Armies of Liberation

A guest post on the transition council that suggests representation by geographic region. The author urges the international community work toward the formation of a credible transitional council. (Currently the US is focusing all efforts on obstructing the formation of such a council and retaining elements the illegitimate, al Qaeda appeasing Saleh regime. The protesters have consistently demanded a transitional council and utterly rejected the ill advised GCC plan. The US has just as consistently ignored, disparaged and undermined these democratic aspirations.)

A Solution For The Yemeni Crises

The current crises in Yemen is growing more and more complicated and heading towards a political and security abyss that is extremely dangerous. Intelligentsia within the parties involved in the current events will face aspirations of both the reasonable and the irresponsibly rash.

The absence of clarity and decisiveness in a Gulf-American stance which is being imposed by Saudi Arabia leaves the door open in Yemen for a storm to sweep through the country. (Read on …)

Sahwa Net – A Yemeni opposition leader in Marib, Mabkhot Al-Shareef, has said that most those people involved in a 43- person blacklist published by the interior Ministry are members of the ruling party in Marib .

Al-Shareef affirmed that most of those included in the list accused of bombing oil pipelines and destructing electricity stations are the ruling party’s members of local councils in Marib. (Read on …)

DRAFT PROPOSAL FOR THE NATIONAL TRANSITIONAL COUNCIL

REPUBLIC OF YEMEN

Draft 1

18.6.2011

Introduction
The Civic Coalition for the Revolutionary Youth (CCRY) presents this draft proposal for the National Transitional Council (the Council) for the Republic of Yemen with the hope that this proposal will encourage the discussion between all the revolutionaries in order to arrive at a draft which receives the concuss of all. The presentation of this draft stems from the belief – by the CCRY- that the revolutionaries should take the initiative in this decisive historic point in time; so that they can complete their revolution without having to wait for any other party.
(Read on …)

Popular committees are being formed in Aden because the regime’s forces are contributing to the lawlessness and assassinations. Having the military unit physically walk over the mutinous soldiers at Anad military base is a common practice.

Yaf3:
And our sources said: that the situation in Aden heading towards the escalation of lawlessness due to intentional youth revolution has begun the start of the revolution through the will of the people’s committees to maintain security in the city of Aden, (Read on …)

LAT: Reporting from Washington— The CIA is planning a campaign of targeted killings by drone aircraft against Al Qaeda militants in Yemen modeled after a similar program in Pakistan, U.S. officials say.

CIA attacks from Predator drones will augment a clandestine effort by U.S. special operations forces, which have been conducting manned airstrikes, drone strikes and small raids in Yemen, the officials said Tuesday.
(Read on …)

MSNBC, UNITED NATIONS — The U.N. Security Council on Friday voiced its “grave concern” at the situation in Yemen, ending months of disagreement that had prevented the 15-nation body from speaking unanimously on the unrest there. (Read on …)

Lets predict the future, shall we? The 60 al Qaeda “escapees” who were released with government assistance from the Hadramout prison enter Aden, now that the security is gone, and start shooting in the air, terrifying residents. They take over a recently abandoned radio station and announce an Islamic Emirate. Western media reports a third town has fallen to AQAP.

A few soldiers get sent in to be slaughtered and then the military pulls back. Yemeni government officials announce their deaths in battle against “al Qaeda.” The US trained, funded and equipped counter-terror forces are busy attacking the protesters.

The defected military and/or locals attempting to guard their houses engage the state jihaddists, the so called AQAP. The Yemeni military then bombs those who are fighting the al Qaeda uprising that was fully orchestrated by the state.

Western media runs with the Yemeni government report that the dead were AQAP. Maybe Yemen announces Qasim al Reimi was killed for the fifth time. Some residents flee the state’s bombing and violence on the streets, including the 60,000 displaced from Zinjibar, and are left without food or shelter. Others protest against al Qaeda and demand law and order.

