Armies of Liberation

It would be funny if there wasn’t so much slaughter also involved. No one who knows Saleh expected he would go to Saudi Arabia and sign and resign peacefully. He’s just buying time at the citizenry’s expense. State security forces stormed the protesters main square in Aden with armored vehicles, tanks and artillery, four killed, tents burnt, buildings destroyed. How can the international community offer immunity for legions of blood and decades of blood while the madman is still killing? A statement by CCYRC is below.

CNN: Yemen deal in limbo as mediator abruptly leaves presidential meeting

The head of the Gulf Cooperation Council abruptly left a meeting Saturday with Yemen’s president, departing Sanaa without comment and leaving a hard-fought political deal aimed at ending months of turmoil on the verge of collapse, said a senior Yemeni ruling party official.

Abdullatif Al-Zayani, the secretary-general of the six-nation coalition that helped broker the accord, arrived in the Yemeni capital earlier in the day. But his talks with President Ali Abdullah Saleh were cut short, and he appeared visibly angry as he passed reporters and refused to answer questions en route to his plane. (Read on …)

Are they out of their cotton-picking minds? On a practical level, there is no valid voter registry, so how could there be a presidential election within two months? It appears the US is trying to retain as much of the existing structure as possible. Saleh has to be blackmailing the US, there’s no other explanation. On an overt level, immunity for Saleh is also immunity for the US and Saudi Arabia. What the US and international community should be pushing for is a representative structure among the protesters instead of making repeated deliberate efforts to exclude them. This cringe inducing, obnoxious statement is blaming the protesters for their own deaths. The US is urging the protesters to welcome the foundation of a new tyranny. The GCC proposal (yesterday it was a deal, tomorrow it will be suggestion) has had the effect of divorcing the protesters and the public from the dysfunctional political structure and corrupted opposition parties, which is good. And in the end, the GPC is going to reject Saleh’s resignation, just like they rejected his proposal not to run again in 2006 and 1999.

http://yemen.usembassy.gov/ues.html,
PRESS RELEASES, US Embassy Statement on April 27 Events

The U.S. Embassy is distressed by the violence, April 27, that killed and injured hundreds of Yemeni citizens. It is especially disturbing that the violence took place on the eve of signing an historic agreement between the Government and the Joint Meeting Parties that will achieve through peaceful, democratic, and Constitutional means a transition of authority leading to new Presidential elections in July 2011.

The Embassy urges Yemeni citizens to demonstrate their commitment to this peaceful transition by avoiding all provocative demonstrations, marches, and speeches in the coming days and to welcome this opportunity to lay the foundation of a strong, peaceful, prosperous Yemen for the future. We also urge government security forces to refrain from using violence against demonstrators.

From the Carnegie Endowment, an excellent piece by Nadia al Saqqaf, Editor of the Yemen Times. Worth a full read but here’s a piece:

Youth Excluded from Gulf Initiatives

Although the youth were the ones to start Yemen’s revolution, they have been absent from high-level talks in Riyadh and Abu Dhabi to address the crisis. Politicians on both sides say that this is because the youth are divided and do not have a unified leadership to invite. Indeed, today there are some 72 activist groups represented in Change Square, many of which are active online, particularly on Facebook. There are attempts to merge them into larger groups, but these efforts are taking longer than anticipated.

The problem for Yemen’s youth is that they had never exercised democracy in any true organizational sense before now. Except for a few activists, who are still divided among themselves on ideological and intellectual levels, the rest of the revolution’s youth have no idea how to organize themselves or how to draft a political program. Thus they remain easy prey for experienced politicians, whether they are pro-regime or opposition.

Saleh was never going to honor the GCC plan anyway, and his balking at leaving the country is reasonable (there very well could be a coup) and another tactic to encourage yet more concessions and reset the clock.

CNN: Yemen’s president says he won’t leave the country to sign a hard-fought political deal because he fears his departure could spark a coup, a senior ruling party official told CNN on Saturday.

The stance threatens to collapse an agreement brokered by the six-nation Gulf Cooperation Council to end the violent political standoff across Yemen, still reeling this week from one of the deadliest days in months of protests that have pitted demonstrators against President Ali Abdullah Saleh. (Read on …)

The voter rolls were disqualified a few months ago.

