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.
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.
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.
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).
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.
Must be the increased efforts of the Coast Guard.
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?
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?
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.
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.
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.
Let me guess, the Saudi wheat that was donated to Yemen
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.
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.
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.
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.
Well thats good, very good, but what about the Yemeni kids also starving?
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.
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.
This is abominable.
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.
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.
AAC:Shabelle Media Network (Mogadishu)
NEWS
15 May 2007
Posted to the web 15 May 2007By Aweys Osman Yusuf
MogadishuThe 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
