Armies of Liberation

In an interview al Shabab spokesman Ali Rage said the Somali terror group intended to provide manpower to Yemen’s al Qaeda group, and that Yemen’s al Qaeda had provided generous support to al Shabab in the past.

Closer coordination between Somalia’s al Shabab and Yemen’s AQAP heightens risk of a coordinated attack on the NATO anti-piracy patrols in the Gulf of Aden. Currently AQAP is asking for any information on the US vessels in the Gulf including the names and home states of individual American sailors, blueprints, suppliers and operating procedures.

In a missive released yesterday, AQAP said, “Today, the duty of our Muslim nation is to declare Jihad against the infidels and their apostate cooperatives; not only on land but on sea and in the air too. The Crusader warships are present in the Gulf of Aden, in the Arabian Sea and in the Red Sea, and the American surveillance jets occupy the sphere over the Arabian Peninsula..” This echoes an earlier statement from AQ Central calling for naval jihad.

Droves of Yemeni jihaddists and Somalis in Yemen traveled to Somalia when the TFG was battling the ICU. Afterward, the US noted an exodus to back to Yemen. The intersection of piracy, arms smuggling, human smuggling and terrorists has been noted by the UN.

Update: Reuters: AQAP military commander Qasim al-Raymi has fought in Somalia and has written on the need to back Somalia’s revolt… Some others in that founding group had also fought in Somalia. Security experts say Yemenis make up a sizeable part of a foreign contingent that fights with al Shabaab’s Somali rank and file and supplies bomb-making and communications expertise. By one estimate there are about 500 or more foreigners in Shabaab’s ranks, which experts say may number 5,000 or more.

(Read on …)

Al Shabab’s announcement yesterday that it is coming to the defense of its Yemeni counterparts overshadows the fact that the intial airstrikes in Yemen on al Qaeda did very little actual damage to the organization. All the targeted leaders survived. The sucess of the strikes were repeatedly over-stated by the Saleh regime in its typical pattern of blatant propaganda for the western audience. Yemen’s subsequent “storming” and “hunting” operations are more of the same. The AFP article notes the Yemeni government claims that 60 Islamist militants were killed. Its not true. Its not even close to being true.

AFP however does note the widely overlooked November arrest and later release of an individual at a Mogadishu airport with chemicals and a syringe.

Jihaddists have been going back and forth between Yemen and Somalia for some time. When the TFG was battling the Islamic Courts Union, there was a marked increase in terrorist traffic from Yemen to Somalia. Subsequently, the US noted somewhat of an exodus of Islamist fighters from Somalia to Yemen. Substantial amounts of weapons move from Yemen to Somalia, as the UN’s monitoring committee found, and is perhaps the most destabilizing factor in Somalia’s continuing chaos. Tens of thousands of Somali refugees cross the Bab al Mendab annually into Yemen. Somali pirates obtain logistical and intelligence support from sources in Yemen.

The overlapping infrastructure of refugee smugglers, arms smuggling and piracy was also noted by the UN, and of course, overlaps with al Qaeda’s footprint as well. To the extent that Somali terror recruits are joining Yemeni terrorists, its the Americans among them who pose an enhanced risk to the US homeland. The Yemeni jidaddist fanatics have historical relationships with Al Qaeda Central, which remains intent on a catastrophic attack on the United States. AFP article below the fold.

A good TV program on the lives and tremendous challenges of refugees from Somalia and Ethiopia when they arrive in Yemen is available here at France 24’s website.

Human Rights Watch issued a new report on refugees and migrants in Yemen. Sections include:

The Journey to Yemen
Systematic Violation of Yemen’s Obligations to Asylum Seekers under International Law
Running the Gauntlet: Ethiopian Asylum Seekers in Yemen
Discrimination and Abuse Against Ethiopian Refugees, Asylum Seekers, and Migrants in Yemen
The Role of the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees

BBC: Somalis forced to fight for rebels under threat of execution.

And ta da, a good analysis, International Crisis Group Yemen: “Disorder on the Border”, Joost Hiltermann in Foreign Affairs:

In June 2004, the Houthis, a group of rebels in the Sa’dah governorate of northwest Yemen, began taking up arms against the Yemeni national army. They claimed, and continue to claim, to be defending their own specific branch of Shia Islam — Zaydism — from a Yemeni regime they say is too dependent on its northern neighbor, Saudi Arabia, and its partner in the war on terrorism, the United States. Yemen’s political and military leaders have labeled the Houthis a terrorist group supported by Iran. This smoldering civil war attracted little outside attention until last month, when, on November 5, Saudi Arabia sent its warplanes to bomb Houthi positions around the border, both on Saudi territory and inside Yemen. It was Saudi Arabia’s first cross-border military intervention since the Gulf War in 1991. (Read on …)

Rahm of TFS was kind enough to explain that the al Manhal Charity is of the hard core Wahabbi persuasion and linked to a Kuwaiti charity, Revival of Islamic Heritage Society, currently designated by the US Treasury as providing financial and material support to al Qaeda. Al Manhal has been operating in the Jubba region of Somalia, some parts of Mugdishu and everywhere where al Shabaab has control, he says.

Suspected Somali al-Qaeda man arrested in Yemen SANA’A, Oct. 29 (Saba) – Yemeni Security authorities have arrested suspect of al-Qaeda member in Taiz, Interior Ministry said on Thursday.

The Somali Nour Omar has been held along with five other Somalis in Mocha district of Taiz governorate. A laptop and a stamp of al-Manhal Charitable Society in Mogadishu, Somalia, were in the possession of the accused.
.

Now that Yemeni al Qaeda formally merged with Saudi al Qaeda is the next focus a greater degree of integration with al Shabaab? There is substantial black market trade between the two nations and amount of persons, weapons and diesel transiting the Bab al Mendab is staggering.

No surprise there. The UN monitoring group on the arms embargo to Somalia found Yemeni markets to the chief source of illegal weapons imports, a leading factor in the ongoing instability. The ties between Al Qaeda in Yemen and al Shabaaab are not well documented, but when they were the ICU there was a lot of movement from Yemen to Somalia in support of their efforts against the TFG. The report is from Inside Somalia:

Abdillahi Omar Qawdhan, a Somaliland coast guard consultant and marine expert, told IRIN: “We have information that illegal small arms are smuggled to parts of the Somaliland coast but what we know is that small-calibre ammunition is imported to the west coast in sacks by the Yemeni boats that import fuel and other items to the west coast ports such as Cel-Sheik, Bula-Har, Bulo-Addo and Zaila. (Read on …)

A ship seized in Yemen’s port of Hodeidah was importing weapons from China for the Houthi rebels with “false documents” from the Defense Ministry. Are things really that lax that any yo-yo can show up and buy a shipload of weapons with a forged document? Perhaps all weapon sales to Yemen should be scrutinized for similar fraud.

Is the Yemeni administration so corrupt that aspects of the military are selling weapons to their adversaries in the midst of a war? Undoubtedly. The military is so corrupt that sometimes al Qaeda trains inside military camps (less obvious from the air) and military commanders oversee logistics for would be jihaddists. There’s an al Qaeda safe house in President Saleh’s village with a bus that runs to a nearby training camp.

The cargo was not confiscated, and the ship left the port likely bound for buyers in Somalia. The sequence of events led MP’s to wonder who was behind the shipment (hidden hands behind the state is the phrase) and if it was possible that the government appointed mediator was also the rebels’ supplier. Ya think?

The recent “blacklisting” of President Saleh’s ally, weapons dealer and government mediator, Faris Manna makes a little more sense now as a fit of pique, but the war economy is well entrenched. The perpetrators of organized criminal activity in Yemen often operate under official cover. For more on Yemen’s weapons smuggling, see my category proliferation.

YO: Security authorities sabotaged an attempt by arms dealers to enter a large amount of ammunition imported from China, through forged official documents. The dealers are being investigated in preparation for trial. The deal was done through forged documents on behalf of the Yemeni Ministry of Defense and it included a large amount of old manufactured ammunition, said security sources.

The GPC’s al Motamar reports: Official sources last Monday affirmed that concerned authorities in Yemen foiled an attempt of entering a shipment of munitions some weapon merchants to import from China with forged official documents , pointing out that security investigations were conducted with eh involved persons prior to stand trial.

(Read on …)

Courtesy of The Terror Free Somalia Foundation:

Terrorist al-shabaab owned radio station opened in Kismayo
A new radio that is said to be an Islamic station has been opened in Kismayo town (southern Somalia) which is controlled by al- Shabaab Terrorist group. the radio administration said that they were independent from the Islamist jehadist group controlling the town????, but that it is an Islamic station.A celebration held in Kismayo yesterday evening to inaugurate the radio was attended by Islamist jehadist administration officials.al shabaab command structure jubaland region, we learnt that the radio is owned by the Islamist jehadist administration in the area though they agreed not make it public in order to make the station free for business.This comes at a time when all other redio in the area are still closed after the station disagreed with the Islamists jehadist over airing of music programmes.This new radio station will be the only station operating in Kismayo

The second man of Al-Qaeda terror network Ayman Al-Zawahiri has been seen for the first time Habar Gidir stronghold Marka town 90km south of Somalia capital as quoted from officials of unnamed money transfer companies and aid agencies on Thursday.

“Here in Marka, I have seen an Arab man who was heavily guarded as he was walking inside the town, with his sides we could see foreign armed men. I glimpsed him and he was Terrorist Ayman Al-Zawihiri, the man we often see on the world televisions,” one of the remittance companies said in condition of anonymity.He said all the movements in the town were halted as some of the senior officials of Al-Shabab group confirmed that the man they are hosting is Ayman Al-Zawahiri.

“I could not exactly say he was himself but most of out spoken issue was that the man seen is Al-Qaeda’s second man,” he added.“The presence of Ayman Al-Zawahiri in Marka is widely known, many people saw him but they fear for their security.

Our friends over at Terror Free Somalia got information from Waaga’s Club, but it’s in Somali. He describes the source as, “terror sympathizer HABAR-GIDIR ..news from Somalia waagacusub.own by harar-gidir own.. Shabelle media.. we call shabaab media.” The site was suspended shortly after. He believes there’s possibly some validity. It could be a high level AQ rep, not Zawahiri, considering the difficulty Zawahiri would have traveling. It could be a lot of things. I can’t find anything on Shabelle about it in English, but since Shabelle and Wagacusub tend to work hand in hand, thats not surprising. Also Shabelle regularly puts out misinformation in English.

At this point, its a rumor, but given the recent deal making between the government of Yemen and al-Qaeda, the prospect of Zawahiri visiting nearby Somalia is not as far fetched as it may initially seem. Yemen is the primary supplier of weapons to Somalia (in violation of the UN arms embargo); weapons are shipped from Yemen across the narrow Bab al Mendab Strait and the same boats bring Somali refugees to Yemen on the return trip.

After the September attack on the US embassy in Yemen, the US intercepted a communication between Ayman Zawahiri and the Iranian al Quds force leadership that referenced a deal between Yemeni President Saleh and Zawahiri. The deal was Zawahiri would send more fighters to Saleh to use in the northern Sa’ada war (against the Zaidi Shiite rebels) and in return Saleh would release imprisoned al-Qaeda operatives.

In a second deal in January, Saleh met with the contingent of Yemeni old generation co-opted al Qaeda under the leadership of Tariq al Fahdli and made a deal to use them to undermine the southern separatist movement in exchange for the release of prisoners. Saleh also gave the jihaddists funds and a free hand in the southern province of Abyan. New jihaddist training camps were also established. Then President Saleh released 102 jihaddists, of which about a third were actual al-Qaeda, the rest were local militants, thereby upholding his end of both deals.

Current news reports from Yemen indicate hundreds of jihaddists are amassing in the north in Sa’ada, Yemenis and non-Yemenis including Arabs and non-Arabs. The influx of foreign jihaddists to Sa’ada as well as the structure, training and hierarchy being imposed on them, indicates this possibly is an outcome of the communication between President Saleh and Ayman Zawahiri. Maybe Ayman will pop over from Somalia for a quick pow-pow with Ali.

Update: considering the site’s down, I posted the original below: (Read on …)

I’ve recently been corresponding with some Somali refugees in Yemen. One who converted to Christianity says when he goes into the UN offices, he gets overtly harassed and insulted by the UN employees for converting. Other refugees report little assistance and open hostility from the office. The open letter below says refugees are beaten and intimidated by Yemeni security forces outside the UN offices. Three refugees were killed and two women raped by the security during a protest outside the UN offices in 2005. To date, the Yemen UN office has failed to register hundreds of thousands of refugees. Maybe it is time for a “new registration mechanism” to deal with the abysmal situation. A note from Yemen to the UN office on refugees:

Dear Mr.Andrew Kinght.
Really I read your answer about the Iraqi refugees protest. But really you comment or answer is very wrong as I understanding. You are side that there is not any protest, I am asking you not about protest but your office have interest to cooperate with refugees problem in this difficult country?
Dear Sir, how many refugees are (beaten) by the Yemeni Police Guard in front of your office every day, especial most of them they are old women.
Mr. Andrew, I hear from your good behave and humanity for refugees in this country, but I am asking you to keep this behalves my dear.
Yours
(redacted)
Sana’a Yemen

Yemen Post notes the UNHCR seeks aid and reform, good! Many of the international orgs dance around the regime because otherwise they make it impossible to get anything done. The ICRC still (!) has problems getting unfettered access to Sa’ada.