The US lobs some drones, misses and kills civilians, but denies they were civilians because they fit the US’s newly designated “pattern of life” criteria that qualifies them for death. There’s yet another narrow miss on Awlaki. Also killed Saleh’s enemies and/or maybe some actual al Qaeda with inside knowledge of the regime’s dirty deals. When Spain calls for a transition of political power, some Spanish aid workers are mysteriously kidnapped and never heard from again.

The DOD praises Yemen’s efforts against AQAP, continuing the US’s re-branding of the duplicitous, double dealing Saleh regime as a “consistently good partner” in the WOT. The lobotomized media reprints the phrase. There’s some mysterious construction on Perim Island. And the State Department continues its intense lobbying efforts for immunity for Saleh and retention of as much of the US trained CT forces as possible while belittling the protesters as not politically savvy. The protesters however see through all the schemes and continue to demand all Saleh’s relatives go and a restructuring of the security forces.

And that’s roughly what happened in Zinjibar and Loder, except in Loder some extremists from Sanaa were recruited to go command the state financed groups of militants in Lahj as well as recruit brainwashed youths who don’t realize they are dying for Saleh.

Update, and so it begins: Suicide car bomb kills three soldiers in Aden. DNA results on the bomber should be along any minute. Update: Wow that was fast even by Yemeni standards: the regime asserts the bomber was an AQAP member from Abyan, on the list of most wanted. “The sources confirmed that a number of leaders of al-Qaeda were present now in the province of Abyan, led by Fahd al Quso, and Nasser Wahishi, and Qasim al-Rimi, and al-Shihri, and wanted Saudis, Libyans, Pakistanis, Somalis, and believes that they are they planning for the operation.”

The National: US drone attacks in Yemen ignore Al Qaeda for local militants

Yaf3: Popular committees are being formed in Aden because the regime’s forces are contributing to the lawlessness and assassinations. Having the unit physically walk over the mutinous soldiers at Anad military base is a common practice of military discipline.

Arhab: Republican Guard shelling kills 17 including a woman, 35 injured, 86 houses and eight wells destroyed, over 1000 homeless.

In Jaar, Abyan Yemeni war planes bomb house of the former Secretary General of the Yemeni Socialist Party. Military fails to make progress against the militants.

Brigade 119, deployed as reinforcements to brigade 22 Mika, withdraws more then 10 km outside Zinjibar.

In Lahj, Southern Movement activists are surrounding army forces on outskirts of city. al Habylean shelled for second consecutive day (6/26)

Hodeidah citizens are holding diesel tankers in Beit al-Faqih and Almaraoeah protesting against the lack of fuel in their province.

The Republican Guard in Al-Samaa renew bombing Nahm, Sanaa with Katyusha rockets

The Chinese news agency is reporting clashes in Aden as spun by government officials.

YOL At least five Al Qaeda militants and one Yemeni soldier were killed in fierce battles between extremists and security forces in south of Yemen Thursday, a military official said.

Heavy clashes broke out at night at the main entrance of port city of Aden, Xinhua reported. Three groups of Al Qaeda militants carried out attacks targeting the main entrance of Aden and led to violent clashes between the two sides.

Heavy machine guns and artilleries were used during the clashes, said the official, who requested anonymity. Local residents said heavy gunshots and rockets could be heard near the Al-Alam entrance.

Al Qaeda militants of its Yemen-based wing have stationed on the eastern outskirts of the country’s Aden city for two days to prepare to forcibly enter the city.

Beaumont Enterprise: Residents of Aden say military forces loyal to embattled President Ali Abdullah Saleh recently removed checkpoints at the city’s entrances and withdrew, raising fears that Islamic militants who seized two nearby towns after government forces carried out a similar pullback could attempt a takeover of the strategic port city… (Read on …)

One guard was killed during the 8 am prison break by 63 prisoners through a tunnel 35 meters long, some were convicted some never tried, many arrested for traveling to Syria to go the Iraq. From Bakeel.net the info and the names are here.

