan. And the CDs are supposed to have details on making UAVs.

SANAA – Yemeni police have arrested a suspected Al-Qaeda member in possession of documents of propaganda of extremist network, announced the Ministry of Interior on its website Sunday.

* The suspect, 26, identified as D. Charkane, was arrested in the province of Al-Baidah (268 km southeast of Sanaa), where police seized in his car 268 CDs containing propaganda material of Al-Qaeda leaders and photos of network leader Osama bin Laden.
* Some disks show different types of UAV and information on such devices as well as satellite images of traditional houses in Yemen, the ministry added, indicating that the suspect was interrogated by security services on the papers seized on him.
* Security forces are on high alert in their hunt for supporters of the extremist network, especially since the missed attack of Christmas 2009 against the Amsterdam-Detroit flight, claimed by al-Qaeda in Yemen.

Naba

قالت الأجهزة الأمنية في اليمن أنها ضبطت مشتبه بانتمائه لتنظيم القاعدة في اليمن وبحوزته وثائق مهمة . Said security forces in Yemen said they seized suspected of belonging to al-Qaeda in Yemen and in possession of important documents.

وأضافت الأجهزة الأمنية: إن أمن محافظة البيضاء ضبط شخصا يدعى(د-ص-ا-شرقان) يبلغ من العمر 26 عاما على خلفية الاشتباه بعلاقته بالعناصر الإرهابية. The security: The security of the province of white people named set (d – r – a – Herquan) at the age of 26 years on suspicion of its relationship with terrorist elements. (Read on …)

As Yemen’s blockade on southern Yemen enters its third week, stocks of food, medicine and oil have dwindled to dangerous levels. Prices have skyrocketed and already malnourished children bear the brunt of the military action.

The blockade began 17 days ago when the Western Armored Division established new checkpoints on roads and at city entrances preventing the flow of persons and commerce including food, medicine, oil and water. The blockade has cut off Radfan, Yafea, al Dhala, al Melah, al Habeelan, al Shaib, Gahaf, Lazarik, and parts of Shabwah.

The main road between Aden and al Dahlie is closed. Al Habaleen, Lahj was indiscriminately shelled three days ago after two soldiers were killed in an ambush. Another ambush in al Melah killed one soldier, and authorities have accused renegade elements of the southern independence movement with the attacks.

Nearly one thousand have fled Radfan, al Habaleen and al Bilah seeking safety. Like the 250,000 internally displaced by the Sa’ada War, these are mostly women and children. On May 24, a pregnant woman en route to a hospital in Aden was stopped at a military checkpoint and later died in childbirth. Due to the blockade, people in need of medical treatment have not had access to doctors in nearly a month.

Reports indicate a heavy military mobilization including tanks and armored personnel carriers. As during the Saada war, a total media blackout is in place, often accomplished by the arrest of southern journalists. An American journalist was expelled from Yemen last week after visiting Yafee, a center of southern resistance.

On May 22, the 20th anniversary of Yemeni unity, President Saleh announced the pardon of southern journalists and other political prisoners. Several high profile journalists were released, but others remain imprisoned and hundreds of others arrested during protests remain jailed.

Baggash Al Aghbari has been in prison since his arrest in 1994, despite several amnesties for southerners announced over the following decade. Al Aghbari was never charged or tried but was thought to be among the activists that triggered the civil war.

The southern independence movement began as a call for equal rights in 2007. As the state imprisoned thousands and police killed hundreds during peaceful demonstrations, the movement gained supporters and its goals evolved to calls for independence.

he northern Yemeni Arab Republic and the southern Peoples Democratic Republic of Yemen unified in 1990 and fought a brief civil war in 1994. Southerners claim unity was imposed by force in violation of the UN resolutions. Northern hegemony brought institutionalized discrimination more akin to occupation than unity that reached into areas of employment, education and development. However, the massive corruption of the Saleh regime means that all citizens outside the circle of elite power are subject to retribution by the state including the judiciary, police and civil service. All Yemenis suffer from the near absence of basic services arising from chronic mismanagement and insider infighting and embezzlement.

With a peace deal concluded in February ending the northern Sa’ada War, President Ali Abdullah Saleh heightened the military presence in the south. Yemen’s conduct of the Saada war generated 250,000 internal refugees with arbitrary aerial bombing of civilian areas and a strict blockade of food, medicine and international aid.

Human Rights Watch has called for an investigation into war crimes committed during the Saada war.

Yemen’s previous violations of international law related the southern protests include mass arbitrary arrests and the murder of hundreds of peaceful protesters, rights organizations charged. As tensions mounted over the last year, some northern merchants and travelers were targets of violence in southern areas

UPDATE: Cell phone video shot today: Yemeni military armored vehicle in al Hableen ran over and killed a motorcyclist suspected of sympathies with the separatists.

The Chinese and the Dutch at least report the non-al Qaeda news. And apparently the official statement is… the motorcyclists started shooting after the armored vehicle ran him over, so they killed him. On a brighter note, regime decided late today to start pretending they opened the Aden – al Dhalie road. People’s Daily:

Two pro-separatist southern activists opened fire at an army’s vehicle after they were mistakenly hit by the vehicle. The two were then killed in the clashes in al-Melah district in the southern province of Lahj, said Kasim al-Afefi, deputy governor of Lahj.

Another three southerners were injured as well as a privately- owned shop and a car were burnt in the clashes, he added.