Yemen Post

More than 700 thousand Somali refugees in addition to thousands of other African nationalities in Yemen most of which are not registered with the Office of High Commissioner for Refugees, said the Deputy Foreign Minister and Chairman of the National Commission for Refugees, Muthana Ali Hassan. (Read on …)

The US and counter-piracy coalition noticed the substantial support for Somalia piracy coming from Yemen. And it is substantial, including weapons, diesel, use of territorial waters, phone service, ship coordinates etc. Earlier the UN monitoring group noted the nexus of piracy, human smuggling from Somalia to Yemen and the weapons smuggling from Yemen to Somalia on the return trip. The US Admiral is careful to make the point that the support is coming from private individuals, when actually all substantial criminal networks in Yemen are tied to the highest levels of the Yemeni regime. The US hopes for Yemeni governmental support in diminishing logistical aid to the pirates.

The Economist notes the enmeshing of criminal gangs and Mukallah’s importance in particular: It is said that pirates from Somalia and Yemen have now teamed up with smuggling gangs elsewhere in Africa to conduct illicit trade through Yemeni ports such as Mukalla and Belhaf with coalition force having only occasional success, piracy is plainly spreading more widely across the Indian Ocean.

Good. We noted that Mukallah port was an important entry point for drugs and exit point for weapons in 2005: One regionally destabilizing regime activity is drug smuggling. A variety of illegal drugs are smuggled via the Indian Ocean into the southern Yemeni governate of Hadramawt. The drugs are then transported inland to Saudi Arabia and the Gulf States under the supervision of a close relative of the president who is also responsible for the governmental security apparatus, a well informed former regime official reported.

The 10 tons of hashish was coming in through Mukallah. I noted in the Yemen Times that Makallah is not under the authority of the Coast Guard yet:

Increased activity by the Yemeni Coast Guard between Aden and al Mukalla impacted arms shipments from ports in the patrolled areas. However, the monitoring group found that the lack of regular patrols in al Mukalla “means that arms traffic continues unabated.” The group recommended capacity building programs for the Coast Guard and direct naval interdiction.

Yemen’s coast line extends 1906 km. The Coast Guard, created in 2003, is working towards taking control of Mocha and al Mukalla from the military. The Republican Guard and Central Security forces have authority at ports where the Coast Guard has limited presence.

The Republican Guard is under the direction of Prince Ahmed and the Central Security is under Yahya Saleh, the “close presidential relative” referenced in the 2005 article above. The US says the logistical support for the pirates is undertaken by private individuals. ,

Reuters The international community should work with Yemen to stop its people supplying Somali pirates who are disrupting lucrative international shipping routes, a senior U.S. admiral said on Monday. Somali pirates, who have disrupted lucrative international shipping trade, are getting fuel and engine parts from individuals in Yemen, Admiral Mark Fitzgerald, a Nato commander and the top U.S naval officer for Africa, told Reuters….”The fuel for instance, is coming from Yemen, a lot of the logistic supplies, things like motor boat engines (too)… And so we just need work with the government there to start tightening up controls,” Fitzgerald said.

“Its (support) not from the Yemen government, its from people in Yemen,” Fitzgerald said on the sidelines of an African naval conference in Cape Town, without giving further details.

Yemen offers its Perim island for NATO-led anti-piracy fleet
Sanaa, 21 February – As NATO is expanding into the Red Sea and towards the Horn of Africa, the improvised naval and military base in Djibuti is perceived to be insufficient. French sources now revealed that French foreign minister Bernard Kouchner and Yemen’s President Ali Abdullah Saleh agreed to build an artificial port on Yemen’s Perim island, to harbour the international NATO-led naval forces that have been tasked by the United Nations Security Council with future large-scale and enduring anti-piracy missions. The Yemeni Perim island has been chosen for its strategic location at the entrance to the Red Sea between Yemen and Djibouti. Bernard Kouchner is expected to arrive in Djibouti tomorrow for talks with the local government and that of Somalia about a future coordination between their executive forces and the newly to be allocated international anti-piracy mission

(Read on …)

We knew this already, yes? That was the problem with the Somalis when they were demonstrating a year or two ago. The Somali refugees said the UN office in Yemen wasn’t processing paperwork (who’s paying for that slow down?) and discouraged them overtly. According to the Iraqi refugees, the UN office is extorting $10,000 to process documents.

There are some international orgs working in Yemen cleanly, like MSF for one, but others get sucked into the corrupt environment. Foreigners who can’t be bribed are sometimes overtly blackmailed or obliquely coerced by such tactics as threatened visa refusal.

This is part of the reason why Yemen, the real Yemen, is such a black hole, many Westerners go easy on the regime and self censor because those who don’t can’t come back and would lose their livelihood.

YemenOnline. Feb 18, 2009 – In a raging environment, a number of discontented Iraqi families headed for the gate of UNHCR office in Yemen where they tore up their own asylum and resettlement documents issued by UNHCR Yemen in protest to the degradation, ill-treatment and continuous extortion they received from UNHCR staff, as well as in protest to the violations against the international humanitarian laws.

A number of Iraqi refugees in Yemen said that UNHCR staff used to treat them with contempt and refuse to receive their resettlement documents to be processed and renewed. They added that a minimum of US$ 10,000 has to be paid to staff in order for the resettlement documents to be processed.

On a related note, Iraq issued a call for former Army officials to return, but there’s so many former Saddamists in high ranks in the Yemeni army now that I wouldn’t expect a mass migration of military personnel. The Saddamists impact on Yemeni policy, the military, the jihaddi rat trail and the Sa’ada War should not be underestimated, by any means. Thousands of Hussain’s officials and their money fled to Yemen at the start of the Iraq War.

Zawya

(AFP) – Iraq has invited soldiers who served under Saddam Hussein’s regime to come home or apply for their state pensions as part of a reconciliation process, the defence ministry spokesman said on Sunday.

The ministry is to send envoys to Iraqi embassies in Egypt, Jordan, Syria, the United Arab Emirates and Yemen to make contact with the ex-soldiers, General Mohammed al-Askari told AFP.

“The ministry’s decision aims to achieve national reconciliation” and “settle the issue of members of the former regime,” he said. Askari said that the former soldiers would “without exception” be given one month either to sort out their entitlement to a pension or to return to the ranks of the army….

According to another defence ministry official, an estimated 23,000 ex-Iraqi army soldiers, including 9,000 officers, have taken refuge in the five Arab countries.

What happened to Abu Yahya? Abu Osama, maybe its Saad, Hamza. Joking, of course…

From Empty Quarter:
Abu Osama of Jund al-Yemen “also said that Abyan, Shabwa, Hadhramout, Marib, al-Jawf and Sa’ada are on the verge of falling into al-Qaeda control. He also predicted more confrontations with Yemeni security forces in the near future, saying that the government’s efforts at negotiation with al-Qaeda had come to an impasse. He pledged attacks against military, oil and tourism targets.” (emphasis added)

Yemen Observer Over 300 young Yemeni men affiliated with al-Qaeda traveled to Iraq, Afghanistan and Somalia for Jihad in 2008, said an alleged al-Qaeda military leader on Wednesday.

“More than 300 young men from the land of Yemen, who are members of our organization joined their brothers in Iraq, Afghanistan and Somalia during 2008,” said Abu Osama, a member of the military council of al-Qaeda and the commander of the Yemen Brigades. (Fatah al Islam? Lebanon, no?)

In a statement published by the local weekly independent newspaper al-Wasat, Abu Osama claims that al-Qaeda in Yemen has become stronger than ever. He also said mediation between al-Qaeda and the Yemeni government remains deadlocked. (Read on …)

Yemeni super-sleuthing uncovered an international conspiracy in the Gulf of Aden – the US is the source of Somali piracy! The US in a devilish plot created the pirates as a power play against the Islamic Courts, officials announced. The pirates’ true identity was probably discovered because they were wearing those American X-ray sunglasses or something.

As reported in Al-Sahwa, “The advisor of Yemen’s cabinet Salim Hussein said that the Somali piracy was produced by the U.S. because…it failed to control Somalia and when the Islamic Courts could get rid of warlords which were Unites states’ agents in Somalia.”

Back on planet earth, Yemen is the primary supplier of illegal weapons to Somalia, fueling ongoing instability (and piracy), the UN monitoring committee on the Somali sanctions reported in December. However, Israel’s total control of the planet is so all encompassing that the UN Monitoring Committee’s report was issued to divert attention from the existence of Israeli spies in Yemen. It’s all so fiendishly complicated! Its a good thing we have Naba News to explain it all to us.

Similarly, the recent report that Yemen smuggled Chinese missiles to Gaza was nothing but an Israeli diversion created to obscure the trial of the Mossad spies in Yemen. Or at least that’s what the Yemeni stooge newspapers are reporting.

Yemen’s president said the Islamic Jihad terror cell emailed Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, offering to spy and blow things up. “We are the Jihad Organization and you are Jews but you are honest and we are ready for anything,” the email said according to Yemeni security officials.

Olmert replied (also by email) that the arrangement would be just peachy, “We are ready to support you to be a stumbling block to the Middle East and we will support you as agents.” Aha!

There must be a government department in Yemen dedicated to concocting false trial evidence and cloning newspapers and NGOs to confuse the public. It probably clocks a lot of hours thinking up new insults for its critics and new enemies and new plots against Yemen and other ways to distract the public and confuse the international community.

When the spy story first broke in October, there were 40 Israeli spies “from different Arab nationalities spying for Mossad” according to the National and Political Security Units. Now its down to three on trial for espionage and threats against foreign embassies.

Islamic Jihad claimed responsibility the September terror attack on the US embassy in Sana’a that killed 12 people including an American. They threatened other western and Arab embassies. The attending implication in the stooge media is that Israel somehow orchestrated the bombing. Yemen’s scramble to blame Israel raises doubts about the level of collusion by regime officials in the bombing.

The Yemeni regime is quite consistent and Stalinistic in its broad deployment of outrageous propaganda. In 2006, Field Marshall Saleh publically accused the US of perpetrating the terror attack on the USS Cole that killed 17 sailors. The US wanted to invade and establish a naval base in Aden, the president said.

The funny part about the unending spew of small and large lies is they can’t keep track of what they said before. One of my favorite stories involves Abdulkhaled Nabi, leader of the Abyan Aden Islamic Army. The Yemeni regime told the US in 2003 that they killed al-Nabi in a shoot-out. In 2004, Yemeni officials admitted that they let al-Nabi go after he was spotted breathing. In 2005, top Yemeni officials claimed Nabi was completely rehabilitated and living the life of a peaceful farmer. In 2006, local media reported Nabi and his band of fanatics was training a tribal paramilitary for the government to battle Shiite rebels in Sa’ada. In 2007, the newspaper (Al-Sharie) was brought up on charges of revealing state secrets, and the editor faces the death penalty. In 2008, the Yemeni government announced with great fanfare that they had captured the dangerous terrorist al-Nabi after an intensive five year manhunt. The tickers all said, “Yemen captures al-Qaeda terrorist after five year hunt.”

Some Yemeni propaganda is designed for the domestic audience and some for the US policy makers. Abu Bakr al-Reibi, convicted in the 2002 maritime bombing of the French tanker Limburg, was sentenced to ten years. But his father said in an interview that Abu Bakr never spent a day in jail. Field Marshal Saleh called Abu Bakr at the beginning of the trial and asked him to go along with the charade and assured him that all would be well. The security officials would come to the house with a set of prison clothes and accompany him to court where everyone pretended (for the benefit of the US) that Abu Bakr had come from jail. Field Marshal Saleh is a compulsive liar. The sad and sorry thing is the US often buys it.

With American pirates in the Gulf of Aden and Mossad spies in Sana’a, who can focus on the abject failure of Field Marshall Saleh to spend any government money on the people? There’s no medical care, few schools, little clean water, no jobs given by merit and no electricity, but plenty of guns and drugs imported, child smuggling, prostitution by starving girls, missile purchases and tribal wars. However poor Ali Abdullah Saleh is a victim of circumstance, doing the very best he can and entirely sincere. Some believe that, really.

Another funny pattern is Saleh’s use of democratic terminology to legitimize his battle against basic civil rights including free speech and free association. “Democracy is the rescue ship of all regimes,” he says, therefore security forces slaughter protesters in the street, kidnap journalists and torture children. There are ten million literally starving children in Yemen. Poverty in Yemen exceeds poverty in Africa. Each one of the ten million is an actual kid, and its pretty damn sad.

(Read on …)

Yemen Online

Coast Guard Forces and Border Guards integrated.
YemenOnline. Sunday 25, 2009 – The President of the Republic, H.E. Ali Salih, declared yesterday that the Coast Guard Forces and Border Guards are intended to be combined into one authority reporting to the Ministry of Interior.In his speech delivered at the opening ceremony of the Ministry of Interior Leadership’s 19th Conference under the motto “Homeland’s security is a national and collective responsibility”, he said” We have recruited 1000 soldiers to enhance security capacities of Coast Guard Forces (CGFs) in particular after the recent increase of marine piracy.” In addition, these forces are to be provided with the necessary arms and equipments.

al-Motamar

- The leaders of Sana’a Coalition have on Tuesday confirmed their full commitment to work for achieving security, peace and sustainable development the Horn of Africa region and in south of the Red Sea and solving disputes in peaceful ways.

