Armies of Liberation

Saleh regularly deploys deniable proxies to do his dirty work.

Leaked document reveals that the regime is planning to blow up civil war.

A secret document issued by the People’s Committee for Defending the Constitutional Legitimacy and the President in Dalii city revealed the distribution of weapons to citizens through the President of the GCP in preparation for civil war.

The document is to direct to governor of Dali city, President of the People’s Committe, Major General. Ali Qassim Talib to the cheif of security of Dalii to give out 325 pieces of Kalashnikov to Qataba directorate and handing it to President of GCP in that directorate Sheikh. Abdulrab Al-Marah according to the plan that was submitted to him as it is shown in the document.

Al-Wahdawi website published the document quoting other confirmed sources that the governor had distributed weapons to security personnel. More sources pointed that the ruler has already distributed some weapons to its members confidentially.

Well over 100 protesters were injured in Taiz today, ambushed shot and gassed under the stewardship of the newly transferred Gen Qairan. US Ambassador Feierstein said on Sunday that General Qairan’s removal from Aden would be a sign of good faith from Saleh regime* and chided the Yemeni public for having no faith in Saleh’s recent round of promises. I wonder how long it is going to take for him to come to the inescapable conclusion that Saleh is a compulsive liar and not reformable. The US wanted Qiran out of Aden, so Saleh sent him to attack civilians in Taiz. Is that some kind of sick joke? There’s 140 in the field hospital in Taiz, gassed and shot, including 16 girls who tried to stand their ground. This is video of the school girls talking about getting kicked out of school for joining the protests.

*The exact quote from Feierstein was, “We think that it would be useful to remove some of the senior security officials who have been involved in some of these violent or forced confrontations with demonstrators, particularly in Aden.”

In other news, the new governor in Aden promised not to use bullets in countering protesters: The security forces in Aden will not use live bullets in demonstrations following four protesters were killed in clashes with police, the newly appointed governor of Aden Ahmed al-Qa’tabi said on Wednesday in a news conference. “We have agreed with the security committee not to use live bullets…. after four persons were killed last Saturday in clashes happened in Dar Saad district of Aden”, he added.

Clashes at Marib check point kill three AQ Nasser Arrabyee reports and:

Meanwhile, two Al Qaeda operatives were arrested in a check point in the central province of Taiz where big anti-regime protests started about 40 days ago. The two men were identified by the security officials in a statement, as Khalid Saeed Ba Tarfi, alias Abu Mekdad Al Kanadi, and Ahmed Omar Abdul Jalil, alias, Al Lahji. They were described as dangerous operatives.

Ba Tarfi was known as one of the spokesmen of Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsular (AQAP) and he is the local Emir of AQAP in the southern province of Abyan. Ba Tarfi succeeded Jamil Al Ambari, who was killed in an air strike on March 14th, 2010, in Mudiyah of Abyan province.

Alternate spelling from al Motamar: “Khalid Saeed Batarfi surnamed Abu Miqdad and called Emir of Abyan, and the second terrorist is Ahmed Omar Abdul Jalil al-Khadhmi with a surname of Amer Obel.” This could be a real capture or something for the benefit of the US, that latter more likely statistically.

In Sanaa, police opened fire and used tear gas against protesters, wounding four. Estimates are 150 people were wounded on Wednesday when security forces tried to break up a demo in Hodeidah.

Saleh released southern prisoner al Ghabari after 16 years in prison in Sanaa.

Now that the foreign journos are gone, heat ratchets up on the locals: “Journalist Fouad Rashid of the YJS Hadramout branch called on the International Federation of Journalists, the Organization of the international press and the Arab Journalists Union to intervene to stop the regime’s orders compelling broke into his house and arrest and terrorize his family, noting that it is in the public square city of Mukalla, which would not leave under any reason.”

Short vid of Saudis unloading military equipment in Aden.

“Saleh does not [need] to dialogue with anyone to start applying the rule of law.” Truly excellent analysis of overall picture from Abdulghani al Iryani, very well worth a full read: “This current regime chose to host every violent extremist that came down the road from the period since the early 1980s onwards. And so we are paying the price. Al-Iman University, a major ideological centre for violent extremists, is being supported by the regime. And it just started new branches in Omran and Hadramout with government support.”

Good write up of Zindani’s double game includes Zindani’s early history and current deals with Saleh.

Captured Brit in Libya says he is member of LIFG, “Speaking through an interpreter, Mr Aboaoba said he moved from Yemen to Britain in 2005 and travelled to Libya late last year.”
Gaddaffi using for propaganda purposes.

World Threats: Mohammad al-Zawahiri, the brother of al-Qaeda’s second-in-command, Ayman al-Zawahiri, was released Thursday from Egyptian prison after more than ten years of incarceration. Extradited from the Yemen in 1999, he had been held on charges of conspiring against the government in relation to the assassination of former Egypt’s former President Anwar Sadat.

In Dhalie, al Masdar reports the usual Thursday marches for the prisoners and an independent state. Although the former presidents and southern officials abroad announced a joining to the protest movement, from what I have seen and learned, there are very few in the south of Yemen whose position (the demand for an independent state) has changed since the outbreak of protests in Sanaa and Taiz. Its a major issue in that northerners are widely unaware on the depth of the southerners sentiment, their sense of separate identity, and determination to continue their struggle. Northerners who discuss it, often do it with derision.

Thousands of supporters of the movement in the southern regions of Dali and Lahj and Shabwa southern Yemen on Thursday and called on the detainee, which falls on Thursday of each week.

