Armies of Liberation

Spiegel has some disturbing details.

When Manuela-Anett T. met her cousins Lydia, 6, and Anna, 4, in a hospital in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, earlier this week, it was as if the girls they knew had been swapped for others. The girls shyly said that their names were now Fatima and Sarah. And when questioned in German, they answered in Arabic.
(Read on …)

In 2005, it was the odd mix of dialysis patients, motorcycle drivers, journalists and teachers. Now its the journalists (still), al Jasheen villagers and the issue of Dr. Qadasi’s murderers, who are still wandering free.

Yemen Times:

SANA’A May 16 — The police last Tuesday arrested a number of human rights activists in Freedom Square, in the capital. These activists have been arranging a weekly protest every Tuesday in the square.

The police also have confiscated cameras from the Women Journalists Without Chains Organization and assaulted protestors in an attempt to stop them from continuing their protest.

The weekly protest is organized at Freedom Square by Women Journalists Without Chains, in solidarity with the banned Al-Ayyam newspaper and Al-Ja’shin Displaced People. They also demand the stop of military operations in Shara’b Al-Sallam district in Taiz, the release of detained journalists and activists and to bring the murderers of the physician Al-Qadasi to trial. (Read on …)

Here’s another write up at the VOA. She got tired and confused after two days of interrogation and told Yemeni authorities more than she wanted. Apparently they also got her email passwords. Its such a thug regime.

By Heather Murdock SPECIAL TO THE WASHINGTON TIMES

In San’a, we were questioned again, and I was asked to write all of the passwords to my e-mail accounts. Our equipment was inventoried out of Aden custody and into San’a custody. The chief who had been so angry three days earlier was jovial and friendly, and rushed to get rid of our belongings. But as he left, I sunk. We were not being freed. We were being transferred to a higher security prison. (Read on …)

The US sanctions al Qahtani after his death, and then the US says he died previously building a bomb. Meanwhile, 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.

Fox: A man whom the U.S. described as a key figure in Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula accidentally blew himself up, U.S. military officials told Fox News. The officials say Nayif Al-Qahtani was “messing with a bomb” when it went off. U.S. officials had been watching him, but Fox News’ sources insist the U.S. had nothing to do with his death.

Al-Qahtani was “a vibrant guy linked to ongoing operations planning, and his death will have an impact,” one official told Fox News.

An Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula newsletter was the first to announce his death a week after the United States put terror sanctions on him. The newsletter did not say when it happened but said Al-Qahtani died in Yemen’s Abyan province in the south of the country.

The State Department recently described al-Qahtani as “a liaison between Al Qaeda cells in Yemen and Saudi Arabia.” It said he manages Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula’s operations in Yemen and receives financial support from abroad to launch attacks in both Yemen and Saudi Arabia.

Isn’t Saudi Arabia meddling enough in the affairs of Yemen, do we need a hoard of Saudi women blowing things up?

AKI
Sanaa, 20 May- Al-Qaeda has launched an appeal to Muslim women, particularly those in Saudi Arabia, to travel to Yemen and wage jihad. The appeal was made by Wafa al-Shahri, wife of Al-Qaeda’s second in command in Yemen, Said al-Shahri, in an article published in the latest issue of the online magazine ‘Sada al-Malahim’.

The woman, considered the most important among terrorist organisations, was directing her message in particular to Al-Qaeda colleagues in Saudi Arabia. (Read on …)

I know there are many different views on unity, the government and Yemen’s history itself, but one thing we can all agree on is that Yemen is an amazing country, worth all the effort and sacrifice that people put in over the last 20 years to make it better.

To mark the occasion, Saleh pardons everybody. The journalists will be the easiest to track and hopefully they all walk today. The Houthi rebels have been pardoned five times already, so its questionable whether they will really be released, but it would go a long way toward ratcheting down the tensions if they were. Many remain “disappeared” despite the peace deal. As for the southerners, many journalists and politicians are being held under charges of undermining unity and many others with no charges at all. Also we have to watch to see if there is an exodus of al Qaeda from the jails, which I think is rather likely.

More details from Nasser Arrabyee

“According to this dialogue, it is possible to form a government of all the influential political parties represented in the parliament,” said Saleh, speaking in the city of Taez, 230 kilometres (140 miles) southwest of Sanaa…He said the amnesty would apply to “all outlaws” — a reference to the southern separatists, and “anti-government elements who were arrested” in the north, where the Shiite rebels are based on the border with Saudi Arabia. The pardon would affect an estimated 800 prisoners linked to the southern separatists and about 2,000 Shiite rebels or sympathisers in the north. Saleh said that the Yemeni Socialist Party (YSP), which is agitating to re-establish south Yemen as an independent state, would be a principal partner in the political dialogue.

Its not the YSP that is agitating for independence. Some YSP members have joined the southern movement but the party is seen by many southerners as a sell out to “northern” interests.