In the closing statement issued by Sana’a Gathering 6th summit on Tuesday the leaders of the Gathering welcomed invitation of President Ali Abdullah Saleh to host the 7th summit in the Yemeni capital Sana’a.

The closing statement of Sana’a Gathering held in the Sudanese capital Khartoum emphasized the necessity of enhancing and developing the level of cooperation between the Gathering member states in all areas. The summit was attended by President Ali Abdullah Saleh of Yemen, the Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi, the Prime Minister of Somalia Nur Hassan Hussein, the President of Djibouti Ismail Omar Guelleh who participated as observer. (Read on …)

Yemen the main source of illegal arms to Somalia: UN
———————————————-

Jane Novak for the Yemen Times

SANA’A, Dec. 27— A UN investigation found Yemen is the primary source of arms and ammunition to Somalia which has been under an arms embargo since 1992. The panel of independent experts monitoring the embargo also reported arms smuggling from Yemen intersects with acts of piracy and human trafficking. The findings were presented in a December 10 report to the UN Security Council.

The report notes commercial weapons imports from Yemen supply Somali retail markets as well as opposition and criminal groups. The Yemeni government’s inability to stem the large scale arms trafficking is “a key obstacle to the restoration of peace and security to Somalia,” the panel found. The UN Security Council extended the monitoring group’s mandate for another year.

Yemen plans to refute the charges. SABA news agency dubbed the report “misleading” and noted that “smuggling weapons is sometimes associated with the arriving of displaced Somalis.” A Foreign Ministry statement said that one million Somali refugees in Yemen create an economic burden that “sometimes leads to social, security and health repercussions.” Nearly 50,000 Somali refugees made the maritime crossing to Yemen in 2008, authorities reported.

In prior years, about 30,000 Somalis migrated annually.

The UN report ties together weapons smuggling, human trafficking and piracy, noting some small boats used in acts of piracy also “move refugees and economic migrants from Somalia to Yemen, bringing arms and ammunition on the return journey,” Piracy in the waters between Yemen and Somalia spiked dramatically with over 100 pirate attacks and over 40 vessels captured by pirates this year. The authorities in Puntland and Somaliland told the UN monitoring group that “maritime traffic from Yemen, across the Gulf of Aden, remains their largest single source of arms.” Weapons purchased in Yemen are also smuggled to insurgent groups in Ethiopia, the investigation found. One intercepted shipment included 101 anti-tank mines, 100 hand grenades, 170 rocket-propelled grenade-7 rounds, and 170 boxes of 7.62 mm ammunition.

Increased activity by the Yemeni Coast Guard between Aden and al Mukalla impacted arms shipments from ports in the patrolled areas. However, the monitoring group found that the lack of regular patrols in al Mukalla “means that arms traffic continues unabated.” The group recommended capacity building programs for the Coast Guard and direct naval interdiction.

Yemen’s coast line extends 1906 km. The Coast Guard, created in 2003, is working towards taking control of Mocha and al Mukalla from the military. The Republican Guard and Central Security forces have authority at ports where the Coast Guard has limited presence. The Coast Guard has nine operational ships in a fleet of 15, and only two with deep water capacity.

Inadequate funding is an obstacle to increased capacity, Coast Guard Commander Ali Ahmed Ras’ee said in May.

The US provides some operational and training support and in 2004 donated seven patrol boats. With Italian financing, the Italian firm SELEX is implementing a coastal radar system that will eventually cover 450km of coast line including hot spots for piracy and smuggling.

Responding to the UN report, the Foreign Ministry said, “Yemen reiterates its readiness to cooperate with the UN and all regional concerned parties to fight piracy and all forms of weapon smuggling, the issues resulted due to the situation in Somalia where there is not a central government.”

Yemen has the second most heavily armed citizenry per capita after the United States. In August 2007, authorities implemented a ban against carrying weapons in cities and have confiscated over 150,000 weapons since the program began. Over 200 weapons shops were also closed.

Weapons smuggling from Yemen to Saudi Arabia is also a concern. In July, Saudi Arabia announced that in a three month period, border guards confiscated over a ton of explosives and a large number of arms including 13 rocket-propelled grenades, 99 sticks of dynamite, 100 fuses, 12 detonators, more than 100 guns and 15,000 cartridges.

The UN monitoring group on the 1992 arms embargo on Somalia finds “Yemen remains the most important source of commercial arms transfers to Somalia.”

One shipment for the ONLF in Ethiopia contained 101 anti-tank mines, 100 hand grenades, 170 rocket-propelled grenade-7 rounds, and 170 boxes of 7.62 mm ammunition, each containing 440 rounds. The mines were packed in rice sacks from a company in Sana’a. The same boats that bring the migrants bring back weapons and are involved in piracy.

143. Not surprisingly, there appears to be an intersection between piracy and other
criminal activities, such as arms trafficking and human trafficking, both of which
involve the movement of small craft across the Gulf of Aden. One sub-group of the
Puntland network, based in the Bari region, allegedly uses the same boats employed
for piracy to move refugees and economic migrants from Somalia to Yemen,
bringing arms and ammunition on the return journey.

Of course, commercial weapons trafficing in Yemen is often sponsored by those in official positions. The purported largest weapons dealers (for example, Faris Manna, Regent Street, Sana’a) are said to be partners with some very top officials (Salah & family). This is part of the reason the military budget is so high. Not only is this hooked in with piracy and refugee smuggling but also drug and oil smuggling. Its John Gotti with an air force.

Report text below the fold: (Read on …)

1-7-09

By Syed Saleem Shahzad/Asia Times
KARACHI -:

Al-Qaeda is passing through a transitional restructuring phase. The most crucial areas where it is transforming its organization and strategies are Somalia and Yemen, beside Iraq. Al-Qaeda plans to disrupt the sea routes between Somalia and Yemen, which would affect international trade through this route.

It has developed an understanding with the leadership of the opposition Islamic Courts Union of Somalia on common strategic goals. In Yemen, al-Qaeda leader Salem al-Radwui has been specially sent from Afghanistan by the al-Qaeda leadership to develop links with dissident Yemeni groups operating in southern Yemen, as well as with various Islamic groups. Al-Qaeda’s aim is to provide background guidance while encouraging the local groups to play a lead role.

Yemen Post

The Security Information Office in the Ministry of Interior told media outlets that security officials in Khanfer, Abyan’s district found last Saturday 140 kilograms of dynamite and explosive devises near the security officials head office.

Further, they added that explosive experts in the army managed to disable the explosives and sent them to the Central Laboratory in Sana’a for further investigations.

Meanwhile, counterterrorism specialists warned from the rapid increase of explosives in Yemen, claiming that Somali smugglers bring explosives to neighboring countries for trade purposes.

TWN

Some 16,000 ships navigate through the Gulf of Aden each year, with more and more of them coming under attack. The AP reported Thursday that six ships had fended off attacks over the previous two days and that a seventh had been captured. More than 77 ships have been attacked this year in the Gulf, at least 31 one of them falling to captors. Ransoms paid out in 2008 are reported to have topped $30 million. (Read on …)

MOSCOW, October 26 (RIA Novosti) – A missile frigate from Russia’s Baltic Fleet arrived at the port of Aden in Yemen on its way to join an international naval group fighting piracy off the coast of Somalia, the Russian Navy said.

“After water and food replenishments, the warship will carry out measures to protect shipping in the coastal waters of Somalia where sea pirates are active. In particular, the Neustrashimy frigate may escort passenger and merchant vessels,” the Russian Navy said, adding that the warship had the right to use force, including weapons, against pirates.

The Neustrashimy (Fearless) frigate is to join an international naval group, which has surrounded a Ukrainian ship, the MV Faina, after it was seized by Somali pirates on September 25. The Faina, which was carrying tanks and heavy weapons, has a crew of 17 Ukrainian nationals, two Russians, and one Lithuanian on board.

The Faina’s Russian captain died of a heart attack after the vessel was seized. The pirates holding the ship have demanded an $8 million ransom, and have threatened to kill the hostages if a military operation is launched against them.

The Neustrashimy’s armament includes SS-N-25 Switchblade anti-ship missiles, SA-N-9 Gauntlet SAM, a 100-mm gun, torpedoes and depth charges. The frigate also carries a Ka-27 ASW helicopter.

Pirates are increasingly active in the waters off Somalia, which has no effective government and no navy to police its coastline. Somali pirates have seized around 30 ships so far this year off the coast of the east African nation.

Possible Base

Sana’a, 16 Oct. (ITAR-TASS). The speaker of the Federation Council Sergey Mironov does not exclude the possibility that during the Yemeni President would bring up the issue of re-establishing Russian naval bases on Socotra Island in the Gulf of Aden during his visit to Moscow.

In answer to the question if Russia has any plans to do so, Mironov said, “I think that this theme will be discussed concretely during Ali Abdallah Saleh’s visit to Moscow”. Mironov did not discuss the length of the visit.

The speaker considers the future use of Yemeni ports by the Russian Navy as well as re-establishment of a base to be possible. “We have to proceed step by step, taking into account new vectors in the foreign and defense policies of Russia and the increase in op tempo by the Navy. I think that its possible that we will examine the issue of the use of Yemeni ports by Russian Naval ships”, he said.

News Yemen

SANA’A, NewsYemen

Deputy Interior Minister and head of the National Committee for Refugees Ali Mothana Hassan said Yemen is ready to give a refuge to only people who escape wars.

Official almotamar.net quoted Mothana as saying that Yemen is committed to international resolutions approve refugee status only for people who escape war-torn countries, like Somalia, so it directly gives asylum to Somalis.

Mothana said other nationals who come to Yemen due to bad economic situations in their countries or for other reasons could be considered migrants but not refugees.

The source said Mothana’s statement came in response to the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) call on Yemeni government to clarify a orders by Interior Minister Mutahar al-Masri to security forces to deny the entry of Ethiopians and Eritreans to the country.

Yemen Observer: Yemeni security forces have closed the boarder crossings under the direction of Rashad Al-Masri, Minister of Interior in the face of the growing number of refugees the Yemeni coast has recently witnessed from Ethiopia, Eritrea and Somalia.

Al-Masri ordered the military units in the areas hardest hit by the influx to block refugees from Ethiopia and Eritrea, renewing his call for the international community to stand up to their commitments and support Yemen in receiving and hosting these refugees from the Horn of Africa.

Al-Masri expressed concern over the increasing number of the African Horn refugees which has increased to 200 – 300 a day, since last September. The ministry’s information center quotes al-Masri as saying that the ministry is extremely concerned over the influx which is not only restricted to Somalia, stating that there about 140 refugees from Ethiopia and Eritrea who recently landed at Dhibab and Ras al-A’ra in bab-Mindab.

The ministry of Interior’s statistics revealed that the Yemeni coast received 2214 Somali refugees during the period from the first to mid October.

The interior ministry is worried over the social, economic, cultural and security challenges that Yemen is now facing due to the continuing African refugee influx.

The Sana’a UNHCR’s reports states that the smuggling process has resulted in hundreds and possibly a thousand deaths due to the unsafe human piracy practiced in the Red sea.

Ambassador Al-Aishi asked the international community and the refugee agreement parties to undertake their responsibilities pertaining to this humanitarian situation. He called on the international community and particularly relevant neighboring states to share Yemen’s burden and accept some of the refugees and asked for NGOs to cooperate with the UNCHR commissioner to take new measures to prevent any country or countries from becoming a permanent haven for refugees as is now the case in Yemen.

Al-Sahwa:

The UNHCR said the Yemeni Interior Ministry has announced that Ethiopians and Eritreans would be denied entry to the country, which still grants immediate refugee status to Somalis fleeing their war-torn homeland.

“While recognising the generosity already shown by Yemen to refugees and asylum seekers, we are seeking clarification from the government on any changes in policy,” UNHCR spokesman Ron Redmond told a news briefing in Geneva.

The agency also said that some 87 Ethiopians were known to have been detained in Yemen over the past two weeks, while Yemeni authorities removed a further 25 Ethiopians from a vehicle transporting them to the UNHCR reception centre of Ahwar on Monday.

“We don’t know where they are but fear they were arrested and are being detained somewhere,” UNHCR spokeswoman Astrid Van Genderen Stort told Reuters.

The UNHCR urged Yemen, a signatory of the 1951 Refugee Convention, to maintain access to asylum procedures for all those in need of international protection.

The poor Arab country is struggling to cope with an growing number of asylum seekers smuggled from the Horn of Africa in risk-filled voyages across the Gulf of Aden.

A total of 37,333 people have arrived in Yemen so far this year on smugglers’ boats, and 616 died or were reported missing, according to the UNHCR. The current total is already more than 50 percent higher than in 2007, when 23,000 made it to Yemen.

(CNN) — One hundred people are missing in the Gulf of Aden after smugglers forced them overboard off the coast of Yemen, a U.N. spokesman said Friday.

The U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees in Yemen is taking care of 47 survivors, the spokesman said.

The U.N. offered no additional details on the type of vessel or its route.

Meanwhile, U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees spokesman Ron Redmond told The Associated Press in Geneva that about 32,000 people have arrived in Yemen on boats since the start of the year.