a) the prison warden was replaced two weeks prior to the escape

b) 12 dangerous al Qaeda transferred in to the Hadramout prison from Sanaa prison prior to the escape (just like Jaber Elbaneh was transferred into Sanaa prison before the 2006 escape)

c) later Wednesday firing heard from jail and strange men wandering the streets with guns asking for water

d) use of a drill (like Sanaa escape 2006, as I noted at the time) (Read on …)

Ibb “Revolutionary Will”

Taiz “Revolutionary Will”

Other demos including in Sanaa and Dhamar were held against the inane US policy in Yemen that marginalizes, insults and ignores the millions seeking a democratic future. One person was killed and several wounded during the funeral march of Ahmed Darwish, tortured to death in Aden jail a year ago during the tenure of General Qiran The murdered man, Dr. Jeyab, was the son of Ali Alsaadi a leader in the southern movement. One killed in Republican Guard’s bombing of al-Sama mountain near Arhab. The protesters refused to meet with Feltman, due to the US’s constant obstruction of the rev and continuing support for the barbaric regime, and dedicated this week’s protests to condemning the US and Saudi Arabia.

al Masdar: The demonstrators chanted “O my America .. Saud Ali Saleh will not be back.” And other slogans demanding to drop the rest of the regime.

The (Organizational Committee of the popular revolution of youth) drew in a statement received by the source online, and sent greetings “to all young people who refused to attend the meeting (with Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs Jeffrey Feltman).” She stressed that the position of the trip came from the revolutionary responsibility and an expression of absolute rejection of the role of the American Revolution against the scandalous what the U.S. ambassador in Sana’a. According to the statement.

She said that the U.S. ambassador in Sanaa, proclaimed himself “the patron of policy dialogues between the parties and the purpose of lengthening life of the system and try to convert the Revolution to a political crisis despite the barbarism of the system, which reached its case to the siege of ambassadors Gulf and European and U.S. Ambassador without finding a position as a deterrent against such conduct reckless, who abused customs and traditions of Yemeni.”

The committee said in its statement that “the lack of response the U.S. administration to the demands of the rebels for a meeting of the Security Council to discuss the violations of human rights and stand against the serious crimes committed by the regime to benefit in addition to not freeze his assets and his relatives all this strengthens our conviction that the U.S. position is not in the interest of the Yemeni people and stands against his will to freedom and dignity.”

The statement renewed confirmation of the commission to “clear its rejection of the initiative Gulf since the first day of the (…) announced that it does not meet the aspirations of the Yemeni people do not achieve the goals of the revolution to drop the system.”

The committee also criticized the regulatory Saudi position, and said “It was clearly evident to all the rebels in the fields and arenas that the Saudi intervention in the course of events has taken a negative attitude towards the revolution in Yemen and is working to prevent the achievement of objectives of the revolution to drop the rest of the staff of government family and about this we should point out that the Saudi position will be has implications for future large are not in anyone’s interest. ”

Update: Sanaa “Revolutionary Will” via twitpic:

The US is on the wrong side of history with a policy that is alienating millions while pampering Saleh and his political tribe. Update: protesters chanting that the US is the enemy of the people:

The demonstrators demanded that Saudi Arabia and the United States to stop playing with the blood of Yemenis at the expense of political interests and carried the United States responsible for the situation catastrophic and tragic for the displaced in Abyan, Lahj and the targeting of civilians by U.S. airline, which violates the sovereignty of the country, allegedly hit the sites of militant groups in Yemen.

And raising the participants in the march, banners refusing to intervene in the U.S. and Saudi support for the Yemeni Shan system in favor of “America the enemy of the peoples of the exciting wars,” “Al Qaeda justified the U.S. occupation of the homeland”

http://www.4shared.com/video/k1K46EYK/My_Movie_12.html

http://www.4shared.com/video/0V_wB8j9/dhamar3.html

Yemen Post: Republican guards killed a 14-year old boy in Yemen’s Taiz province on Wednesday, where a massive demonstration was held coinciding with protests in other cities to urge the youth-led protesters to finish their revolution and to refuse external mandate or interventions.

