Armies of Liberation

al Sahwa: Yemen’s defected army in collaboration with tribesmen could halt on Friday ba convey of militants heading the southern town of Zinjibar where government troops.

The defected army supported by General Ali Mohsin Al-Ahmar could defeat al-Qaeda in many areas in Abyan and cleansed several districts from militants who had grasped areas in Abyan after the Yemeni regime help them control the governorate, local sources affirmed.

Local sources said the defected army along with some tribes had secured the road from Shabwa province to Shaqra in Abyan, a main highway leading to Zinjibar which is still controlled by the militants.

Yemen defected generals had accused President Ali Abdullah Saleh of of letting his forces ease their grip around areas suspected of hosting militants, in order to convince foreign governments that only he stands in the way of a militant takeover.

al Masdar reports a senior commander of the 25th mechanized unit alleges a conspiracy by the Southern Military Command and the Ministry of Defense because a) the 25th was twice ordered to surrender to AQAP, hand over weapons and withdraw, b) they have been besieged for weeks without any support, food or resupply of equipment c) the Defense Ministry refused the US demand two weeks ago to supply weapons and food by helicopter (there’s 4 new Hueys, why not use those?) With the support of Yemeni tribesmen he says, they were able to break the siege and make progress.

Doubts raised by the swift announcement after the air raid. Yemen has the fastest DNA lab in the world and frequently announces the deaths of live al Qaeda. Also a new round of announcements that the US nearly hit Awlaki in May, and Yemen is suddenly feeding the US CT info. The Saleh administration knows where Awlaki is, and is using that information politically to blackmail the US into supporting Saleh. Deciding to dish on Awlaki now in order to save Saleh is an indication of the regime’s utter insincerity on the al Qaeda issue.

Almotamar.net, Saba – Sana’a – Two leaders of al-Qaeda have been killed in Abyan province, a security source in the province said on Wednesday. The two terrorists were Aidh al-Shabwani and Awadh Mohammed Saleh al-Shabwani, who have been killed among many other terrorists in the clashes between armed forces and the terrorist organization currently taking place in Abyan, the source said. (Read on …)

In an appeal letter to vice president Mansour “Hadi,” clerics and intellectuals demand revealing the persons involved in the Abyan battles

ADEN 18 JULY A number of clerics and intellectuals in Delta Abyan located in Abyan governorate, south Yemen sent a message of appeal to the vice president Abd Rabo Mansour Hadi and called on him to take a series of procedures to be taken with regard to the bloody events which are taking place in the Abyan Delta region by the armed jihadists militant groups.

Armies of Liberation obtained a copy of the appeal letter which included five points as follows:

1) We praises the steadfastness of 25 Mica camp and assured our confidence in the ability of the various branches of the armed forces to liberate the Delta region, therefore demand quickly clinch the battle.

2) Accelerate bringing security forces in the city after its liberation to fixing security and preserve what remains of public and private property, that the state shall ensure safe return for displaced persons to their homes.

3) Reveal the names of the elements whom involved in the fighting and looting operations and submit them to the justice.

4) Establishing fund to rebuild the affected cities and villages and make statistics, develop plans and budget necessary to restore the infrastructure of electricity, water, and other services that fund will manage by group of people of the Delta.

5) Compensate those affected in military operation (dead, wounded and private property) and make necessary limitation to them and consider the dead as martyrs.

Suspected Qaeda chief killed in Yemen: official
(AFP)
ADEN — A leader of suspected Al-Qaeda militants in Abyan province in south Yemen has been killed by the army, a government official said on Tuesday.

The killing comes as tribesmen across Abyan began expelling the militants from the province.

Hassan Basonbol, who went under the alias Abu Issa, was killed in fighting with the army on Monday in Zinjibar, the capital of Abyan, where security forces have battled suspected Al-Qaeda-linked militants since May, the official said. (Read on …)

The AQAP eulogy of Ammar al Waeli says, “His father was a leader in the mujahadin in Yemen who was appointed by (bin Laden) to open a training camp in the area of Saada.”