Many of them are fleeing violence and hardship in Somalia and other countries in the Horn of Africa, he said.

UNHCR estimates at least 230 people have died and 365 remain missing, including 100 from the latest incident

One ship captured, another released- the Iranian ship suspected of transaporting CW. (Saleh is worried about the internationalization of the waters off Yemen and is scrambling for an Arab initiative.) :

BOSASSO, Somalia, Oct 10 (Reuters) – Pirates in the commercially strategic waters between Somalia and Yemen hijacked one ship and released another on Friday, a government official and a shipping line said.

The panama-flagged Wail, carrying cement, was the latest in a long list of ships that have been boarded by pirates in recent months. Several have been released on payment of a ransom and one luxury yacht was liberated by French commandos.

“A Panama-flagged ship, Wail, was hijacked on Thursday night between Socotra Island and Bosasso,” said Ali Abdi Aware, state minister for northern Somalia’s semi-autonomous Puntland region.

He told Reuters the crew of 11 consisted of nine Syrians and two Somalis.

Also on Friday pirates freed an Iranian bulk carrier and its 29 crew after seven weeks of negotiations, Iran’s official IRNA news agency said, quoting the Islamic Republic of Iran Shipping Lines (IRSL). (Read on …)

1400 died last year, and this year 165 are confirmed dead and 220 missing.

IRIN: SANAA, 9 September 2008 (IRIN) – Hundreds of African migrants, mostly Somalis, have taken advantage of calm seas to make the perilous journey from Somalia to Yemen in the first week of September and more are expected, Hussein Hajji, the Somali consul in Aden, said. (Read on …)

Must be the increased efforts of the Coast Guard.

al-Motamar

Almotamar.net – Local sources in Shabwa governorate told almotamar.net Sunday 115 Somali refugees, among them 20 women, arrived at the beaches of the governorate, at a time some official sources announced the arrival of other 597 Somali refugees, among them 180 women and children, arrived at a number of Yemeni coasts in a new wave of Somali migration.

According to the sources the district of Maifa’a, the governorate of Shabwa received 115 Somali refugees on Saturday before sending them to Kharaz camp for the refugees in the governorate of Lahj.

This comes at the time when the Information Centre at the Ministry of Interior said beaches of a number of governorates received 597 Somali refugees as part of continual waves of refugees arriving in Yemen from Somalia and Horn of Africa countries. The Centre pointed out that beaches of Ahwar, Abyan governorate received 252 refugees and beaches of Radhoum, governorate of Hadramout received 115 refugees while 205 Somali refugees landed at the beaches of Thubab, the governorate of Taiz.

Last week a meting between Yemen’s Prime Minister Dr Ali Mohammed Mujawar and the UNHCR representative in Yemen discussed possibility of finding a law co concerning refugees or an institutional framework concerned with issues of this group through benefiting from experiments of countries having circumstances similar to those of Yemen.

It is worth mentioning that official statistics indicate that the number of African refugees in Yemen is 750 thousand refugees.

More boats? Greater demand?

Xinhua

NAIROBI, Sept. 11 (Xinhua) — At least 26 people died when smugglers transporting them across the Gulf of Aden from the Horn of Africa forced them overboard off the coast of Yemen in a recent incident, according to the UN refugee agency (UNHCR)….

Smuggling normally subsides between May and September because of stormy weather in the Gulf of Aden. With the early onset of calmer weather in August, smuggling resumed last month when 59 boats brought more than 1,700 desperate people to Yemen, nearly tripling the number of arrivals for the same month last year when 633 people landed in 10 boats.

The UN agency, which has been calling for global action to better address the problem, has stepped up its efforts in Yemen over the past year.

A 18.9 million U.S. dollar program is providing more staff, improved humanitarian assistance, additional shelter for refugees in Kharaz refugee camp, and training programs for Yemeni coast guards and other officials.

Late in August, 12 people died from one boat after jumping into the sea when a gun battle erupted between the Yemeni military and smugglers near the coast.

Ya think?

NST

KUALA LUMPUR: Pirates are charging ships using the Gulf of Aden a “toll” to fund their criminal activities, including help Somali insurgents fight their weak interim government.

Maritime industry senior officials are convinced that the toll, by way of ransom, is imposed to sponsor the activities of warlords and international terrorist groups. (Read on …)

On August 29, a Malaysian ship carrying 30,000 tons of petrochemicals was high jacked in the Gulf of Aden, the eighth ship to be high jacked since July 20th. Between April and June, 19 ships were attacked in the Gulf of Aden. US and allied navies will establish a maritime security patrol area in the waters between the coasts of Somalia and Yemen, under Combined Task Force 150. (Map)

ERIGAVO, Somalia June 8
(Garowe Online) – Police authorities in Somalia’s breakaway region of Somaliland are questioning two foreigners who were arrested in the region of Sanaag on Saturday, sources said.

The two men – one from Yemen, the other from China – were arrested alongside four Somalis in the port town of Las Korey. The two foreigners were transported to a police station near Erigavo, the provincial capital of Sanaag, Somaliland Defense Minister Abdullahi Ali Ibrahim told reporters. (Read on …)

Yemen Post

Commander of Yemeni Coast Guard Forces Administration Ali Ahmed Ras’ee is a graduate of the Police Academy, and holds a degree in law, and a high diploma in economy.

In his interview with the Yemen Post, Ras’ee points out that the support of coalition forces to the coastguard harmed the country more than it benefited. (He doesn’t get the funding he needs.) Below are the details:

Yemen Post: What are the tasks of the coastguard forces?

Ali Ras’ee: The tasks of coastguard forces are stipulated in the establishment decree, and these tasks are varied. The coastguard forces have security and not military functions, including keeping order in Yemeni ports and launching patrols in Yemeni coasts and regional waters. Other tasks are limiting illegal immigration, protecting national waters against indiscriminate fishing, protecting environment against pollution, fighting piracy, rescue and search activities. (Read on …)

Let me guess, the Saudi wheat that was donated to Yemen

ADEN

1800 tons of national goods exported to Somalia, Djibouti

Around 1800 tons of national goods were exported via Muala Sea Port in Aden City on Saturday to Djibouti and Somalia.

The goods exported to Somalia were biscuits, soap and sweets, in addition to 800 tons of wheat to Djibouti.

According to the statistics of the port, 32,752 tons of cement were unloaded in the platform of the port. The port also received on Saturday 1,115 sheep from Somalia.

UNHRC

Others have suffered far worse while attempting the perilous Gulf of Aden crossing in search of safety or a better future. Last year, at least 27,000 people reached Yemen but some 1,400 died or were missing, according to UNHCR figures. Of those who reached land alive, 7,010 were assisted by UNHCR in the May’faa reception centre. They came mainly from Somalia and Ethiopia.

Jeilany and fellow Ethiopian passenger Mussa, talking to UNHCR at the May’faa centre, said they and about 120 other desperate people in their boat had each paid smugglers about US$45 to bring them to Yemen….The situation is so bad that even those who endured years of war for more than a decade are now trying to escape Mogadishu. UNHCR estimates that there are at least 200,000 Somalis living in Yemen as refugees.

I dont get it.

Yahoo News: WASHINGTON – The U.S. military attacked a “known al-Qaida terrorist” in southern Somalia, a Pentagon spokesman said Monday.

Spokesman Bryan Whitman told reporters that the attack was launched on Sunday, local time, but he declined to provide any details, including whether the targeted individual was hit or whether there were any other casualties. (Read on …)

Yemen Times

SANA’A, March 2 — Two men, Abdi Othman Soli, 28, a Danish citizen of Somali origin, and Abdullah Awadh Al-Masri, 37, a Yemeni national, were found not guilty this week of smuggling weapons to Somalia in 2006. However, the court gave Al-Masri a three-year prison sentence for other charges such as working with and providing shelter for Al-Qaeda operatives and illegal weapons trading.

Among other accusations, the two suspects were tried for smuggling anti-aircraft weapons and sniper rifles into Somalia for the Islamic Court, which was waging a coup at the time. Although Soli confessed to the charges, the court ignored his confession, according to the office of the Attorney General.

Besides Soli and Al-Masri, 12 other men, including four Yemenis and eight Western nationals, were arrested at the same time.

At the time of their arrest, Rashad Al-Alimi, Yemen’s Interior Minister, refused to transfer the men to the Guantanamo Bay prison facility and insisted on keeping the suspects in Yemen for trial.

Since the arrest, a German national was released in November 2007 after Yemeni interrogators said he had not been involved in any illegal activities. The other suspects, including three Australians, one British national, one Danish national and one Somali national, stayed in Yemen until they were extradited to their respective countries. (Read on …)

Source: IRIN

SANAA, 17 February 2008 (IRIN) – A technical committee of Yemen’s Ministry of Human Rights recently finished drafting a 17-article parliamentary bill which, if ratified by parliament, aims to clarify the country’s asylum law and give the government more control over asylum seekers and refugees in the country.

Officials could not say when the draft law will be presented before the legislature.

Sulaiman Tabrizi, head of the rights ministry’s International Organisations Department, told IRIN that the driving motivation behind the draft law was to clarify the status of the continuous stream of Africans fleeing to Yemen. “Their legal status is not clear. Should all of them be regarded as refugees or migrants? Is the Refugee Convention applicable to them? Does Yemen have the capacity to deal with all of them?” he said.

Yemen is the only country in the Arabian Peninsula that has signed the 1951 UN Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees and its related 1967 Protocol, which removed a deadline and geographical restrictions from the Convention.

Tabrizi said if passed the new law would spell out the Yemeni government’s responsibilities towards would-be refugees. “There is a need to show how someone who has been persecuted in his country should be treated. In some cases, refugees [in Yemen] are not treated in accordance with the 1951 Refugee Convention and 1967 Protocol,” he said, adding that the new law would rectify this.

“The 1991 Yemeni Migration Law is the only law that is applied to refugees, but that does not comply with the Refugee Convention,” Tabrizi said.

New law defines refugees

Yemen’s draft law defines a refugee as anyone who has left his country of origin for fear of prosecution as a result of his race, religion, nationality, political views or social class; or as a result of foreign assault on, or occupation of, his country, riots or unrest.

The new law seeks to give the government more control over who is given refugee status, what they are entitled to and where they live.

At present in Yemen, the government gives Somalis, who make up the vast majority of African asylum seekers, automatic refugee status once they apply for it, while non-Somali Africans (mostly Ethiopians and Eritreans) must apply to the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) for refugee status.

New restrictions

Under the new law, a governmental committee would be formed to consider asylum applications from all nationalities and decide whether or not to grant applicants refugee status. The committee would be chaired by an elected official from the rights ministry and its membership would consist of officials from the interior and foreign affairs ministries among others. The committee would work in coordination with UNHCR.

Yemen’s government currently allows African refugees to move freely in the country and work in non-government jobs. Under the draft law, refugees would only be allowed to live in areas assigned by the rights ministry.

According to Yemeni security authorities, many African migrants enter Yemen illegally and many do not register at any of the country’s seven government/UNHCR-run reception centres. Under the new law, the rights ministry would have the authority to expel any asylum seeker or refugee in Yemen, after consulting with security authorities and UNHCR, if it is deemed necessary to protect national or public security.

Ahmed Hayel, an official at the interior ministry, told IRIN that by the end of 2007 the number of Africans (both legal and illegal migrants) in Yemen had reached about 800,000 out of a total population of 21 million. Most were Somalis.

The UNHCR office in Yemen put the total number of African registered (legal) migrants at over 100,000, mostly from Somalia, although, Abdul-Malik Aboud, a UNHCR official, recently conceded that the number of Africans in Yemen was more than the number registered.

One dead in grenade attack.

MOGADISHU, Feb 14 (Reuters) – Yemen’s ambassador to Somalia survived a grenade attack on Thursday while attending a ceremony held by members of the Yemeni diaspora in Mogadishu, an aide to the envoy said.

Unidentified gunmen hurled a grenade at a school in the Bulo Hubey neighbourhood in south Mogadishu where the party took place, killing one of the guests and wounding two others.

However, Yemeni envoy Ali Masud was quickly escorted away by government troops before he was due to deliver a speech. (Read on …)

Well thats good, very good, but what about the Yemeni kids also starving?

Yemen Times

SANA’A, Feb. 6 — The UN World Food Program (WFP) announced on Wednesday that it was expanding its operation in Yemen to feed thousands more Somali refugees fleeing the conflict in their country.

“More and more people are arriving on Yemen’s shores after barely surviving the dangerous journey by boat. It is up to us to help them as Yemen’s economy is already overstretched,” said WFP Yemen Country Director Mohammed El-Kouhene.

Since 1992, African refugees, mostly Somalis, have been streaming into Yemen, crossing the Red Sea from the Horn of Africa. Many of them hope to make their way to the oil-rich Gulf states. Now, the Yemeni government says that with its limited resources, it is no longer able to cope with new arrivals and has urged the international community for more assistance.

The agency appealed for $4.4 million in funds for an operation running from February 2008 to January 2010 to provide a total of 5,000 metric tons of food to 43,500 of the most vulnerable refugees. This is up from the 33,000 it was previously helping.