The official opposition is willing to provide immunity to Saleh and his gang, and give him a month to tie up loose ends. Most protesters continue to demand that Saleh leave immediately, while others think Sharia will solve everything, reports Nasser Arrabyee

Ahram: Yemen’s official opposition and President Ali Abdullah Saleh have agreed on a US-backed, Saudi-led, Gulf Cooperation Council plan to see Saleh step down in one month from signing. Wednesday was the date set by the GCC officials for the Yemeni conflicting parties to sign the plan in the Saudi capital Riyadh.

Sources from both sides confirmed to Al-Ahram Weekly on Tuesday they would sign the agreement in Riyadh on Wednesday or Saturday at the latest. Earlier in the week, the Islamist-led opposition coalition, which includes socialists and Nasserites (Arab Nationalists), had refused to form a unity government with the ruling party before Saleh steps down, as called for in the plan. American Ambassador to Yemen Gerlad Feierstein convinced the opposition to agree on the plan as a whole. (Read on …)

US Hueys over Yemen
By Nick Turse
Asia Times In recent weeks, Yemeni protesters calling for an immediate end to the 32-year reign of United States-backed President Ali Abdullah Saleh have been met with increasing violence at the hands of state security forces. A recent pledge by Saleh to step down, one of many that has not met demonstrators’ demands, has yet to halt the protests or violence by the troops backing his regime. (Read on …)

Security forces were firing straight into the crowd again, and the 100 injured are suffering from gunshots not tear gas. The YP also reports “85 antigovernment protesters were kidnapped by the republican guards and the central security forces.”

Yemen Post: At least twelve anti government protesters were killed and over a hundred injured when the security forces intercepted and attacked a massive demonstration calling for an immediate ouster of the regime in the Yemeni capital Sana’a on Wednesday.

“We don’t have enough medicine to treat the over one hundred shot by the government. We call on the international community to give us medicine to save those the government shot from dying,” said Dr. Naneeb Ghanem, a senior medical staff member at Sanaa change square.

He added, “the language of bullets and killing is what this regime wants to spread. It’s a massacre against humanity and human rights. Eleven have been killed and the number is expected to rise.”

The death toll was expected to rise from the attack on the hundreds of thousands of the protesters at the TV and Radio Corporation area, medical sources said.

The security forces are continuing heavy fire after they had failed to stop the demonstrators, who are chanting slogans demanding the resignation of President Saleh and condemning the deadly crackdown on the people seeking change, said Iyad Muhammad, a protester.

Two Killed in Anti government Protesters Yemen Post

At least two anti government protesters were killed and several others wounded in two separate clashes with security forces in Ibb and Al-Baitha provinces.

One was shot dead in Ibb province and 30 others wounded, seven of them by live bullets and the others by stones and batons, in clashes between anti-Saleh protesters demanding the fall of embattled President Ali Abdullah Saleh’s regime and security forces in plain clothes.

The second protester was killed in the southern province of Al-Baitha where tens of thousands of anti-Saleh protesters marched on Monday demanding an end to Saleh’s regime.

Medical and eyewitnesses in the southern province of Taiz said that 250 anti-government protesters were treated for inhaling tear gas and 50 were wounded by live bullets and stones when security forces tried to disperse protesters taking to the streets demanding immediate ouster for President Saleh.

President Saleh’s regime has been facing nationwide protests in 15 of Yemen’s province since the beginning of February.

More than 130 demonstrators have been killed in clashes with the security forces since late January.

That didn’t take long.

I will step down if majority of people requests, Saleh says
Sunday, 24-April-2011
Almotamar.net, Saba – Sana’a-President Ali Abdullah Saleh has said that he would step down if that was the demand of the majority of Yemeni people.

“But I will not be subjected to a minority”, President Saleh said in an interview with the BBC Radio. (Read on …)

dtd 5/24,

Newser

(Newser) – The FBI has now definitively linked top al-Qaeda bombmaker Ibrahim al-Asiri to a trio of explosives used in two recent attempts to attack the US, via a fingerprint and forensic evidence. Al-Asiri, who works in Yemen with al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, was already suspected of being involved with the Christmas Day “underwear bomber” in 2009; investigators have pulled one of his fingerprints off that bomb. They also determined that the explosives used in the underwear bomb are chemically identical to those hidden inside two printers shipped from Yemen last year; al-Asiri had also been suspected in that plot.