TAIZ, May 22 (Saba) – President Ali Abdullah Saleh pardoned on Saturday all journalists on trial and those sentenced due to public right cases.

The pardon was granted as the president attended the festival organized on the 20th anniversary of unification in the western province of Taiz.

In his address to the nation on the eve of Unification Day, Saleh ordered to release all detainees held in connection with the Houthi rebellion in the far north, which ended in February this year, and the rioting in some southern provinces.

They just came in and flattened it with bulldozers, no notice and no compensation. The peace deal with the Houthi rebels includes provisions for a buffer zone, but not for the Saudis to invade Yemen to make it. Other reports have indicated resumption of Saudi over-flights in Sa’ada. The following is a Google translation. There’s video links at the end. Its an interesting tie in to the fact that Saudi forces rescued the German children on Yemeni soil.

Update: English from the Yemen Observer:

Saudi bulldozers exceeded the Yemeni border towards a village of Sa’adah province and destroyed the entire village, informed sources in Sa’adah local council told Yemen Observer.

The village, Um Quaia’ah, directorate of Shada, Sa’adah province, was ravaged by Saudi bulldozers, including mosques and electricity poles, eyewitnesses said. (Read on …)

Update: Four injured and a lot of horror as plain clothes police open fire in the streets and tanks began shelling the city:

Yemen Post: At least four people, two soldiers and two passers-by, were injured in Al-Habilian district, Lahj, in fierce clashes between police and armed gangs on Tuesday.

Eyewitnesses were quoted by the Alsahwa website that the casualties took place after policemen spread early today with civil uniforms and personal guns and clashed with armed gangs believed to be of the secessionist movement in the south.

Amid the clashes, armed forces stationing in the area intervened and randomly opened fire using artilleries and tanks causing a state of horror among the people, the sources said. Homes and commercial shops were affected with some burned. Some people including children survived being killed or injured when bullets just missed them.

The clashes were the fiercest ever in one of the districts worst hit by violence in recent years amid separation bids and injustices claims. They also came as President Saleh paid a visit to Lahj and met with the provincial leadership and social figures and security and military leaders in Radfan.

Original post: South Arabian News service and many individuals are reporting the state is shelling the Alhabylyn area from the Alanad military base.

Al-Habilyn / Aden News Agency / Exclusive / 18-05-2010

At least, two other injured, by bullets fired from the military sector in Al-Habilyn city on the platform known as the “platform of martyrs”, After nearly three hours from the cessation of indiscriminate shelling this morning which aimed at the districts of Al-Habilyn and Habeel Gaber and caused two wounded, according to local sources. (Read on …)

AFP’s headline is: US giving Qaeda ‘1,000 reasons’ to attack: Yemen chief
Qasim al Reimi is spouting threats after two were killed in Abyan in March.

Al-Qaeda’s military chief in Yemen said Washington has been giving the jihadist network “1,000 reasons” to strike the US mainland, in an audio message released on Monday.

“By killing al-Ambari … you have given us 1,000 new excuses and reasons to attack you in your homeland,” the military chief of Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), known as Qassim al-Rimi, said addressing Americans in a message posted on a Jihadist forum. (Read on …)

CNN reports a Saudi-Yemeni operation secured the release of two kidnapped German toddlers in Yemen. German authorities report the two little girls are in the hospital and will be flying home tomorrow, but their brother is probably dead. The children were rescued from somewhere in the war torn Sada’a province, the same area they were kidnapped from. The Germans and Saudis are still working to secure the release of their parents. A British engineer is also still being held. (Read on …)

This is a ridiculous statement. Are they saying if the US does not target Awlaki, then AQAP won’t launch attacks? The statement at a minimum is the second indication that Awlaki is a member of AQAP’s elite. Awlaki’s recent appearance on an AQAP video was the first open acknowledgment of the relationship. Some had contended that Awlaki had no relationship with the group at all, beyond incitement-providing ideological legitimacy for random murder sprees. Naser al Wahishi had been silent following the air strikes in December and January, leading to speculation that he was killed. The prior threats issued from Awlaki’s tribe were shown to be false when the Awlaki Sheik denied that a meeting had occurred or a statement issued.

(Reuters) – Al Qaeda’s regional wing in Yemen has threatened the United States with more attacks should any harm come to a U.S.-born radical cleric wanted dead or alive by Washington, according to an audio tape posted online on Sunday. (Read on …)

President Saleh wasn’t in the car but Deputy PM for Defense and Security Rashad Mohammed al Alimi was. Al Qaeda or the southerners is the question. The paper is following the lead of the Yemeni government in pinning it on the southerners, and beyond assassinating several security officers, al Qaeda hasn’t targeted any Yemeni officials, ever.

Xinhuanet: Yemeni Deputy Prime Minister for Defense and Security Rashad al-Alami survived an ambush by gunmen of separatist movement in the southern restive province of Lahj on Saturday, security officials said.