In the past year alone, nearly 30,000 people landed in Yemen after crossing the Gulf of Aden, while more than 1,400 died or are missing and presumed dead. Most of the arrivals were Somalis, of whom many said conditions in Somalia were so bad that they felt they had to risk the sea crossing.

More than 670,000 people fled fighting in the Somali capital of Mogadishu in 2007. The WFP expects to feed 1.8 million people in Somalia in 2008, up from 1.53 million in 2007.

Upon their arrival in Yemen, the refugees receive food from the WFP for the first few days until they are moved to the refugee camp of Kharaz where they receive a monthly ration. In addition, the WFP provides supplementary food to malnourished children and pregnant and lactating mothers, as well as providing a midday meal to children in school.

“We are grateful that WFP is responding to the needs of an increasing number of refugees.

Now is the time when we most need international support,” said Yemen’s Deputy Prime Minister for Economic Affairs and Minister of Planning and International Cooperation, Abdulkarim Al-Ar’habi.

El-Kouhene said the recent increase in beneficiaries was based on the anticipated arrival of new refugees at transit centers in Yemen, as well as refugee population growth at the isolated Kharaz camp in Lahj Governorate, where job opportunities are scarce. To that end, the operation will also include food assistance in return for work and/or training to help refugees become more self-sufficient.

The operation will be implemented in cooperation with the government of Yemen and in partnership with the UN High Commissioner for Refugees and various NGOs.

The WFP has provided around $400 million of food assistance to Yemen since 1967, when the country was split into North and South Yemen.

10% die generally in the crossing from Somalia. What is the answer: let them land? Set up a UN station in Bossasso?

GENEVA (Reuters) – More than 1,400 would-be migrants, mostly Somalis and Ethiopians, have drowned off Yemen this year trying to cross the Gulf of Aden on rickety boats run by brutal smugglers, the U.N. refugee agency said on Tuesday.

The toll includes nearly 200 people believed to have died last weekend after one vessel capsized off the coast of Yemen and another broke up after hitting a rock.

Desperate passengers have been beaten, pushed overboard and doused with acid on perilous journeys during 2007, according to aid workers who are trying to halt further loss of life.

“This has been a tragic year in the Gulf of Aden. As of now we have statistics that more than 1,400 people have died. These are the ones that we have recorded, and there might be more,” Astrid van Genderen Stort, spokeswoman of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), told a news briefing. (Read on …)

Telegraph:

Britain has launched a drive for an international accord granting the Royal Navy and Western warships rights to enter Somali territorial waters in pursuit of pirate gangs linked to al-Qa’eda.

Pirate activity has soared off the Horn of Africa this year with the emergence of highly sophisticated gangs that use fast patrol boats, launched from “mother ships” to board cargo vessels in the Gulf of Aden and Indian Ocean.

The lucrative multi-million-dollar kidnap and ransom trade, which is dominated by al-Qa’eda, according to terrorism experts, threatens to disrupt international shipping lanes used to carry cargo from the Far East to Europe. A meeting in London of the International Maritime Organisation (IMO), the United Nations’ watchdog of the seas, is to consider a resolution today instructing Somalia’s interim government to drop its legal right to block foreign navies from entering its waters. (Read on …)

This is abominable.

VOA

More than 60 African migrants have drowned while crossing the Gulf of Aden on their way to Yemen.

Witnesses say at least 15 others swam to safety after their vessel sank close to the Yemeni coast. The boat originated from Somalia and most of those on board are believed to have been Somalians.

It is not clear how the boat capsized.

Migrants frequently attempt the crossing to escape violence in Somalia and often rely on smugglers to help them cross.

They often face abuse at the hands of smugglers, with many forced to disembark offshore to avoid Yemeni coast guard patrols.

Earlier this month, the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees estimated 20,000 people have made the crossing this year and said at least 439 people have died and another 489 are missing.

Update: More

Thirty African migrants drown off Yemen

2 hours ago

SANAA (AFP) — Thirty African migrants, including seven women, drowned after their boat overturned while trying to cross the Gulf of Aden from Somalia to Yemen, the defence ministry said on Saturday.

Their bodies were found washed ashore early Friday in the southern region of Hadramut, while 41 others, including five women, were rescued, said the website of the ministry newspaper September 26.

The Yemeni coastguard was still searching for 69 others missing, who were on the same boat which set out from the Somali port of Bosasso, it added.

Although the ministry said the dead were Somalis, it was not clear how their nationalities were determined.

Sixty-four African migrants drowned on November 22 while trying to cross, while 40 others drowned early in November after being thrown overboard by people traffickers.

The UNHCR estimates that more than 20,000 people have made the perilous crossing this year, with more than 439 deaths and another 489 people missing.

Many of the migrants who attempt the journey are desperate to flee conflict and persecution in their home regions in Africa.

The crossing takes two days at best and is made especially dangerous due to shark-infested waters, strong currents and inhumane conditions on poorly maintained vessels that are open to the elements.

errrr, I dont think he’s in Yemen. But if you see this guy in Sa’ada, let me know. But then again, you couldn’t because there’s no phones or internet in Sa’ada.

Washington, Sept 14: The Bush Administration’s former chief counter-terrorism adviser, Richard Clark, has claimed that Osama bin Laden is either in Yemen or Somalia, and not in Pakistan.

Clark, who was also the chief counter-terrorism adviser to the National Security Council during the Clinton Administration, said that bin Laden was propagating a kind of propaganda to lure Washington into a sense of neutrality to enable it to strengthen itself.

“Osama bin Laden had been saying for years, ‘America wants to invade an Arab country and occupy it, an oil-rich Arab country.’ He had been saying this. This is part of his propaganda,” the Daily Times quoted Clark, as saying.
“In other words, we stepped right into bin Laden’s propaganda. And, the result of that is that al Qaeda and organisations like it, offshoots of it, second-generation al Qaeda have been greatly strengthened,” he added.
In another interview to the CBS weekly show, 60 Minutes, in addition to a write-up in Newsweek, Clark said that after the September 11, 2001 attacks on the World Trade Centre, he told his colleagues at the White House, “We have to deal with bin Laden; we have to deal with al Qaeda,” but Paul Wolfowitz, the Deputy Secretary of Defense, said, “No, no, no. We don’t have to deal with al Qaeda. Why are we talking about that little guy? We have to talk about Iraqi terrorism against the United States.”

Photo courtesy of Hot Air

Note to the readers: This is not the position of the Bush adminstration or the US, and it doesn’t signal anything about US policy. Richard Clark is an outspoken critic of Bush. He used to work at the White House; now he is a private citizen with no claim to fame beyond trashing Bush. He doesn’t provide any basis for his analysis. He wanted the headlines, so he made this statement.

APC

Somalia’s transitional government warned Puntland, the semi-autonomous region in Northeast Somalia, that it can not sign any deals with foreign government over its territorial waters without the consent and knowledge of the country’s interim federal government.

In a news conference held in the capital Mogadishu on Tuesday, Ahmed Mohammed Iman, the general director of Somalia’s fishing ministry, said Puntland signed illegal deals with Yemen over establishing coastguards and trade of the country’s fish.

“Deals with foreign states over Somalia’s territorial waters and marine resources can only be singed by the central transitional federal government. Puntland doesn’t have the rights to be involved in such deals,” he said.

He warned the provincial administration that it should back out deals it made with Yemen, indicating that the province has the right to make trade deals locally.

Iman articulated that Puntland’s minister for marine resources, along with a delegation, was in Sana’, Yemen, to finalize the trade accords between the regional management and the government of Yemen.

“The minister is there to confirm the deal which will give Yemen the right to send coastguards to Somalia waters and fish in Somalia,”

He said the government’s fishing ministry was proposing to write the rules of dealing with foreign government over marine resources issues.

“We will present the rules to Somalia’s cabinet ministers who will have decisions on them,” he said.

He called on Yemen to halt trading with Puntland as the central institutions. “Any foreign government interested in having agreements over fishing in Somalia, it should see Somalia’s central government,” he said.

Shabelle Media Network Somalia

(SomaliNet) The governor of Bari region in Puntland state, northeast Somalia Muse Gele Farole said on Thursday they had sent armed forces to Bargale coast, 560km east of Bosaso, the largest city in Puntland to crack down what he called ‘Islamist remnants’ including foreign Al-Qaeda linked operatives who reached there with boats.

“We have been tipped that there were 35 heavily armed men and were aboard two high-speed boats, so our forces were deployed in the area to confront the Islamists,” he said.

Mr. Gedi told the local media this morning that when the Islamic insurgents with two boats came off shore a day before, they had suddenly clashed with the local militia supported by Puntland forces exchanging heavy gunfire.

“After several hours of gun battle, the Islamists faced strong resistance and one of their boats was captured by Puntland troops while the other escaped into the sea where they are being surrounded by the local militia and Puntland troops,” said Gedi.

The foreign fighters include Yemenis, Afghans, Asians and Arabs with Somalis and they were from Raskaboni islands in southern Somalia heading to Yemen, according to the governor.

“The insurgents are now in the mountains of Bargale coast for safe heaven but they are in isolation and will either give in to the forces or be captured in the coming hours,” added Gele.

Meanwhile, the president of Puntland state Adde Muse Hersi declined to comment on the presence of the Islamic Courts in Puntland regions. Earlier Mr. Muse said his regional government will not allow Islamist radicals to flourish inside Puntland.

Update: US Bombs the Camp

MOGADISHU, Somalia – At least one U.S. warship bombarded a remote, mountainous village in Somalia where Islamic militants had set up a base, officials in the northern region of Puntland said Saturday.

The attack from a U.S. destroyer took place late Friday, said Muse Gelle, the regional governor. The extremists had arrived Wednesday by speedboat at the port town of Bargal.

Gelle said the area is a dense thicket, making it difficult for security forces from the semiautonomous republic of Puntland to intervene on their own.

A local radio station quoted Puntland’s leader, Ade Muse, as saying that his forces had battled with the extremists for hours before U.S. ships arrived and used their cannons. Muse said five of his troops were wounded, but that he had no information about casualties among the extremists. (Read on …)

AAC:

Shabelle Media Network (Mogadishu)
NEWS
15 May 2007
Posted to the web 15 May 2007

By Aweys Osman Yusuf
Mogadishu

The leader of the routed Union of Islamic Courts Executive council, Sheik Sharif Sheik Ahmed, said he has no relations with United States government.

He was reacting to remarks made by US assistant secretary of State for African affairs, Jendayi Frazer, who spoke two days earlier about Sheik Sharif’s relations with US in an interview by VOA’s Somali service.

Frazer pointed out in her interview that Sheik Ahmed faked his being a moderate Islamist and was provided with whatever he wanted after he was seized by Kenyan authorities. (Read on …)

SANAA, 25 April 2007 (IRIN) – SANAA, 25 April 2007 (IRIN) – Batoul Abdul-Rahman, 85, witnessed much conflict and persecution in the many years she lived in her home country, Somalia. She fled to Yemen in 1992, seeking a better life, but has had to endure miserable conditions in the impoverished Arabian nation.

“My life has become a long wait. We are awaiting the unknown. The sea has thrown us to this place to be received by no one but misery,” she said.

Unable to move because of a medical condition, Batoul lives in one room with her daughter and nine grandchildren. The room is four meters in length and three in width. “Destiny has confined me to this room for the past three years,” Batoul said.

Batoul’s family is one of 500 ‘Benadir’ families from the southern coastal region of Somalia, including Mogadishu, of the same name who have lived in Yemen since 1992. (Read on …)

a follow on to the locust swarms, US general, wheat rust and German tourists

M&C:

Sana’a – Scores of Ethiopian army troops have arrived off the coast of Yemen onboard two boats belonging to smugglers after they fled fighting with Islamic insurgents in Somalia, a press report said on Tuesday.

Some 89 Ethiopian soldiers arrived in the Arqa area in southern Yemen after crossing the Gulf of Aden from Bosaso city in the semi-autonomous region of Puntland in northeast Somalia, the al-Ayyam daily newspaper said in a report on its website.

The paper said 49 Somali refugees were aboard the boats that carried the soldiers, who were wearing civilian clothes.

An Ethiopian army officer was quoted as saying that he and his comrades had fled the ranks of Ethiopian troops in Somalia after a dramatic escalation in fierce fighting with Somali Islamic insurgents.

One of the better trained military units

YO: The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees has accused the Yemeni government of firing on boats carrying African refugees on Tuesday. The refugees were trying to reach Yemen by traveling across the sea to escape the violence in their countries. The incident led to the drowning of 34 Somalis and Ethiopians after the smugglers forced the refugees to jump into the water near Shabwah Governorate coasts in southeastern Yemen.

UNHCR has said in a statement that Yemeni navy patrols fired toward two of the three boats last Friday, near the Bir Ali Area in Shabwah. Brigadier Ahmed al-Synaidar, the Director of the Office of the Minister of the Interior, refused to make any comments on the accusations of UNHCR. He only said that the Yemeni security authorities have arrested two Somalis who have smuggled a number of Somalis and Ethiopian to the Yemeni territory illegally. Yemeni security authorities sources responded to the accusation of the UNHCR that the Yemeni army has orders not to fire on any boat unless they are fired on first by the smugglers.