I have no confidence that this is a positive step. All this does is fragment the opposition, consolidate the loyalists and give Saleh more time to maneuver and steal money. They are moving the oil, the money in the central bank and other state assets. Maybe its supposed to be an example for Ghaddafi. Bodine’s pronouncements aside, Yemen is already suffering from “a security vacuum” and political and economic paralysis. Thirty days from now, the economic, political and security landscape is going to be much more bleak, with a level of damage that is nearly irrecoverable in the mid-term. The western consensus is that the protesters demands are immature and unrealistic, but they have it right. Saleh has to go immediately and be brought to trial for his many crimes. The requirement for a perfect transition plan prior to the executive’s departure was not applied in Egypt or Tunisia or contemplated in Libya and, like a war plan, won’t survive first contact with reality. The issue here is damage control. But any future state that is built on the crimes of the past will contain inherent triggers of conflict.

Yemeni president’s acceptance of deal to step down fails to end protests by wary opposition

SANAA, Yemen – Thousands of anti-government protesters held their ground Sunday in the Yemeni capital’s Change Square despite the president’s acceptance of an Arab proposal to leave office under certain conditions after 32 years in power.

More than two months of protests pressing for President Ali Abdullah Saleh to immediately step down have left him clinging to power and brought down intense international pressure for him to leave office. A bloc of Gulf nations has been trying to broker an end to the crisis, fearing the potential impact of more instability in the fragile country, which is home to al-Qaida’s most active branch.

Saleh agreed Saturday to the proposal for him to hand power to his vice-president within 30 days of a deal being signed in exchange for immunity from prosecution for him and his sons. (Read on …)

Aha, a roundup:

Qaeda, tribes kill 20 Yemen soldiers SANAA — Tribesmen and Al-Qaeda militants killed 22 people, all but two of them soldiers, and captured dozens of others in separate attacks over a 24-hour period, security and tribal sources said on Friday. (Read on …)

Also the Yemen Post reports, “Head of the preparatory committee for national dialogue, Muhammad Salim BaSondwa, said he had received death threats from an unknown person. He told the News Yemen that a message had been sent to him via his cell phone that read: ”don’t believe the kids who are playing with your mind. No sheikh or a master will help you if we put you in the red list.”

And another from al Masdar: Received a colleague, the journalist Mohammed Abdu al-Absi threatened to telephone messages numbers 733000000, 736000000. وقال الزميل العبسي “إن الرقم الأول يعود لرجل الأعمال شاهر عبد الحق والأخر مسجل باسم نجله وائل عبد الحق، وإن التهديدات جاءت على خلفية إصداره بيان إدانة ونفي لإقحام أبناء منطقة الأعبوس في موضوع زيارة شاهر عبد الحق إلى ليبيا”. The colleague, al-Absi “The first number back to the businessman Shaher Abdul Haq and the other is registered in the name of his son, Wael Abdul Haq, The threats came on the back released a statement condemning the denial to involve living in a region Aloabbos on the subject visit Shaher Abdul Haq to Libya.”

Amnesty International has today urged the Yemeni authorities to ensure the safety of a prominent human rights activist after she was warned anonymously for allegedly passing information to the UN Security Council.

Amal Basha, chairperson of the Sisters Arab Forum for Human Rights (SAFHR), received a telephone warning via her office this morning telling her not to leave her home and to take extra precautions. (Read on …)

There is no one abroad who represents the Southern Movement, General Nuba says. They reject al Attas’ statements and the appointment of al Attas as a negotiator on their behalf. Its critical to get the Council of the Retired Military involved in whatever planning is occurring, so that what comes next has a firm foundation in reality, instead of some pipe dream where the southern issue just faded away. Nuba previously stated that the Southern Movement is open to discussions in an international forum, and its likely that an authentic short term agreement can be reached. But its not going to happen by pretending that anyone from the YSP or one of these overseas figures speak for the southern independence movement.