Abu Jubarah anyone? See my article, Large al Qaeda camp in North Yemen dims peace prospects, politician says dated 3/29/10 or my category Abu Jubarah.

During the Saada Wars, both the US and al Qaeda (bin Laden division) were facilitating Saleh’s forces against the Houthis and the residents of Saada. In essence, the US was supporting a state sponsored jihad, as the Saleh regime itself characterized the conflict. Kahlidabdul Nabi, who in theory is heading the current al Qaeda uprising in Abyan, fought in Saada for Saleh in the 2005 and the 2007 rounds of war. Nabi also lead the state jihaddists in the 2009 battle of Jaar. Ayman Zawaheri provided fighters for Saleh and the US provided the money.

The diversion of US counter-terror aid to Saada was documented by the US Congress. The US was aware of the redeployment of US trained CT units as revealed by Wikileaks. At the same time, the reports of al Qaeda on the same side of the battlefield since 2005 have been consistent, credible and detailed. European nations including the UK and France also provided logistical support to Saleh’s regime including surveillance photos.

The now defected General Ali Mohsen al Ahmar led the Yemeni military against the Houthis in rounds 1-5 of the Saada war (2004-2008). Ahmed Saleh, President Saleh’s son, head of the Republican Guard and the US’s primary CT liaison, commanded round 6 (2009-2010) of the Saada War, the most brutal and lethal.

In Saada War number 6, Saudi Arabia took part in the carnage, bombing residential areas in Yemen as well as refouling refugees who were fleeing the bombing. Over 300,000 residents were displaced in several governorates, international aid was blocked, doctors arrested and hospitals bombed. The internal refugees, mostly women, children and the elderly, received little support from the UN. Only a few thousands were afforded safety in refugee camps where conditions were so abysmal that malnourished infants died all too regularly amid shortages of tents, food and medicine. The rest starved in fields and caves.

The nature and scale of the war crimes against the Yemeni civilian population, based on their ethnic and religious identity, in Saada and throughout the nation, is among the most brutal slaughters of the 21st century. After an investigation, Human Rights Watch said the state’s actions likely violate international law and rise to the level of crimes against humanity. President Obama’s insistence on immunity for his friend President Saleh whitewashes US, Saudi and western complicity in these crimes.

LAT

Reporting from Washington— Al Qaeda’s powerful branch in Yemen has provided weapons, fighters and training with explosives over the last year to a militant Islamic group battling for power in Somalia, according to newly developed American intelligence, raising concerns of a widening alliance of terrorist groups.

Leaders of Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula in Yemen also have urged members of the hard-line Shabab militia to attack targets outside Africa for the first time, said U.S. officials who were briefed on the intelligence.

The information, they said, comes in part from a Somali militant who was captured en route from Yemen to Somalia and interrogated aboard a U.S. warship before being arraigned in New York on terrorism charges this month. Further intelligence was gleaned from detailed digital files found at Osama bin Laden’s hide-out in Pakistan after he was killed in May. (Read on …)

This all began months ago when the villagers locked down the RG camp as forces were deploying to attack some protesters. The villagers also captured and burned three helicopters in Nehm. The Saleh forces began randomly bombing residential areas and infrastructure in retaliation, a standard tactic. Arhab was also the site of the December 2009 US air strike and al Zindani is around there somewhere.

Yemen Post: A citizen was killed and three others injured when the republican guard continued shelling the district of Arhab on the outskirts of Yemen’s capital Sana’a on Saturday.