They may also fire on a boat if they already have information about boats smuggling weapons, drugs, or any contrabands. The three boats were carrying 365 persons, including 234 Ethiopians and 131 Somalis. UNHCR said that the smugglers take advantage of people who are desperate to escape the violence and chaos in Somalia. According to UNHCR statistics, more than 56,000 persons have been received at the Yemeni coasts this year. At least 200 people have died, while many more people are still missing.

(Read on …)

This is horrendous. And it keeps happening over and over.

Traffickers force 300 African migrants into sea, official says
SAN’A, Yemen – Human traffickers wielding knives forced about 300 African migrants to jump into the sea off Yemen yesterday, causing at least 32 to drown, a Yemeni security official said.

The migrants, mostly Ethiopians and Somalis, were on two boats that had crossed the Gulf of Aden from Somalia when their crews forced them overboard as they approached Yemen’s coast, the official said.

Survivors said that those who stood up to the crew were stabbed, beaten and thrown overboard, said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk to the media.

The incident is the latest case of abuse of people trying to get to Yemen from the Horn of Africa, where violence has worsened.

The other seven foreigners are already released. This is the case of the eight foreigners arrested for trying to smuggle weapons to Somalia for the ICU.

Sana’a, NewsYemen

The Penal Court sentenced the Yemeni Abdullah Awadh al-Masri to three years in jail for concealing wanted two al-Qaeda escapees and smuggling weapons to Somalia.

The court, headed by judge Najeeb al-Qadiri, quitted Abdu Othman Suli, who is Somali and has the Danish nationality, for inadequate evidences against him.

The Prosecution accused Abdullah last February of concealing Fawaz al-Rabei and Qasem al-Raimi, who were among al-Qaed escapees from a security prison in Sana’a on February 2006 and involvement with Suli in smuggling weapons and bombs to Somalia.

The Prosecutor decided to appeal against the quittance of Suli.

SANA’A, April 09 (26 Sep.net)- The Penal Court sentenced the Yemeni Abdullah Awadh al-Masri to three years in jail for concealing wanted persons and smuggling weapons to Somalia.

The court, headed by judge Najeeb al-Qadiri, quitted Abdu Othman Suli, who is Somali and has the Danish nationality, for inadequate evidences against him.

The Prosecution accused Abdullah last February of concealing three of al-Qaed escapees from a prison in Sana’a on February 2006 and involvement with Suli in smuggling weapons and bombs to Somalia.

Saba

The last one of the eight foreigners; the other seven were released without charge. Earlier news was the seven confessed. The name below is supposed to read Fawaz Al-Rabie.

almotamar.net – The Specialised Penal Court has retained the case of defendants charged with hiding Eawaz al-Rabie and Qassim al-Raimi the escapees from the political security prison and trafficking weapons ands explosives for smuggling them to Somalia for issuing verdict on 19 April 2007.

At the beginning of the sitting chaired by Judge Najib al-Qaderi the prosecution presented the final presentation and asked to hold the case for judgment.

The first defendant Abdullah Awadh Abdullah al-Masri abstained from replying when the Judge asked him on the final presentation. The second defendant Idi Uthman Souli, having a Somali nationality answered the Judge question through a translator that he did not come to Yemen to trade with weapons but to inform about prices of weapons and whether there is possibility for him to bring his family to Yemen and asked to be allowed to call his family and return the sums of money seized with him.

The prosecution faced the first defendant al-Masri with charges of weapon smuggling and trafficking and hiding escapee prisoner from the p0o; itical security prison. It also directed to the second defendant Souli the charge of attempting to purchasing anti-aircraft weapons, snipers and personal weapons for smuggling to Somalia.

There was such a big splash when the case first hit and it dwindles down to this: the Somali wants his money back.

SANA’A, March 26 (Saba)- The Primary Special Penal Court determined 9th of April as date for issuing a sentence in case of two suspects,
a Yemeni and a Danish of Somali origin, who are accused of trying to purchase weapons then to smuggle them to Somalia.

The two suspects are also accused of hiding three prisoners who escaped from Political Security Jail.

In its Monday hearing, the court decided to close arguments after listening to the final argument on the case.

The second suspect, the Somali,confessed that his role was only to send money of four kinds of weapons to a person named Qarbab, who is
mediator between him and Islamic Court in Somalia. He also asked the court to carry out its decision to allow him to contact his family
and to get back his money that has been taken when the police arrested him on 13th October, 2006.

The first suspect, the Yemeni, remained silent and did not reply on the accusation against him during three sessions.

The last of the eight foreigners, the other seven were released. The regime is not co-opting the militants; the militants have (past tense) co-opted the regime.

AS A state security court in Sana’a accused Monday a Yemeni and a Dane, originally from Somali, of trafficking weapons to Somalia last October.

In the session headed by the judge Najeeb al-Qadri, representatives of the Germany Embassy attended the hearing as the German Embassy to Yemen has interests section for Denmark.

The second suspects confessed that he offered a price bill of 4 kinds of weapons to a leader of the Somali Islamist Courts.

However, he denied that he tried to smuggle arms to Somalia or recruit Yemeni to fight there and admitted that first suspect, Abudllah Owadh had supplied him with that bill .

The court asked the defendant to appoint a new lawyer as the first one assigned by the German Embassy didn’t attend the hearings several times.

Ultimately the case was adjourned to March 26.

from All Africa.com:

Shabelle Media Network (Mogadishu)
NEWS
March 3, 2007
Posted to the web March 3, 2007

By Aweys Osman Yusuf
Mogadishu

The government of Yemen has disclosed that it was planning to prepare projects for Somalia reconstruction meeting while asking Arab countries to contribute finances to the war-torn country.

According to Althawranews, Yemeni foreign minister Abu Bakr al-Qurbi, who was speaking in the Arab foreign ministers meeting, said the situation in Somalia and how it would be assisted would be dissected in the upcoming of Arab League assembly.

He stresses that Islamic Courts leaders who are currently in Yemen would be attending Somalia’s national reconciliation conference due to happen on 16 April.

The minister’s remarks comes hours after Somali president Abdulahi Yusuf traveled to Kuwait to convince Arab leaders to finance Somalia as it was going to hold a national reconciliation conference.

Mr. Yusuf’s trip was seen crucial as the Somali ministry, based in Baidoa, assigned for the reconciliation process initiated to convene with some of the clan leaders and civil society members from the various provinces in the country in consultation over how the national assembly would be held.

CSM:
Since the outbreak of Somalia’s civil war in 1991, each new cycle of turmoil has generated a fresh flow of refugees to neighboring Yemen. But during this past year’s rise and fall of Somalia’s Union of Islamic Courts (UIC), tiny fishing vessels carried 26,000 men, women, and children – a record number – from Somalia to Yemen. (Read on …)

But one is Yemeni. Is Abdullah Awad Abdullah the same person as Abdullah Awad al-Misri and is the Somali with Danish citizenshsip Abdi Osman Seouli a/k/a Abdu Othman Suli a/k/a Abu Ansar?

26 Septemper News: The First Penal Court of First held first meeting today chaired by Judge Najeeb Al Qadri for trial of defendants Abdullah Awad Abdullah 37 years who is old Yemeni businessman and Abdi Osman Seouli of Denmark nationality of Somali origin 27 years.
The first defendant accused of concealing three defendants of Al-Qaida fled from political security prison and trafficking arms and explosives.

The prosecution accused of the second defendant of transferring a quantity of weapons, explosives and anti-Aviation and snipers arms , and pistols from Yemen to Somalia.

(Read on …)

SomaliNet) The Yemeni government is currently involving in efforts to act as a go-between the US government and the second man of Islamists leadership who is now being held in Nairobi under the protection of Kenyan authorities, reliable sources reports on Thursday.

Yemeni officials are secretly trying to hold talks between Sheik Sharif Sheik Ahmed and the United States government over Somalia future.

Washington sees Sheik Ahmed as moderate cleric who has wide support in Somalia and can play a positive role in the reconciliation process in the war-torn country (Somalia).

Sources from Nairobi indicate that Sheik Sharif might be extradited to an Arab state, possibly Yemen.

Meanwhile, yesterday Nairobi based Daily Standard newspaper reported that Somalia Prime Minister Ali Mohamed said his government wants Sheik Sharrif and his supporters to participate in the ongoing reconciliation talks.

Premier Gedi made the statement before flying from Nairobi and returning to Mogadishu.

“We want all UIC officials and supporters including Sheikh Sharrif to come to Mogadishu for talks in Somalia,” he was quoted as saying.

Gedi added that none of them would be persecuted in Mogadishu since his government’s aim is to restore peace and order rather than revenge.

Regrouping:

The United States believes that Somalia’s hard-line Islamists forcefully driven out of the country by government troops backed by Ethiopian military forces may reorganize themselves in Saudi Arabia, Eritrea and Yemen, Jendayi Frazer, US assistant secretary of state for African affairs, said on Wednesday.

Speaking to the Financial Times in Addis Ababa, Ms Frazer said it was too early to tell who among the Islamist leadership had survived Ethiopia’s invasion last month and subsequent US air strikes on alleged affiliates of al-Qaeda.

“It is going to take some time for the fog of war to clear up and we have an ability to see who is still operating and how they are operating,” she said.

Well we know where three of the leaders are.

NY:

The Yemeni foreign ministry accused the Ethiopian forces of detaining a Yemeni national in Somalia, but it did not identify the Yemeni person.
The Ethiopian prime minister Melease Zinawi said that the Ethiopian forces had arrested a group of Yemenis who were fighting with the forces of the Somali Islamic Courts against the Somali interim government and Ethiopian forces.
Our embassy in Addis Ababa is contacting with the Ethiopian side on the case of those persons to check their identity, Yemeni foreign minister, Abu Bakr al-Qirbi, told Naspress.
This is the first time Yemen and Ethiopia exchange such accusations since the Ethiopian forces have entered Mogadishu.
Observers fears arouse that such statements might affect relations between Yemen and Ethiopia and the coming summit of Sana’a Forum for Cooperation supposed to be held in Addis Ababa.

Well we knew that was coming.

NY: The Yemeni foreign ministry accused the Ethiopian forces of detaining a Yemeni national in Somalia, but it did not identify the Yemeni person.
The Ethiopian prime minister Melease Zinawi said that the Ethiopian forces had arrested a group of Yemenis who were fighting with the forces of the Somali Islamic Courts against the Somali interim government and Ethiopian forces.
Our embassy in Addis Ababa is contacting with the Ethiopian side on the case of those persons to check their identity, Yemeni foreign minister, Abu Bakr al-Qirbi, told Naspress.
This is the first time Yemen and Ethiopia exchange such accusations since the Ethiopian forces have entered Mogadishu.
Observers fears arouse that such statements might affect relations between Yemen and Ethiopia and the coming summit of Sana’a Forum for Cooperation supposed to be held in Addis Ababa.

Update: Yemen denies, also predictable.

AllAfrica:

By Aweys Osman Yusuf
Mogadishu

Yemeni authority denied yesterday that the Somalia interim government had seized documents of Yemeni citizens were among the foreign fighters helping the Union of Islamic Courts which were driven out by the government and Ethiopian troops in the country.

Yemeni foreign ministry said it did not receive the information regarding Yemenis involved in Somali fighting from the Somalia government.

He denied that there Yemenis involved in the fighting between Somalia’s Islamists and the interim government supported by Ethiopian troops.

Three Arab countries over Somalia

The government of Yemen, Sudan and Oman met on Sunday over how to find lasting solution for the precarious plight in Somalia.

Officials from the three countries focused on Somalia, indicating that the only way to soothe the deteriorating insecurity in Somalia would be that the Somalia government led by President Abdulahi Yusuf to establish reconciliation among Somalia’s different clans and parties.

They said the Arab countries should take part in mediating Somalia’s challenging parties and assist the African peacekeepers due to be deployed in Somalia financially.

News Yemen

Yemen, Sudan, Ethiopia and Somalia have agreed to adjourn the coming round of Sana’a Cooperation Forum that was supposed to be held in January.
Official newspapers said that the four countries have initially agreed to hold the round on February 13.
The delay coincides with extensive contacts Yemen is persuading with Sudanese, Ethiopian and Somali governments as well as with EGAD to prepare for a dialogue between the Somali interim government and the Islamic courts and other factions to cease violence and bloodshed in Somalia, said Foreign Minister, Abu Bakr al-Qirbi.
Yemen’s ambassador to Somalia, Ahmad Hamid Omer, has handed a letter from president Ali Abdullah Saleh to Somali president confirming Yemen’s steady supporting stand for the Somali federal institutions and its call for dialogue between parts of conflict.
On the other hand, Yemen has closed its coasts against Somali armed groups that are escaping the current serious developments in Somalia and made extensive security alert along its marine borders, according to official sources.
Extensive procedures have been taken to prevent infiltration of suspects and militants from Somalia to Yemen after the Ethiopia-backed interim government had re-controlled Mogadishu and most of Somali territories, the official website, 26Sept.net, quoted an official source in the Coast Guards Authority as saying.
The source was quoted as saying that thousands of boats and soldiers have been deployed along the territorial waters on the Arab Sea and Red Sea.
The source also revealed that boats belong to the US navy in the international waters started to move to support security measures. It said that Yemeni coast guards inspect and control all ships and boats coming to Yemen including boats for Yemeni fishermen. It said that coast guards have recently seized six boats in the territorial waters in Al-Saleef, Gulf of Aden and Shabwa carrying tens of Somali refugees.
The source expected that the number of refugees might rise in the first months of 2007 up to 30000 due to conflict in Somalia.
Member of Yemeni Parliament and head of the Arab Parliament’s inspection committee to Darfur in Sudan and Somalia, Mansour al-Zindani, said events in the African Horn are “attempts to extend US Empire to control all international marine outlets such Hermoz, Bab Al-Mandab, Swis channel and Jabal Tariq”.
Al-Zindani said America seeks to control such outlets directly or by agents in those areas. He described conflict in Somalia as “an invasion and challenge against the Somali people’s will”. “Unfortunately, the escalation in Somalia is backed by US and European countries. It is a part of western policy against the Arab and Islamic world, said al-Zindani in an interview with al-Jazeera.net.
“it is not the US and European countries mistake it is the weakness of Arab regimes. That is why we see a country occupied by Ethiopian army.
The coming round of Sana’a Cooperation Forum is supposed to concentrate on developments in Somalia, Darfur in Sudan and establishing joint market and companies to further develop economic and trade cooperation.

al-Sahwa:

Diplomatic sources said that Washington requested form Yemen sending peacekeeper forces to Somalia.