From the media some news or maybe leaks that the JMP selected representative of the south for the GCC initiative, and at the top of representatives who have been endorsed by the JMP is Mr. Haidar Abu Bakr Al-Attas, former Prime Minister of Yemen. In order to cut off any doubt, we are in the southern movement stress to neighboring states, the Arab countries and all the international community:

“Bana Haidar Al-Attas is not of the southern movement. Neither he nor any other leaders abroad. What he has said is contrary to the objectives of the southern movement. The southern movement is struggling for the independence of the South. Brother Haider said he is in the framework of a unitary state, and we have already noted In our previous statements, which we pointed out that the home is sound and abroad is the echo.”

Brigadier / Nasser Ali Al Nubia
Chairman of the National Council for the independence of the South
President of the Supreme Coordination Council of the Assemblies of retired military and security officials and civilians

Issued Shabwa

April 13, 2011

(Read on …)

The buzz is they were helped to escaped, after earlier reports by Sarah Phillips that 70 al Qaeda were released by the regime in March. They did this during the Saada War in 2008 and in other instances, released prisoners on condition they fight for the state.

The National reports Abdulaziz Yahya Alabdi, the murderer of the Jewish rabbi Masha Yaesh Nahari in 2008, is among the escapees. The escape occurred on 4/17.

About thirty prisoners sentenced to death escaped from Amran central prison 50 km north of Sana’a last Friday after killing three prison guards. (Read on …)

I know why, Saleh owes Russia $1.3 billion for the MIG’s and other military hardware. Russia is Yemen’s largest bi-lateral creditor and the debt is nearly all from the weapons deals.

Update: Yemen Times headline says it all: GCC talks with government delegation flop, UN Security Council fails to issue resolution

BBC: UN Security Council members have called for restraint and dialogue between protesters and authorities in Yemen.

But the Council’s first talks on the crisis ended in New York without an agreed public statement, with diplomats saying Russia objected.

Security forces earlier reportedly opened fire on anti-government protesters in Yemen’s capital, Sanaa, and the southern city of Taiz. (Read on …)

Its a circus. The DOJ is seeking the death penalty on someone they didn’t care enough to bring to trial for years, an individual complicit in the murder of 17 US service members. Al Nashiri has been in US custody since 2002. He says his confessions were gained by torture, and the US admits water boarding him along with a mock execution and brandishing a power drill. Nashiri was charged by the Military Commissions at Gitmo in Dec. 2008. Charges were dropped in Feb 2009 when charges against all detainees were dropped pending review. In August 2010 the Obama administration said there were no charges pending or contemplated against al Nashiri. Now, as the election season approaches, they want him dead; at the same time the status of Khalid Sheik Mohammed is back in limbo. While Gitmo and the MCs raise complicated issues, all the dithering, back sliding and stalling at the highest levels raises the question whether any of these decisions were based on the demand for justice for the dead sailors, or if is it all just political expediency and maneuvering.

WAPO: Capital charges brought against Guantanamo detainee Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri in USS Cole attack

U.S. military prosecutors on Wednesday charged one of the most prominent detainees at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, in a death penalty case that could prove to be a major test of the nation’s revised system of military commissions. (Read on …)

This statement links the doctors’ kidnapping with President Saleh’s address trashing female political participation as immoral because it encourages mixing. (From the same man who promised and reneged on female quotas in the 2006 election and promised and reneged on a minimum marriage age of 15.)

This statement also notes that the units of the security forces that are slaughtering the protesters are the same that have received increased US support, funding and training over the last year in an effort to stand up viable counter-terror units, the Central Security and the Republican Guard. While Saleh’s agreement to let western CT teams roam the country side was considered a success in itself, predictably the US efforts did not produce significant results in dismantling the AQAP network.

Its remarkable that Saleh, a pathological liar, has even a shred of credibility left with the international community. Everything he is doing now is a stall tactic. Saleh has no intention of resigning. Its disappointing the US military pinned US national security on a documented war criminal who openly murdered his own citizens in cold blood for a decade. Equally disappointing is the US failure to understand who and what they are dealing with even at this late stage.