Locals at Street 60th at the city’s entrance said republican guards fired at passengers inside a bus killing the teen and injuring others. The incident took place amid insecurity in Taiz, which saw deadly clashes between the army and armed tribesmen in the past weeks.

In other Taiz related news, Haykel Saed Corp is negotiating between the families of the protesters killed by forces under the supervision of lunatic security chief (transferred from Aden after several bloodbaths) Abdullah Qiran. There’s no resolution yet as the families are demanding a trial. Qiran was also charged with the murder of Ahmed Darwish tortured to death in Aden jail. One major outstanding protesters’ demand is the purge and reformation of the security forces.

Update: bombing today in Jaar and al Habylean.

The Saleh regime’s overt strategy during the Saada War was to block food, diesel, medical supplies and international aid to Yemeni citizens in the war zones as a means of encouraging the population to turn against the rebels. While some believe those tactics are being employed currently, like deliberately cutting the electricity, even before the protests broke out, Yemen was already scheduled to run out of money by June. Many government workers have been unpaid for months, and that has little to do with the protests. However, the protests essentially have shut down businesses across Yemen, providing a further shock to a widely dysfunctional and crumbling economy that had been distorted for decades by grand corruption. More on the economics below the fold.

YOL Gian Carlo Cirri of the UN World Food Programme (WFP) says that “Yemen is undergoing its worst humanitarian crisis ever.” Cirri, who directs WFP’s Yemen mission, says “I cannot recall a time when hardship has been greater in recent Yemeni history.”

Food prices are skyrocketing in Yemen. WFP reports there has been “a 39 percent increase in the price of wheat over just five months.” (Read on …)

Thats excellent, there needs to be any widely agreed upon mechanism of representation and action. There has to be a step beyond protesting to organization and action. I hope they dont spend the next two months discussing it.

YOL During the seminar hold in the Change arena in Sana’a titled( Towards the political system most suitable for Yemen) last Wednesday , group of Yemeni independent youth announced establishing the National Democratic Alliance NDA to protect the independence of their activities and protest without the intervention of political parties.

The young people discussed their suffering from the marginalization and exploitation by the political parties that control the activities and repress the freedom of the expression against independents .To become a strong need to unify our vision and to agree on a clear mechanism’ one of the participants said to YemenOnline. The alliance represents the first step to enhance our participation in the change we need without any tutelage of the political parties’ another participant added.

The consensus is a federal system of two parts, north and south. Its unclear the extent to which southern Yemeni residents are signed on to the proposal or remain committed to either independence (or unity). The meeting was held in Cairo last month.

The Southern Case

Southern View for a Comprehensive Solution to the Current Crisis in Yemen

After a series of Southern meetings, a meeting resulted during 09-11 May 2011 affirming that the Southern Case is the basis for solutions to the complex Yemeni crisis in the context of the following rules:
1. Emphasis on the fact that unity will remain a political option in the context of an equivalent partnership contracted between two states which derive their legitimacy and sovereignty from the people and the land and that the Yemeni crisis is a complex one. Its core is that the peaceful unification signed on 22 May 1990 failed and ended in war. The acknowledgement of the Southern case by all political forces is considered a clear confession that the continuing absence or ignoring one of the unity partners will not solve the Southern case. As a result, the Yemeni crisis will remain, even after the toppling of the regime and the departure of its head without a true and fundamental solution. (Read on …)

The humanitarian crisis is deepening and SEYAJ urges relief convoys to the starving people displaced to Aden and Lahj

An appeal call No(2) to save the people in Abyan

Issued by the Emergency Cell in Seyaj
Yemen- Sana’a- June 22nd -2011

The Emergency Cell in Seyaj organization for childhood protection calls to declare Abyan governorate as a disastrous area by all the standards.

Seyaj directs its second humanitarian appeal to all the Yemeni people to send urgent humanitarian relief convoys to the victims in Abyan of the dirty security political game that displaced , killed and violated the lives, humanity and dignity of at least more than forty thousand families.