“Two security escorts were killed and another four were seriously wounded when they returned fire against the armed attackers,” an official of the Interior Ministry told Xinhua on condition of anonymity.

According to the official, the accident took place Saturday afternoon in al-Habilain town in the province of Lahj, as the official convoy was traveling from the southern port city Aden to Sanaa.

(Read on …)

Aha, we are still waiting for Yemen to investigate itself on several issues including the September 2009 airstrikes that killed 87 civilian refugees sheltering in a field.

(Reuters) – The United Nations torture watchdog urged Syria, Yemen and Jordan Friday to investigate what it called numerous and credible allegations that their police and prison authorities routinely tortured detainees. Its 10 independent experts also voiced concern at “honor” crimes by family members in Syria and Jordan which go unpunished and violence against women and children in Yemen. (Read on …)

Qatani was designated as a member of a terror group this week by the US. State Dept. and the UN along with Qasim al Reimi.

Guardian A senior leader of the al-Qaida cell which attempted to assassinate the British ambassador to Sanaa and blow up a US passenger jet last Christmas has been killed in Saudi Arabia, according to a Yemeni source close to the group.

Nayif Mohammed Saeed al-Qahtani, described as the link man between the Saudi and Yemeni branches of al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), was killed in a shoot-out last month with Saudi security forces, according to a Yemeni journalist, AbdulElah Shaea. (Read on …)

Their statement pretty much echos what al Zindani said earlier in the year about the Brits.

AFP: WASHINGTON — Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) claimed responsibility for the April 26 attack on Britain’s envoy to Yemen Timothy Torlot in a statement posted Tuesday on jihadist forums, the US monitoring group SITE said. (Read on …)

Oh yes and its a democracy too! The local elections were stupendous, the media is free and the anti-corruption efforts are zooming right along. They lie and lie and lie some more. The problem with reform efforts in Yemen is that no one in the Saleh administration will acknowledge basic realities. Illegal, retaliatory and arbitrary arrests are among the main drivers of instability and civil unrest. Political prisoners include journalists, children and activists as well as persons officially designated as “hostages” by the state, a particularly abhorrent practice of imprisoning an individual in order to pressure a wanted family member. The comments came at a “Friends of Yemen” technical meeting, held in the hopes of instigating judicial reform, but if the state insists the judiciary is perfect, then there’s nothing to discuss.

SABA: No political prisoner in Yemeni jails, says minister

No political prisoner in Yemeni jails, Minister of Justice Ghazi al-Aghbari re-confirmed on Wednesday. In his meeting with the technical team of Yemen Friends Group over justice and security, the minister said that there are only detainees on charges of committing crimes and outlaw acts based on the 1992 law of punishments.

He pointed out to the outlaw elements that blocked roads, looting and burning public and private possessions under pretext of asking rights and freedom of expression, saying no law in the world authorizes to do such crimes.

The minister reviewed needs of Yemen that might friends of Yemen could support in field of judicial reforms in the country.

Just more total garbage from Reuters, linking the attack trying to free Fares Manna to the Houthi rebels. Meanwhile Reuters fails to mention a) Manna is president Saleh’s long time partner b) Manna was Saleh’s representative to the mediation with the rebels c) it was his relatives, tribal allies who assaulted the convoy d) all his arms deals were legal e) the government agreed to buy his weapons stockpile. Almost every story carried by Reuters spins the news to the position of the Yemeni government.

Reuters Ambush on security convoy in Yemen capital kills one

SANAA, May 11 (Reuters) – Yemeni gunmen trying to free an accused arms dealer with links to Shi’ite rebels fired on a convoy ferrying him from jail to court in Sanaa on Tuesday, killing a bystander, security officials and witnesses said. (Read on …)

RSF: Two journalists have been freed in the past 24 hours. Al-Ayyam editor Hani Bashraheel, who was arrested on 6 January, was freed yesterday while Moaz Ashhabi, who was sentenced to a year in prison on 16 January, was freed yesterday.

But a harsh crackdown on independent and opposition media continues, with another journalist, Hossein Al-Leswas, getting a one-year sentence last week and more trials due to be held in the coming weeks. (Read on …)

This is from the front page of NYTimes Weekend Edition:

Imam’s Path From Condemning Terror to Preaching Jihad
By SCOTT SHANE and SOUAD MEKHENNET
WASHINGTON — In the weeks after the Sept. 11 attacks, the eloquent 30-year-old imam of a mosque outside Washington became a go-to Muslim cleric for reporters scrambling to explain Islam. He condemned the mass murder, invited television crews to follow him around and patiently explained the rituals of his religion. (Read on …)

Yemen Observer – The General Labor Union in Yemen (GLU) called all workers in Yemen to initiate a general strike starting on Saturday, May 15. (Read on …)