Meanwhile, al-Afefi said “the security committee and local council in the province reached an agreement today to re-open a main highway linking al-Dhalee-Radfan-Lahj and the southern city port of Aden after being closed for about two weeks due to riots and instability.”

Reuters

(Reuters) – An assassination on Yemeni territory of a radical Muslim cleric wanted dead or alive by U.S. authorities would be unacceptable, the Yemeni prime minister said on Sunday. (Read on …)

The Yemeni military, finished destroying Sa’ada, have turned more attention to the south, using the same tactics of collective punishment including blockade, denying the freedom of movement as well as the import of food, gas and medicine. There’s a siege for the past 16 days in Radfan, Yafea, al Dhala, al Melah, al Habeelan, al Shaib, Gahaf, Lazarik, and Shabwah. On the 18th, the military began shelling al Habeelan, Lahj following a bloody clashes.

Reports indicate a heavy military mobilization including tanks, missiles and other artillery but are difficult to confirm in the total media blackout. An American journalist was expelled from Yemen last week after visiting Yafee, a center of southern resistance. On May 24, a pregnant woman attempting to get to a hospital in Aden was stopped at a military checkpoint and later died in childbirth.

On May 22, the 20th anniversary of Yemeni unity, President Saleh announced the pardon of southern journalists and other political prisoners and several high profile journalists were released, but others remain imprisoned and hundreds of others arrested during protests remain jailed. An ambush in al Rahda, Lahj Two soldiers were ambushed killed two soldiers and wounded 11. Another ambush in al Melah killed one soldier, and authorities have accused renegade elements of the southern independence movement with the attacks.

al Qahtani was recently sanctioned by the US and then the US said he was killed in an explosion while working on a bomb. Meanwhile, al Qaeda expert Abdulelah Haider Shayer says he died in a shoot out with Saudi forces last month. Qassim al Reimi was sanctioned at the same time as al Qahtani. Related: with the Yemenis staying home, al Qaeda in Iraq has a suicide bomber shortage.

Saudi Gazette Sa’eed Bin Muhammad Al-Koudari Al-Qahtani, the elder brother of wanted terrorist Naif Al-Qahtani who has been implicated in the 2009 assassination attempt on Prince Muhammad Bin Naif, Assistant Minister of Interior for Security Affairs, has denied receiving official information that his brother had been killed in Yemen. Speaking to Okaz, Al-Qahtani, who describes the brother he remembers as “kind and quiet”, recalled his last contact with him. (Read on …)

Blackouts in Sanaa are occurring several times daily.

Yemen Observer: Power transmission lines linked to Sana’a were fired upon by the Abeeda tribes in Marib province on Tuesday, May 25, leading to the break down of the Gas Power Station. (Read on …)

The Southern Movement was largely peaceful and self-restrained in the face of state violence and atrocities for well over two years, despite dozens of deaths at the hand of police and hundreds of arrests. The turning point was the inclusion of ex-regime loyallist, Tariq al Fadhli. While the majority still support peaceful demonstrations, it only takes a few of these incidents to ratchet up the pressure on both sides.

Yemen Post: Three Yemeni soldiers were killed and other 11 were wounded early Saturday in two attacks by elements of the Southern Mobility, which calls for separating southern Yemen from the north.

The Ministry of Interior announced that the security forces in Lahj province are to hunt down separatist elements accused of killing 3 soldiers and wounding 11 others in two ambushes against two vehicles belonging to the army forces, reported the Ministry’s Security Media Center.

The Center said that a group of these elements ambushed a vehicle belonging to the army forces in Al-Raha area, which led to the death of 2 soldiers in their car after they came under fire from the separatist elements, and 4 others were wounded; then they were taken to hospital for treatment, the attack also resulted in injuring 7 others.

The security services in Lahj province added that a vehicle belonging to the military sector in Al-Malah Directorate was ambushed by separatist elements in Jubail Shams area, which led to the death of the soldier driving the car.

The security services stressed that all involved in both criminal attacks, which targeted members of the army forces, will not go unpunished, and the security will pursue them wherever they are to receive their just punishment.

Currently, it is notable that the Southern Mobility is witnessing increasingly confrontations, call for secession from the north.

A Yemeni software developer and activist was among this year’s batch of new TED fellows, according to a press statement by TED (http://ted.com). Walid al-Saqaf, the founder of Yemen Portal (https://yemenportal.net) and alkasir circumvention software (https://alkasir.com), along with 22 other persons from several countries around the world have been selected from over 800 candidates to take part in the renowned TEDGlobal 2010, TED’s annual conference to be held in Oxford, UK during July 12-16, 2010. Al-Saqaf is the only Arab selected this year and is the first Yemeni and among a handful of Arabs to have ever been awarded this prestigious fellowship since its inception.

Al-Saqaf developed alkasir (Arabic for ‘the circumventor’), a software solution that allows users around the world to circumvent website or URL filtering through ’split-tunneling’, which diverts traffic to a secure tunnel only if the accessed website is found to be among those verified to be blocked by the specific user’s Internet Service Provider. If a website is not blocked, alkasir allows traffic to flow directly and without tunneling. This mechanism makes circumvention more efficient and less resource-hungry. It also creates the possibility of dynamically tracking and studying filtering patterns around the world. Al-Saqaf is currently using alkasir as a research tool in a study about Internet censorship for his PhD degree in media and communication at Orebro University in Sweden. (Read on …)