Moreover, Seyaj calls the Arabic, Islamic and international associations and humanitarian relief organizations to send urgent humanitarian relief convoys to Abyan victims in Aden and Lahj governorates.

Seyaj also calls the acting president to take concrete actions to save the lives of his people and clan in Abyan.
Seyaj confirms that the areas of war against Al-Qaeda as called are free of country’s institutions that are capable of performing its duty to displaced people in Abyan, Aden and Lahj ,as the first responsibility lies on the Yemeni people in all its political& social activities, humanitarian organizations, religious men , youth , politicians and others of the society components. (Read on …)

Marib Press reports on demonstrations in Abyan against the militants and negotiations for a humanitarian cease fire. Mediators did not meet any known figures of AQAP and the representatives themselves said they were part of the group Ansar al Sharia. Googlish version:

Mareb Press Ansar al-Sharia and reject any mediation or a truce between them and the army, before the departure of the benefit, and the delivery of Aden, and reports on the presence of a number of (militants).

Exposed to local sources in the governorate of Abyan, the presence of mediation, led, currently, a number of religious leaders from the province, and the Sheikhs of Shibuya, to try to cease fire and truce between the Yemeni army forces, and the jihadi groups in control of the show, in order to allow charitable organizations to reach women and children and civilians trapped in areas of confrontation. (Read on …)

Bara’a, a Yemeni activist in the anti-Saleh protests was “kidnapped and beaten for seven hours,” according to video testimony here.

Mareb Press reports Tawwakol Karman’s house was trashed, and her brother kidnapped. She accused the commander of the Republican Guard, Brigadier General Ahmed Ali Abdullah Saleh, and his cousin, Ammar Mohammed Abdullah Saleh, Undersecretary of the National Security Agency, of being behind the raid and looting her home, studio and the Organization of Women Journalists Without Chains. Her brother, the poet Tariq Abdel-Salam Kerman, disappeared four days ago in Taiz, and Karman confirmed that he had been kidnapped by the National Security Agency, after he announced his joining the People’s Revolution for the departure of President Ali Abdullah Saleh.

al Sahwa: Reporters Without Borders condemns Al-Sahwa.net correspondent Yahia Al-Thanaya’s abduction at a checkpoint near the Al-Dailami air-base, a few kilometres outside Sanaa, on the night of 19 June, just a few days after he reported that the government was illegally holding activists at a secret detention centre within the base. Reporters Without Borders calls for his immediate release.

The editor of the opposition weekly Al-Wahdawi, Ahmed Sayeed Nasser, was threatened on 16 April by a phone caller who accused him of insulting the president and his family in various articles. The caller also said some of the newspaper’s reporters could be in danger as a result of the publication of documents shedding light on North Yemen President Ibrahim Al-Hamdi’s assassination in 1977.

Hassan Baoum is the subject of a new letter by HRW . Leader of the Southern (pro-independence) Movement Hassan Bauom and his son Fawaz have been missing since February, in the custody of the Yemeni authorities.

Authorities had detained Hassan and Fawaz Baoum three previous times since 2007 on charges that included planning illegal demonstrations and instigating riots. (Read on …)

President Saleh is alternately returning to Yemen within days or is negotiating for asylum in Germany or another European countries after the UAE refused the request.

At Asharq, a good profile of the al Ahmars.

The Yemen Post reports on a new broader opposition coalition: Opposition parties in Yemen announced that they would soon create a strong national coalition involving all the factions in the Yemen political arena. Mohammed Mutawakil, secretary general of the Popular Front party said that the new coalition will involve the Joint Meeting Parties, youth leaders, Houthis, Yemeni leaders in exile, and the Justice and Building party. “The coalition will soon be announced and it is now in its final stages of preparation,” said Mutawakil.

Feltman in Sanaa, still pushing the GCC deal.

News of the YR reports on more diversion of CT assets for use against the protesters: The communications system granted to the Coast Guard to combat terrorism was transferred to Sana’a and used by the family of Ali Saleh against the peaceful revolution.