They said to Yemen today Website that Washington asked Sana’a for issuing a resolution of that in the summit which to be held in mid-February in the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa, indicating that such project has Ethiopia and Somalia’s support .

They refused to forecast the Yemeni and Sudanese positions toward that.

The Somali president had requested early form the Arab States to take part in the peacekeepers forces in Somalia.

A formal source confirmed that Sana’a will offer new visions in the summit in order to activate Sana’a congregation which includes four states; Yemen, Sudan Ethiopia and Somalia.

The Yemeni Foreign Ministry expressed hopes of putting an end to the military operations and dragging all the fighting sides to the table.

On the other hand, Yemeni diplomats said that the understanding between Sana’a and Washington regarding the new preparations is still cloudy especially when the American moves in Somalia has caused confusions to Sana’a which found in turn that there are signs of a new American roadmap in the region ignoring Yemen interests .

More from Front Page Mag: (Read on …)

How did they get there?

Shabelle Media Network (Mogadishu) Somalia’s Islamist leaders are reportedly in Yemen to hold talks with Yemeni officials over their defeat in Somalia.

Yemeni foreign monster Dr. Abu-Bakar al-Qurabi has revealed that senior Islamist members have come to his country. He said they came to Yemen to hold talks with the officials. “They are here to talk with the government officials over the foreign military occupation in Somalia,” he said.

According to Al-Khaleej newspaper, Qurabi said it would be an opportunity for the Islamists to negotiate with the transitional government. The minister did not specify the names of the individuals that arrived in Yemen. He also pointed out that his government was determined to mediate Somalia’s challenging parties.
(Read on …)

ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia, Dec. 31 — As fighting began to flare up today around Kismayo, the final redoubt for Somalia’s diminished Islamic movement, elders within the city demanded that the Islamists leave. (and go where?)

Mohammed Arab, a leader of the Ogaden sub-clan, said 36 elders of various clans and sub-clans met over the weekend with Islamist leaders and tried to persuade them that resisting the huge Ethiopian-backed force heading toward them would be futile.

“We told them that they were going to lose,” Mr. Arab said, “and that our city would get destroyed.”

Kismayo, a scenic harbor town along the Indian Ocean that was once part of the fabled East African spice empire, had been spared the fighting so far. But the Islamists, according to Mr. Arab, did not care. “These guys are bent on war,” he said.

Around 5 p.m., the fighting started, with the Ethiopian-backed forces unleashing an artillery barrage against Islamist troops dug in near Jilib, a town about 30 miles north of Kismayo. As the shells began to rain down, residents said, clan militias within Kismayo turned on the Islamists. That set off running gunbattles across the city, with several people reportedly killed. It also accelerated the exodus out of Kismayo, with thousands of residents hastily tossing a few things over their shoulders and joining the stream of people fleeing the fighting in southern Somalia. (Read on …)

Seven of the eight foreigners charged with running guns to Somalia for al-Qaeda have been released. The only one remaining in jail is a Somalia man named Al-Ansar. One would assume the American arrested in August, Anwar Al-Awlaki, is still incarerated.

IHT A Danish national detained in Yemen for allegedly trying to smuggle weapons to Somalia has been released from custody and has been given seven days to leave the Middle Eastern country, Danish officials said Saturday.

“I can confirm that a Danish citizen was released earlier today (Saturday) and the charges against him have been dropped,” Foreign Affairs Ministry official Henning Nielsen said.

He declined to identify the man, but said the 23-year-old Muslim convert had been asked to leave Yemen — where he lives with his wife and child — within a week.

“As far as we’ve been told, the reason (for his release) is that there has been a lack of evidence,” Nielsen said.

There had been earlier reports that the man had already been released from custody, but the ministry had denied them as being false.

The man was arrested in Yemen in late October along with four Australians as part of a state security campaign against members of an alleged al-Qaida cell.

The five men had been studying at the Islamist Iman University — run by Sheik Abdul-Majid al-Zindani, who is listed as an al-Qaida supporter by the United States.

Yemen is believed to be a frequent route for smuggling arms to Somali factions.

Al-Qaida has an active presence in Yemen, the ancestral home of Osama bin Laden, despite government efforts to fight the terror network.

Al-Qaida was blamed for the 2000 bombing of the USS Cole in Aden that killed 17 American sailors and the attack on a French oil tanker that killed one person two years later.

After discussions in Yemen, ICU ready to announce their own government in Somalia:

Somalia: The Islamic Courts are now able to announce a government–Islamist
Aweys Osman Yusuf
Mogadishu 14, Dec.06 ( Sh.M.Network) – The Islamist delegation led by Sheik Sharif Sheik Ahmed, Islamic Courts chairman and Ibrahim Adow, foreign affairs chairman of Islamic Courts explained their meeting with Yemeni authorities in the capital Sana.

Ibrahim Hassan Adow, who spoke with Shabelle radio in Mogadishu by the telephone, said they have convened with Yemen president Ali Abadalla Salah over the mounting crises in Somalia.

He denied rumors that government officials and Islamists were due to negotiate in Sana. “I want to make one thing clear the government and the Islamic Courts are never planning to open negotiations here in Yemen,” he stressed.

He pointed out Islamists were not prepared to talk with the Ethiopian government as long as it military forces are in Somalia.
“We will talk with the Ethiopians if it withdraws all its combatant troops from Somalia if it wants peaceful dialog with us,” he said,

He added, “The Islamic Courts are now able to announce a government because we administer the capital and most strategic provinces in central and southern Somalia, but however we are still ready to negotiate with transitional government based in Baidoa.” (Read on …)

Pentagon Briefing:

Another part of the briefings focused on al-Queda, and its own coalition of allied groups that is spread throughout the Middle East and parts of Africa. The briefing talked in terms of “leadership nodes,” “operational cells” and “support nodes”, dotting them all over a densely-packed map that ran from Waziristan to Mogadishu to Algiers. It bears translation from Pentagonese.

Al-Queda has evolved greatly from its early days of personalization in Usama bin Laden, Ayman al-Zawahiri and a few others. Our military leaders now characterize it as a “franchise” that shares communications, some funding and sometimes coordinates actions. Some terrorism experts now say that al-Queda is less than that, a loosely-knit network of terrorist groups that coordinate only in giving credit to bin Laden for propaganda purposes. It’s impossible to define it with precision, but the map showed al-Queda leaders headquartered in nine places including Jiddah, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Waziristan (eastern Pakistan), two places in Iraq (Baghdad and northeastern Iraq), northern Uzbekistan and (and here the map is a bit imprecise) two places in Somalia.

Yemen is a central node in that the insurgency in northeastern Iraq has significant support from within Yemen, the links between Yemeni and Saudi al-Qaeda are broad, and many of the Jihaddists in Somalia arrived via Yemen.

All around the mulberry bush

Short story: Previously under investigation in the US, American Iman Anwar al-Alwaki a/k/a Abu Atiq a/k/a Anwar al-Aulaqi was recently arrested in Yemen. His arrest led investigators to another group connected to September’s thwarted terror bombings in which two of the February al-Qaeda escapees were killed.

The al-Awlaki arrest also led to a later arrest of eight foreigners accused of smuggling guns to Somalia for al-Qaeda including a Dane, a Briton, a German, a Somali, three Australians, and a European of undetermined nationality who may be Austrian. One media report indicates the group was under surveillance by Western intelligence and the arrests disrupted an otherwise productive intelligence operation; other sources dispute this. The Dane is known as Abu Zakaria, whose given name is Kenneth Sorensen. The central figure was reportedly a Somali named al-Ansar. This group of eight included the Australian Ayub brothers, sons of JI leader Abdul Rahim Ayub, who fled Australia after the Bali bombings. Seven of the eight confessed according to the official Yemeni media. However six of eight were subsequently released without charges.

Details: American Anwar Al Awlaki a/k/a Abu Atik was was arrested in Yemen 8/31/06. Born in New Mexico of Yemeni parents, al-Awlaki was the Muslim Chaplin in Residence at George Washington University. He was also reported to be an associate of two of the 9/11 highjackers and a protege of Sheik Zindani. (Read on …)

Monday 11 December 2006

26 Septemper News

It is expected that Head of Islamic Courts Union in Somalia, Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed to arrive Yemen tomorrow.

Well informed sources said in an exclusive statement to” 26 Sep.net” that the visit of Sheikh Sharif comes in the framework of Yemeni efforts to support Somali reconciliation efforts.

The sources said that Sheikh Sharif would meet a number of Yemeni officials to brief them on the latest developments in the Somali territory and introduce Islamic courts viewpoint of Somali crisis.
On the hand, Somali Parliament Speaker had arrived last Tuesday to Sana’a for the same purpose.

And what does the US Assistant Secretary of State have to say to Ali Abdullah Saleh?

Also the Pakistani PM in town, affirming mutual interests.

from the big bust of eight foreigners on charges of running guns to Somalia, seven of whom had confessed according to earlier reports from the Yemeni government. The larger question may be, is the regime sincerely attempting to co-opt the extremists or have extremists already co-opted substantial elements of the regime.

Yahoo: Yemen has freed six of eight foreigners arrested for alleged links with Al-Qaeda and smuggling weapons to Islamists in Somalia, keeping only an Austrian and a Somali in custody.

A Briton, a Dane and an Australian were released on Wednesday for lack of sufficient evidence implicating them in the purported arms smuggling, a security source told AFP on Friday.

Two Australians among the group detained in mid-October were freed last Saturday.

A German man in the group had been released on November 2.

This leaves one Austrian and one Somali in custody.

A security source last month gave a slightly different account of the detainees’ nationalities, saying they were four Australians, a Dane, a Briton, a German and a Somali. No mention was made of an Austrian.

A Yemeni official said in late October that the men “were arrested in two flats in Sanaa on October 14 on suspicion of affiliation to Al-Qaeda and smuggling weapons to the Islamic courts militia in Somalia.”

Initial interrogation of the foreigners, who had been in the Yemeni capital ostensibly to study Arabic, “showed their involvement in smuggling arms to Somalia” from Yemen, he said.

Yemen, site of a number of terror attacks in recent years, has since the September 11, 2001 attacks on the United States worked with Washington to clamp down on suspected Al-Qaeda sympathizers.

Somalia’s Islamists, the two-year-old government and their Ethiopian allies have been bracing for all-out war for weeks in the lawless Horn of Africa nation that many fear could engulf the entire region.

22,000 Somali refugees set out for Yemen in the last three months; 633 were eaten by sharks.

SANAA, 4 December (IRIN) – Ethiopian consulate officials in Yemen said they had been concerned for the welfare of 122 Ethiopian migrants after Yemeni authorities had detained them for nearly a week before deporting them.

“We were worried about why they were arrested and what condition they might be in, but then the authorities told us it was because they entered the country illegally, and were not political refugees, and that they were being well looked after,” Abebe Biazen, Consul of the Ethiopian Embassy, said. (Read on …)

CTB:

In terms of TTP (tactics, techniques, and procedures) the ICU is fighting more like the Iraqi insurgency than like the Chechens. Their TTP is also similar to that displayed by Hizballah in Lebanon. One clear implication of this is that foreign fighters are both present and influential in Somalia. At present, this point may no longer be worth making, since the presence of foreign fighters in Somalia is undeniable to any objective observer. The best estimate of foreign fighter presence is the figure of 1,000 contained in the confidential UN report that has been leaked to some media sources. These foreign fighters have been accessing Somalia through Yemen.

this is such a murky case
al-Motamar:

Seven suspects, including two Australian sons of a Jemaah Islamiah leader, have confessed to involvement in smuggling weapons to Somalia and collecting money for terrorist attacks, Yemeni officials say.
The group includes Sydney men Abdullah Ayub, 19, Mohammed Ayub, 21, and Marek Samulski, 35.
The Ayub brothers are sons of JI leader Abdul Rahim Ayub, who fled Australia after the Bali bombings. Investigators have linked them to a member of an alleged Sydney terrorist cell who was arrested and charged a year ago.
The men, along with a Briton, a Dane, a Somali and another suspect, allegedly acknowledged during interrogation that they were involved in smuggling weapons to Somalia and collecting money to fund terror attacks, a security official said. He said the suspects also confessed to having connections with Yemenis linked to the al-Qaeda terror network.
The Ayub brothers’ Sydney lawyer, Adam Houda, said his clients had not confessed.
“I don’t know what they’re going to be charged with or if they’re going to be charged at all,” he said last night. “I don’t know anything yet, I have to find out. I’m waiting for a call.”
Mr Houda has previously described allegations that the brothers were involved in smuggling arms or linked to al-Qaeda as ridiculous.
The seven men are expected to stand trial in Yemen, Interior Minister Rashad al-Alimi said on Monday.
Other officials said a search of the Dane’s house found documents and reports linked to al-Qaeda and thousands of US dollars and euros.
The arrests are part of a state security campaign launched last month against members of an al-Qaeda cell. The security official said among more than 12 suspected militants arrested in the campaign, six were believed to be linked to the Sana’a cell.
One of the detainees allegedly confessed that he was assigned to carry out an attack with an explosive-laden car on Sana’a international airport, the security official said.

no charges yet though (Read on …)

amid confusion. how shocking.