Local sources said the republican guard brigade 61 heavily shelled the village of Al-Obowa with artilleries and Katyusha rockets leading to the casualties and destroying homes and properties. (Read on …)

The Southern Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) monthly report on various HR violations in southern Yemen (including Zinjibar) for June 2011 is now available for download:

English: http://www.archive.org/download/report_909/3.pdf

Arabic: http://www.archive.org/download/report_673/17.pdf

Southern secessionist leader Hassan Baoum remains in very poor health and in incommunicado detention since February despite multiple efforts to visit him by activists and others this week. But with friends like Obama, the Saleh regime can do what it wants to the political opposition without fear of consequences:

Sanaa authorities are still prevent the visit in the hospital of Ba’oom (Read on …)

Following the news article is a scorching indictment of the 17 member council, issued by the Feb 3 youth movement which warns the youth against those attempting to steal the revolution. Others don’t oppose the council or its members per se, just the way it was formed, by fiat. The further out of Sanaa, the more readily the proposal was accepted. Positive reactions came from Taiz which is undergoing bombing and Hodeidah Arab News SANAA: Youth protesters in Yemen unilaterally announced Saturday a transitional council to run the country as President Ali Abdullah Saleh’s supporters geared up to celebrate on Sunday the 33rd anniversary of his accession to power in 1978.

The Youth Council of the Yemeni revolution announced a 17-member council apparently as a viable alternative to Saleh’s troubled regime.The council includes veteran dissidents and defected generals.

Government spokesman Abdu Al-Janadi said the council’s formation would worsen the crisis in Yemen and described it as a coup against the constitution. He said Saleh is “the legal, democratically elected president and an alternative will only come though elections, not through an illegal coup.” (Read on …)

This comprehensive timeline compiled by the Woman’s Media Forum (MWF) includes violations against the protesters by the Central Security, Republican Guard, the First Armored Division (after Ali Mohsen defected to the protesters) as well as the Organizing Committee in Sanaa’s Change Square, an arm of Islah:

MWF monitors the number of violations of human rights in the recent events taking place in Yemen (Read on …)

The video shows the Republican Guard looting an orphans charity in Taiz, Yemen and carting off televisions, tables, chairs and anything not bolted down. It goes on for ten minutes.

The Miami Herald reports on Nashiri’s legal teams’ motion to take the death penalty off the table. Beyond challenging the legality of the death penalty on the basis of torture, delay and jurisdiction, the lawyers should assert the Nuremberg defense: Nashiri was just following government orders.

The (pdf) motion makes the point that Nashiri’s lawyers are unable to travel to Yemen to investigate exculpatory evidence and mitigating circumstances.

There is a strong circumstantial case that the Saleh regime, or top elements of it, had foreknowledge of the attack and furthermore, facilitated the murder of 17 US service members.

Saleh’s Interior Minister Hussain Arab issued the travel documents that afforded Nashiri free passage prior to and after the attack, as well as weapons permits. (Arab was later appointed to the Shura Council and remained a Major General in the army until he resigned a few months ago.) Saleh sent several top Yemeni officials to Port Aden the evening prior to the terror attack. The Saleh regime obstructed the US investigation. Nashiri was sheltered in Yemen immediately after the bombing with the knowledge of government officials. All those tried and convicted in Yemen for the terror attack were released years early, including al Quso and al Badawi, per a deal with Saleh. There are also witnesses in Yemen who say Nashiri is “wearing a shirt to big,” and culprits (in the government) were never charged.

Its not news. Why Bush (and DOD) gave Saleh a pass on the USS Cole attack, and why Obama called him “a friend” a few months ago, is beyond me. Saleh is no friend to the US. For more on the miscarriage of justice, for the victims not their murderers, see my friend Gary Swenchonis Sr.

First Saleh took the presidency, then he took everything else. Taiz City marks the anniversary with a massive protest demanding self-government:

Its a “day of rage” all over Yemen, 33 years can do that. ( Video here of aftermath of RG bombing in Taiz that killed four at random. Water cannons in Hodeidah. Gunfire heard in Sanaa as supporters fire in the air.) Thanks to the incompetence of the Obama administration, the US is (correctly) seen as extending the longevity of the regime by siding with a few corrupt elites over 22 million citizens. So many people in Yemen were joyous when Obama was sworn in and believed the Hope ‘n Change propaganda that was the essence of Obama’s platform.