A petition by over 100 tribal leaders and clerics including al Zindani calls on Saleh to step down and for new elections within two months

A US non-governmental contractor finds an advanced missile responsible for the palace attack: Aloula newspaper quoted a Yemeni official as saying that the missile an advanced Russian rocket. “The guided missile held a Russian name, FOGAZ,” the paper said.

Gates envisions a post-Saleh world:

Arab News 6/16:Gates also sounded a cautiously optimistic note about developments in Yemen, where the government and opposition tribes have engaged in armed clashes, pushing the country toward civil war. He said things have calmed down a bit since President Ali Abdullah Saleh left for neighboring Saudi Arabia on June 5 for medical treatment of wounds he suffered in an attack on his compound in Yemen.

“I don’t think you’ll see a full-blown war there,” Gates said. “With Saleh being in Saudi Arabia, maybe something can be worked out to bring this to a close” by finding an accommodation among Saleh’s family, the opposition tribes and the military.

The group of state jihaddists in Abyan is headed by Khalidabdul Nabi. Nabi has very strong links to the National Security and regularly works as a mercenary according to other jihaddists, prominent politicians, activists, Yemeni political analysts, local witnesses and all known open source documentation, his own interviews and history going back a decade. The al Qaeda uprising in Abyan is directed and funded by Yemeni counter-terror chiefs, Ammar Ali Saleh and Ahmed Ali Saleh. This new reporting dovetails with the earlier report by Abdullah al Asnag which found that many of the supposed jihaddists are members of the National Security.

Ammar, the de facto head of the Yemeni National Security, was injured in an “auto accident” last Wednesday and taken to al Urdy mil camp hospital. He reportedly has a serious head injury.

One local observer reports the sequence of events as follows: the terrorist group in Abyan is a combination of Ahmed Ali and Amar Ali’s al Qaeda forces plus al Zindani’s jihaddi forces and some of Ali Mohsen’s al Qaeda force; this grouping of so-called “al Qaeda” was attacked (and partially defeated) by the defected military coalition led by General Fisal Ragab along with locals. A division of the army under Ali Mohsen’s command is currently engaged in the battle against militants in the provincial capital of Zinjibar, “to show America that we are serious in the fight against Al Qaeda,” said his spokesman, Abdulghani al-Shumeeri.Then General Ragab’s force, after engaging the militants, was attacked by the government’s military force, naval and air, and the National Security, prompting the withdrawal of Ragab’s forces. The state forces attacked the defected military and southern forces which earlier attacked the “al Qaeda” militants in Zinjibar. ( Video 6/6/11 in Zinjibar shows several dead soldiers lying in the street but its unclear which side they were on.)

New training camp: Witnesses have reported activity at Qauarir Mountain at Moalla, Aden by the al Zindani jihaddi force, where they started some sort of training comp with the knowledge of the government. The phrase “al Zindani jihaddists” is used by many in the south and I am not clear if they are referring to al Iman students or the old school remnants of the Abyan Aden Islamic Army or a combination of both. However through the years there have been several credible reports of new training camps established in the south under the noses (and with the aid of) of the state security forces. Another state operated al Qaeda camp is in wadi Abu Jubarah in Saada.

The real AQAP, al Qaeda of al Wahishi, Awlaki and al Reimi is distinct and, according to some, hasn’t moved, although this interview indicates indicates Awlaki left Shibuya on orders from the authorities, probably right before the US air strike.

AQAP has not disowned the actions of the state jihaddists, as usual, likely because the retention of Saleh is in AQAP’s interests as well. Several terror incidents in the last years were attributed to al Qaeda but likely were false flag operations, carried out by state jihaddists under the supervision of the Yemeni security/intelligence including attacks on foreign nationals.

Meanwhile the residents are paying the price of the these games, with large numbers of citizens displaced from Zinjibar and al Hota. Some men have stayed behind to protect their homes. Photos and video here of the aftermath of the bombing in Ja’ar. AFP reports Yemeni government statements on the battles, over 100 military deaths, an army pull back, as well as missed airstrikes, destroyed homes and civilian casualties since hostilities began three weeks ago.