SMH:

ONE of three Australians being held for suspected gun-running has been released from detention, a well-placed Yemeni government source says, but the Department of Foreign Affairs says it knows of no release.

The men, from NSW, were arrested last month in a crackdown on arms smuggling to Somalia, but it took almost two weeks for Yemen to make details of the arrests public, and the fate of the three remains confused.

The source said yesterday that an unidentified Australian and a German were freed two days ago, but a spokesman for the Department of Foreign Affairs said one of its officials had visited the detainees on Saturday. (Read on …)

Somalia is a major throughfare for smuggling from Yemen into the Horn of Africa including deisel and weapons while many refugees fleeing the Islamic Courts have arrived in Yemen.

SANA’A, 11 Nov. (Saba) – Abdullah Yusuf Ahmad, the Somali President arrivedon Saturday morning in Sana’a to hold talks with President
Ali AbdullahSaleh over the current situation in Somalia.

“I will brief Yemeni political leadership on developments and the currentsituation in Somalia, ” the Somali leader stated to Saba upon his arrival. He said that he would also discuss efforts of Yemen in realizing reconciliation in Somalia and in bridging gaps between different Somali factions. He highlighted efforts of Yemen in maintaining security and stability in Somalia.

“We could not forget these efforts,” he said.

Somali Leader was welcomed by Foreign Minister Dr. Abu Bakr al-Qirbi,the Yemeni ambassador to Somalia Ahmad Omar and the Somali ambassador to Sana’a Abdul Salam Adam

China also discussed.

Yemen as mediator.

( More updates below.)

Arrests blow an otherwise productive surveillance operation. Par for the course.

News: For six months, British and American spies had the building and two of its occupants under close watch. The furtive activities of a young British citizen and a firebrand Dane convinced them a terror plot was being hatched. Any new friends, or visitors, were scrutinised, such as the three young Australians who appeared on the scene some time in late September.

The trio – the Ayub brothers and the Polish-born Samulski – initially didn’t fit the bill as terror suspects. The men the spies had been watching were strongly connected to ranking al-Qa’ida members. The newcomers didn’t seem to be.

But in the early hours of October 17, the British-led operation was shattered by an unexpected Yemeni secret police raid that swept up all eight foreigners living in the building and at least 12 other men across Yemen. Yemeni authorities insist they dismantled an al-Qaeda cell and disrupted a gun-running ring to neighbouring Somalia.

The three weeks since have exposed much of the progress and many of the shortcomings in the Western efforts to collaborate with the Arab world in the war on terror.

Yemen, a hotbed of radicalism in eastern Arabia and home to a steadily rising tide of militant Salafi Islamic beliefs, has long been a priority target for Western intelligence.

But it has also been a surprisingly recalcitrant partner in getting the job done collectively.

The US Central Intelligence Agency and Britain’s MI6 are still fuming that their operation was blown.

The man at the centre of the arrests is believed to be a senior Somali al-Qa’ida figure from the Horn of Africa states of Eritrea, Ethiopia and Somalia, who is known by the alias al-Ansar.

As significant a figure as he is, the key to the raids appears to be a Yemeni known as Abu Atiq, who was arrested about six weeks before the October 17 swoop. Abu Atiq was allegedly an associate of two of the September 11 hijackers and a protege of the virulently anti-Western Salafi cleric and head of Islamic studies at al-Islam, Abdul al-Majid al-Zindani, who the US wants arrested on terror charges. But Atiq’s biggest claim to notoriety is his alleged role in a foiled al-Qa’ida plot to bomb oil and gas facilities in Yemen.

All the men worshipped at a nearby Salafi mosque, in a dusty, downtrodden district with red-stone ramshackle houses, skittish, scruffy children and burka-clad women.

When The Weekend Australian inquired about the Ayubs and Samulski, a man with a flowing ginger beard, selling perfume and soap, waved us down the road to the honey vendor. He passed us on to the skull-capped youths in the Islamic bookshop.

The Salafis of Sanaa are a secret society within a culture that fears direct questioning from strangers or authority figures – and with good reason. The secret police and Government Intelligence Service play a powerful role in Yemen, especially among groups like the Salafis, who are seen as a subversive threat to the regime. Many have ended up in the Central Security Prison in Sanaa.

No, the Salafis are among some of Saleh’s strongest supporters. Those imprisoned often recieve special treatment, like giving the Friday sermons or in some cases not actually being in prison. Zindani and Saleh are allies. Furthermore the regime is pushing Salafism on the population in a number of ways.

Over the past two years numerous published reports and antidotal testimony have indicated that Salifi preachers were being assigned to non-Salafi mosques with security forces providing muscle when worshipers objected. Most often it was Zaidi mosques in the Saada region but reports indicated these take-overs occurred in even in the capital, Sanaa, and sometimes to Sunni Shafi mosques. Recent figures released by the Deputy Minister of Endowments show 15% of mosques classified as Salafist in orientation, while only 3% were Zaidi although Zaidi Shiites comprise about a quarter of the population. (82,000 mosques: 35% Islah, 15% Salafi, 3% Zaidi and 47% govt controlled. YM)

Moderate Shaifi and (non-Houthist) Zaidi schools have been closed as non-licensed while some so called extremist institutes remain functional, including al-Iman university. A report in the Yemen Times (July 21 2005) indicated the state had requested 3000 students at al-Iman university to teach summer school, with a total of YR 50 million allocated to religious summer programs. YT

Al-Thawri weekly revealed that the Endowments Ministry granted more than 100 licenses to graduates of Wahabi and Salafi centers in August over a two week period. According to the Yemeni Socialist Party’s weekly, such centers are known to be linked to extremism and have relations with influential people. The paper listed Dammaj center in Sa’ada and Sheikh Mohammed Al-Imam’s center in Ma’aber, Dhamar, among those centers where graduates where given licenses to work. Similiarly President Saleh recently promised that graduates of Al-Iman U will become state judges.

The extent of Salafi political support was apparent in Yemen’s recent presidential election. A prominent Salafi scholar issued a fatwa forbidding citizens to vote against president Saleh, noting all Salafi scholars support him. Saleh also enjoys the hearty support of Sheik Abdel-Majid al-Zindani and his many followers. Militarily, the Afghan Arabs fought alongside General Ali Mohsen Al-Ahmar in the Saada region. The leader of the AAIA said the regime imprisons them just to later use them against political enemies, and others are employed by the regime in a variety of ways and positions. For example, ex-Taliban leader and ranking jihaddist leader, Abu Al-Feda, is said to be a colonel in the PSO.

Back to the current case, Consular officials meet detainees Nov 4th, still no confirmation of nature of charges. Yemen launching pad to Somalia. One freed of eight without charge, the German

More updates on the case at the YO: (Read on …)

JI organizer

TWO of the Australian men arrested in Yemen on terrorism charges are the sons of Abdul Rahim Ayub, the man who set up a Jemaah Islamiah cell in Australia and fled after the Bali bombings. (Read on …)

Yemen a transmission belt country, nice phrase.

WASHINGTON, Oct. 31 (UPI) — The arrest in Yemen of six Westerners said to be members of al-Qaida has highlighted concerns that the region remains a “transmission belt” for Islamic converts looking for a way to join jihadi terror groups.

But experts caution that the facts of the case remain murky, and warned against jumping to conclusions, saying the Yemeni government had many reasons to try to burnish their counter-terrorist credentials by exaggerating the importance of the arrests. (Read on …)

YO:

The Yemeni Foreign Minister, Abu Bakr al-Qirbi called on Somalia’s interim government and Union of Islamic Courts, which currently controls most of the country, to stop fighting and solve their disputes through dialogue. “The best way to solve the problem between them is not by carrying arms and fighting each other, but through dialogue aimed at agreement on what is best for the Somali people—not for the government, and not for the Islamic Courts, but for Somalia and the Somali people,” al-Qirbi told the Yemen Observer in an exclusive interview. (Read on …)

Jim Dunnigan at Strategy Page regarding Somalia:

The warlords seem to be gaining the upper hand, and are keeping the Islamic Courts out of Mogadishu, and pushing them back. The warlords are also complaining that the Islamic Courts have received support from Yemeni Islamic radicals. Small boats have moved back and forth between Yemen and Somalia for thousands of years, and the NATO naval anti-terrorist patrols have not been able to keep the Yemen Islamists out. The Islamic Courts appear to be attracting recruits, specialists, weapons and money from sympathizers in Yemen. Some of these visitors from Yemen are al Qaeda, or very much into Islamic terrorism. Small groups of these men have been spotted, along with their weapons and large quantities (by Somali standards) of money. The offshore NATO patrols are apparently more intent on finding terrorists than pirates. But the pirates are easier to spot, and the terrorists go out of their way to look like another fishing or cargo boat.

Its my impression that according to Yemeni law, participation in al-Qaeda operations outside of Yemen is not illegal.

(Also the socialists got fatwa-ed because they believe in a secular state.)

YT interview with Dr. Mohammad Haidrah Ali Masdos

there was an unjust policy that oppressed all civilians in the south of Yemen including those who opposed the Yemeni Socialist party and others who remained in the State’s civic and military apparatuses, owning to the war and its tragic consequences that negatively affected the national unity and resulted in an inequality between people.

Besides, thousands of innocent civilians and military personnel were fired from their work even though they were still young,

But after being eliminated following the 1994’s war, they became jobless and were named the party of “Stay at home”, in addition to a terrible increase in the rate of unemployment among youths.

Jobs in the southern parts of Yemen were given to people from North Yemen even at oil companies operating in the south because officials were all from the north parts of Yemen and the southerners were deprived of everything.

Despite that political leaderships of religious extremism came from the north, hunting activities and arbitrary procedures are practiced against people who are originally from the south parts of Yemen, and a clear-cut example is what happened to Abu Hassan al-Mihdar, al-Harithi and Hattat Group in Abyan and the Group of the US Destroyer Cole and others.

The authority tends to practice terrorism upon them, and an intellectual terrorism is practiced against them by the opposition.

Assorted link dump:

list Party (YSP) 2002 released a press statement on Saturday claiming that Jarallah Omar’s assassination was politically motivated….the gunman, was a member of the Islamic opposition Islah Party, and was mosque preacher known for his extremist views and opposition to the government and moderates in his own party

Hezbollah Yemen

Moayad:
AL-MOAYAD also stated, in substance, that he has
supplied al Qaeda with arms and communication equipment in the
past. AL-MOAYAD indicated that he worked directly for a high-ranking
official in the Islah party of Yemen (hereinafter
“Associate 1″) purchasing weapons for al Qaeda.

In response, AL-MOAYAD told CI1, in sum and substance,
that he (AL-MOAYAD) had met with Usama bin Laden on two
occasions and that on each of those occasions, AL-MOAYAD brought
money, arms and recruits.

Zayed
Al-Moayad advised CI1 that Al-Moayad has met Usama bin
Laden several times and has given bin Laden millions of dollars
prior to September 11, 2001.

DOJ: The investigation revealed that Al-Moayad, an official in the Islah political party in Yemen and the Imam – or spiritual leader – of the al-Ihsan Mosque in Sanaa, has substantial and direct ties to Usama bin Laden and al Qaeda.

Saada: Media have no access to information about human and material losses. Yet the thousands of dead and wounded rushed to hospitals in Sa’ada, Hajah and Sana’a reveal their scale. Al-Wahdawi quoted Yahya Badr Al-Din, Member of Parliament and brother to Hussein Al-Houthi as saying: “My brother was never the political leader of an organization that violates law. What will the government gain from killing him?”

GN 2004: The Yemen branch of Al Qaida has submitted an initiative to the government saying it will give up operations against the Western interests in Yemen in return for meeting ten conditions.

DT: Al-Jihad, which attracted many Yemenis who had fought the Soviets in Afghanistan, had chiefly targeted secular figures from once-socialist southern Yemen….In past investigations, Americans working alongside Yemenis have complained of having limited access to suspects.

The Students

Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri

connection kidnappers to the cole bombers

Kidnapper via YT:
He emphasized that he kidnapped the foreign tourists to pressure their governments to stop hurting Muslims in Iraq and the Sudan and to block U.S. and UK efforts to impose their hegemony on the whole world and to end their bid to humiliate Muslims….

He acknowledged he had ordered the kidnapping of tourists and that

Somolia