There’s some shrill and shallow analysis (I’ll try to find the link again) that asserts the battle for hearts and minds in Yemen was lost a decade ago–and the proof is the USS Cole bombing. Bizarre. In reality, the Cole bombing is proof that the elite have been double crossing the US for a decade. The diverse Yemeni people aspired to and formed a unified consensus for the democracy that was supposed to underpin 1990’s unity. Yemen is the only country with national protests against political Islam, against al Qaeda and in favor of a civil government. The tribes are battling al Qaeda because the government isn’t doing a very good job of it. But when the securocrats assert Yemen is a lost cause, and that the drone campaign is taking place in a vacuum, then animosity toward the US becomes a self fulfilling prophecy.

US policy seems designed to strengthen the al Qaeda narrative and sphere of influence. The hypocrisy of US statements about democracy is staggering when the US is overtly thwarting the mass effort to reform a brutal tyranny. The US’s push for immunity for Saleh and his relatives, while the slaughter continues daily, may be related to US complicity in Yemeni war crimes for a decade. It may be the US is implementing the Saudi agenda. It may have to do with trying to salvage something from the US investment in Yemen’s CT forces. But the Obama administration is demonstrating, at every opportunity, that the taking of Yemeni lives is an inconsequential act, whether by Saleh’s guns or US planes.

Sanaa, Yemen (CNN) — Fighting flared in Yemen’s volatile south Saturday, as security forces — backed by armed tribesmen — battled Islamic militants in the region, eyewitnesses said.

Hundreds of tribesmen joined the fight in the town of Zinjibar, vowing to stand strong until Islamic militants leave Abyan province.

“We will not stop until the terrorists leave the province. We will fight and have nothing to lose,” said Masood Mansoor, one of the fighters. “This land is ours and we will not allow it to be a safe haven from outlaws.”

The consensus for equal rights is at the core of the Yemeni revolution nationally and is the central principle underlying the years of robust and courageous civil activism that preceded it. (Update: this is a good analysis by Stacey Philbrick Yadav in Foreign Policy Mag.)

»Sana« a – Youth Revolution Civil Coalitions has released a statement Thursday, 14 th »July on on Salafi Forces Use of religion, as follows:

The Yemen revolution has been currently witnessing several attempts to get it harnessed to retrospective forces the true attitude of which towards the youth peaceful revolution was clear, mainly establishing a modern state based on equal citizenship, respect of rights and freedoms and power of law. (Read on …)

It appears neither the proposed council members nor the other rev groups were consulted, and this council is a draft proposal, like the one from the Civil Coalition that preceded it. Update: The Civil Coalition rejects the council and its method of formation (by fiat and without consultation). They say it is an exclusionary body and will fragment efforts. Their statement below as well as the list of names. The earlier draft by the Civil Coalition was more inclusive and balanced as well as included methods for revision and determining consensus. (Read on …)

The following is an accurate diagram created by a Yemeni analyst. Does the US want to insert itself further into the murky game of murder, theft and slavery or start over with new players? The Yemeni protesters are dying to overthrow this configuration while the Obama administration is pushing to keep it. Nearly all al Qaeda groups and divisions are satellites of these players and their elaborate and associated networks.

Zindani has been in Saleh’s pocket for so long that its hard to see him as an independent actor. Most major statements he makes have been timed to strengthen Saleh. Zindani recently denounced the protesters demand for a civil state and said a Taliban style Islamic emirate is the correct solution for Yemen. The protesters renewed their demands.

YAATC-
Thousands of demonstrators in protest to the squares of many cities, from Yemen to demonstrate in the Friday “for a civil state,” at a time which left five in the province of Abyan, and activists denounced the Yemeni Abdul Majid al-invitation to establish an Islamic state instead of a civil state.