Today, the Saleh’s Central Security Forces and troops of thugs Kidnapped four female doctors from the ambulances trucks where they were providing humanitarian relief for wounded young protesters Sana’a. The doctors with other young protesters were led to National Security detention which is technically and financially supported by U.S.A, and managed by Saleh’s nephew, Ammar Saleh.

The central security forces and thugs attacked the peaceful demonstrators with heavy stacks, poison gas and live bullets. Three young protesters killed and hundreds injured

According to eyewitnesses, security forces were shooting gas bombs directly to the bodies of the protesters. Also the security forces shielded the thugs and enabled them to shoot protesters with live bullets.

The demonstration of today came after Sale’s statement of last Friday which he criticized the participation of women side by side with men in the protest squares and described it as “haram”. That statement encouraged Saleh’s thugs to gather today and to call women protesters as dishonored. They also called others to break into the square where women are sit-in.

It is worth mentioning that the series of killings, abductions, crimes against humanity and crimes of mass murder carried out by Saleh’s against the peaceful protesters demanding Saleh to step down from power are continuing for 3 months now killed more than 200, thousands wounded and hundreds are kidnapped.

Peoples of the world especially women and humanitarian organizations please help Yemen and demand your governments to make Saleh’s step down from power immediate.

Hundreds felled by gas inhalation, dozens by gun shots. Ambulances are blocked. People trapped in al Rahman Mosque are surrounded by security forces. Witness: they are bleeding on the streets and no one lets them go past the security to the hospital.

Again the security is kidnapping many critically injured and dead. At least 20 “arrested.” Many are still missing after the last two incidents of body snatching. Injured are trying to make it to the nearby Al Motokel Hospital and the security is following and shooting them.

Update: injured in mosque transferred to hospital or kidnapped by security forces, unclear which.

Saleh’s security forces and armed civilians attacked hundreds of protesters who are demanding immediate step down of Saleh from power with tear gas and live bullets today afternoon. 250 wounded, 20 of them are in critical condition. However, the most notable precedent committed today was sieging the wounded in Al-Rahman mosque where they run to hide. Forces also prevented the public from providing any rescue aid.

Fearing from been kidnapped, the protestors refused to let the governmental ambulances pick up the wounded in the mosque because through the past 14 past weeks 60 killed and wounded protestors were kidnapped by security forces and governmental ambulances.

The demonstration of today, which was coinciding with Al Riyadh meeting that discussing the plan of Sale’s removal of power, came as a raged response to Saleh’s criticism against women’s participation in the protest last Friday.

During the three months of Yemen revolution, excessive force has been routinely used by Saleh’s forces especially whenever there is international or Arab initiative for dialogue. Therefore, we appeal to the peoples of the world to demand their governments to stand firmly against Saleh who daily kills Yemenis, and disregards international and Arab efforts for settlement. Raise your voices with us and say: “SALEH MUST LEAVE NOW.”

Now, he should go now. Saleh will never keep his word or leave peacefully. A month is just enough time to cook up a major crisis like a seeming terror attack or something equally horrific.

Good: Ahmed, Yahya, Ammar and Ali Mohsen all to be exiled as well. Bad: Saleh names his successor and escapes his crimes. What about the financial accounting and returning the billions he stole? Can a head of state really be exempted from war crimes and crimes against humanity? If its even possible, its a decision for the Yemeni people not the GCC, which is itself comprised of corrupt, non-democratic states.

This article is from a few days ago. In the interim, the JMP’s representatives went to Saudia for talks with the GCC and returned without any progress. Some have indicated the protesters’ demand for Saleh’s immediate departure is unsophisticated and untenable, but it is exactly the remedy. Saleh doesn’t have to agree to go. He is in the process of being deposed; why does he have a platform to set his own terms? US efforts, GCC efforts and UN efforts produced zero from the ever deft Saleh a/k/a the King of Spin whose goal is to remain in power, keep his money and secure his relatives. This is the same guy who amply demonstrated his willingness to kill Yemeni citizens well before the Jasmine Revolution.

Yemen Post The U.S. and the EU have suggested a timeframe for Yemen’s President Saleh to transfer power to his deputy in 30 days in the light of a recent GCC proposal for tackling the Yemeni crisis, sources familiar with the matter said on Saturday. (Read on …)