Medical sources say most of the 200 non-military killed were residents, not militants and not al Qaeda, the National ;

Government raids and US drone attacks in Yemen are focusing on Islamic militant targets in Abyan province, ignoring the more dangerous Al Qaeda stronghold of Shabwa province, a senior defence ministry official said yesterday.

Among the targets has been the Jaar farm of Khaled Abdul Nabi, considered one of the most powerful Islamic militants in Yemen since the early 1990s, according to the interior ministry.

“More than 85 per cent of the fighters killed in Abyan over the last three weeks have not been Al Qaeda members. Militants in Abyan and other areas in the south are well-known Jihadists, but we cannot prove their links to Al Qaeda,” said the official. Last week, the interior ministry said it arrested 10 militants in Aden believed to be fighters with links to Mr Nabi. Qasem Bin Hadi, head of security in Zinjibar, Abyan, said that the majority of the militants killed were terrorists.

“Who said that only Al Qaeda is a terrorist group in Yemen? These militants are causing as much problems for Yemen as Al Qaeda,” Mr Hadi said, adding that Abyan has turned into a ghost town and that clashes between government forces and militants are non-stop.

In an interview, Herak official Nakhebi said that Gen.Maqwala commander of the South Central Military Region Headquarters in Aden is tasked with carrying out the Saleh scheme to hand over the South to the so called al Qaeda. The following article reports that the Southern Movement is accusing Ahmed Saleh, head of the counter-terror forces, of funding the chaos in Abyan, which is quite likely. Below is a report on a propaganda statement purported to be from “al Qaeda” offering a reward for the murder of listed security officials, illogical on its face. Also a recap of analysis noting that most of the insurgents have military training or attended training camps. And al Masdar reports the former Abyan governor says that the militants are not al Qaeda.

Sahwa Net – Secretary-General of the South has accused the son of the Yemeni President Ali Abdullah, Ahmad, of funding armed groups that affiliate to Al-Qaeda with the aim of dominating South Yemen. (Read on …)

The escape is one part of the state’s plan of generating al Qaeda chaos. There is a high likelihood that the escape was arranged by the head of the security forces like Ahmed, Saleh’s son or one of the nephews. These officials are also the US’s important partners in counter-terror efforts and have been the recipients of millions in counter-terror funding.

The Saleh regime has repeatedly released al Qaeda prisoners over the years often in exchange for support as mercenaries. Individual jihaddis were released to go fight in Saada, but larger scale escapes and releases (like the 109 released in 2009 or the escape in 2006) are a habitual characteristic of the Saleh regime and generally part of a much larger deal. . The international media is uniformly reporting idiotic statements like this from Fox: Wednesday’s escape was the latest sign that Yemen’s months-long upheaval has emboldened Al Qaeda militants to challenge authorities in the country’s nearly lawless south. No, they are not challenging the authorities but working in concert with them.

Yemen Post: 62 Al-Qaeda Prisoners Escape Yemen Prison
At least 62 suspected al-Qaeda prisoners escaped from the central security prison in the southern city of Mukalla Wednesday morning.

One security personnel was killed as well as a prisoner. The security official said that a number of the escaped prisoners were arrested after coming back from Iraq, where they were fighting American forces. This is considered the biggest prison breakout for suspected al-Qaeda suspects.

Opposition forces are blaming senior military officials with close links to President Saleh for allowing and easing the escape of al-Qaeda prisoners to cause chaos in the south and get more US support and prolong the Saleh regime.

This comes at the time where the assistant secretary of state is visiting Yemen. He said the the majority of the escapees had court sentences of over five years in prison on terror charges.

More to come

Sahwa Net- Well-informed sources have accused a high-ranking military commander close to President Ali Abdullah Saleh of plotting to release Al-Qaeda suspects in Hadhramout governorate. (Read on …)