In Sana’a infallibility came out the crowd into an arena of change in a demonstration calling for the construction of state law, as thousands gathered to demand the city of Ibb departure of the system and the establishment of the rule of law. (Read on …)

Statement by ITCHR and HOOD dated 7/4

Despite the presence of the United Nations Mission Taiz live nights terrifying artillery shelling

Civic organizations condemn the continuation of bombings in the province of Taiz and demands quickly stop the cycle of violence and terror daily (Read on …)

Its been a low grade conflict in al Jawf for some time, as discussed earlier, the Islahis take turns with the regime forces fighting the Houthis.

Reuters: (Reuters) – Factional fighting in Yemen’s north entered its fifth day on Tuesday, bringing violence closer to the border with Saudi Arabia, while the United States’ top counter-terrorism official visited Sanaa.

Twenty-three people have been killed and dozens injured in the northern province of Jawf since clashes broke out on Friday between members of Yemen’s main opposition party Islah and northern Shi’ite rebels known as Houthis. (Read on …)

The article doesn’t make note of the enhanced US role in the conflict, directly and indirectly. But its undeniable that the Yemeni regime is currently committing war crimes, and has committed mass violations and mass murder for years in the Saada War, in the south as well across the nation.

HRW 7/9/11, (Aden) – Yemeni forces may have killed dozens of civilians in unlawful attacks while fighting an Islamist armed group in southern Abyan province since May 2011, Human Rights Watch said today. The militants in Abyan, called Ansar al-Sharia (Partisans of Islamic Law), may have unlawfully placed civilians at risk by deploying in densely populated areas and engaged in looting and other abuses, Human Rights Watch said. (Read on …)

A bunch of overdue AQAP links and articles: First, business as usual: Sadiq al Ahmar said 16 of the recent al Qaeda escapees are living in villas in Sanaa, and other al Qaeda members are in the counter-terror forces, Republican Guard and Central Security. Its typical; we listed names of some of the AQ in the CT forces some years ago. Its well documented that other al Qaeda terrorists receive no-show salaries from the army or intelligence forces. The regime spun it as “rehabilitation,” until they needed a deniable proxy. The US dismissed them as “militants” but now the US is droning “militants” with no clear affiliation to al Qaeda or any transnational terror organization.

Yesterday, in an interview with Al Sheba, about what promoted the power of “the existence of al-Qaeda in Yemen”, Shekh Sadiq al Ahmar stressed that the so-called al-Qaeda elements are out of the house of the presidency and they exist in an anti-terrorist forces and the Republican Guard and the Central Security, noting that 16 members of Al Qaeda leaders who fled from the prison of Al-Mukalla month the past, “present in the villas in the capital alone to them the system in it.” He added, “The system uses the al-Qaeda bogeyman to extort from the Gulf, and promoted himself to America.”

Second, Shabab fighter Ahmed Warsame, arrested in the Gulf, was brought to the US for trial. Warsame has ties to both AQAP and al Shabab and met Anwar. Awlaki has been pimping al Qaeda to the Somalis since (at least) 2006 when the eight westerners were arrested trying to smuggle weapons to Somalia from Yemen. The enmeshment between al Qaeda in Yemen and al Shabab was politically inconvenient prior to the rev and is an expedient sound bite now.

NYT 7/10: In his remarks on his plane, Mr. Panetta said there were greater dangers to the United States in Yemen. “There’s no question when you look at what constitutes the biggest threat in terms of attacks on the United States right now, more of that comes from Yemen and people like Awlaki,” he said. He added that in Yemen, “There are a number of operations that are being conducted not only by the Defense Department, but by my former agency to try to focus on going after those targets. I would say that’s one of our top priorities right now.”

Fox News: The Somali terror suspect transferred this week to a New York City federal court spent “significant time” with American-born cleric Anwar al-Awlaki in Yemen, a U.S. official told Fox News. (Read on …)