The demonstrators chanted slogans calling for disengagement and re-southern part independent state on what it was before 1990. Photos and raise thousands of former Yemeni Vice President Ali Salem al-Beidh, and photographs of detainees at the disposal of the southern movement and the flag of the south earlier.

The leaders of the southern movement announced its accession to the protests in Yemen to demand the toppling of President Ali Abdullah Saleh, but other militant leaders refused, saying that her case is the issue of “occupation” of the South.

vid Crater Aden, for the freedom of Baoum and a separate state:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R730tEL8mhQ
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xql39fyLs8w

Short version: somebody took some shots at an army patrol in Radfan, al Dhalie, and the state randomly shelled the town, probably with mortars. In essence, the state is assigning guilt and punishing to the whole town for the actions of individuals, heightening unrest. The Saleh regime’s tribal norms are an underpinning in its dealings with citizens. Tribalism isn’t bad, in fact a sense of shared identity and duty is probably whats keeping a lot of people from starving to death today. But when the state assigns collective guilt and other tribal tenets here in 2011, it runs counter to the modern sense of justice.

During the Saada Wars, the motivation for cutting food supplies to Bani Hushaish and other towns was to encourage people to hand in Houthi rebels, one official stated openly, but it had the opposite effect. Throughout Yemen, family members are taken hostage in lieu of a person wanted by security forces and can remain in prison for months or years. The northern Yemeni Arab Republic evolved from the Immamate, a theocracy that depended on the tribes as enforcers. The British colonized Aden in the 19th century and, although the concept of protectorates reinforced tribal authority and paternalism, the PDRY to a degree replaced tribal norms with individualism. One constant refrain of southerners is that the unified state dragged the south back into tribalism and after unification, the state appointed tribal sheiks based on their loyalty to Saleh himself.

Yemen Post: At least three civilians were injured, one seriously, when the army shelled Radfan town, Lahj, on Wednesday.

A medical source at the Radfan Hospital was quoted by the News Yemen as saying that the three pedestrians were injured and taken to hospital after the forces randomly shelled the town following firing on a military vehicle by unknown armed people.

One of the victims had his hand cut off and another was wounded by shrapnel in different parts of his body, the website said.

Also, tens of houses were damaged and families are continuing to flee the town due to the deteriorating situation amid an acute fuel shortage and lack of phone services.

Military reinforcements have been deployed to Radfan in recent months to fight separatist militants who have stepped up their attacks, targeting military posts and public properties.

Lahj is one of the southern cities hit by violence where the separatist movement, Al-Harak, continues the anti-government protests that usually turn violent.

One day in November 2010, a man was robbed of his daughters dowrey and beaten unconscious by security forces as he was sleeping in al Dhalie, where he had come to buy items for his daughter’s wedding. Then he was jailed and tortured for three months, and his family appeals for his release.

One day, specifically in the history of the fourteenth of November of last year 2010 was a citizen Ali Naji Almqra living in a region Osmad Juhav Baldhala, a remote area where their people are very much in poverty and destitution. He was sitting in a room of one of his relatives in the city of Dali, where he arrived to find work and buy some needs for the wedding party to humble his daughter. (Read on …)

Amnesty International issued a report today on its top human rights concerns in Yemen as 400 Yemeni students issued an urgent appeal because they are being evicted from student housing until the conclusion of the Gulf 20 in Aden.

An urgent appeal from the 400 students from South Yemen to human rights organizations, Arab and international humanitarian

Hundreds of students in this southern Yemen on Sunday October 31, 2010 sent a letter of appeal wherein they raised an urgent SOS to the public and to all human rights organizations, Arab, international and humanitarian to protect them from criminal acts, and arbitrary law as they are being swallowed by the Yemeni authorities without evidence or proof.
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The estimated 400 students sent an urgent letter of appeal to all entities, political parties and civil society organizations and local public opinion, Arab and international that the Yemeni authorities in Aden, “South Yemen” has warned the more than 400 students originating from the province of Dali that they will be cast out of student housing, “housing Abd al-Hadi,” in the city of Sheikh Othman,” Aden, South Yemen. The students were surprised when they heard this decision which is wrong and beyond the law. It is not for nothing except the Gulf Twenty in Aden, where authorities warned the students to get out of housing on Wednesday, until the end of the Gulf 20 in Yemen.

Update: a vid of a march in al Dhalie yesterday 10/28 posted at SadaAden

With the Yemeni government’s concerted crackdown on the media, internet, journalists, bloggers and newspapers, these protests are not getting much media attention inside or outside of Yemen, but its a weekly occurrence.

Siyas: 8 southern Yemeni cities protested on the Southern Prisoner’s Day, that is staged every Thursday in order to demand the release some Southern Movement detainees and to support the movement’s demands that seeks to separate and restore the former state of South Yemen, that merged with North Yemen to form the recent Republic of Yemen in 1990. (Read on …)

One Yemeni observer notes, “The ministry of interior identified the bomber as a 36 years old Hadi Ahmed Saleh from Kohlan district province of Sanaa. He was a soldier in the 35th brigade based in the city of Dhala.Some of his colleagues suggested that he was unaware that his motorcycle was rigged with explosives. When you have a regime that uses terror to blackmail the international community , the prospect of Yemeni intelligence role in such attacks is not far fetched .”

SaadaAden: Aden news agency suggested that the soldier was a “victim of a conspiracy carried out by malicious military officials in coordination with the intelligence of Yemen, where witnesses confirmed that the soldier came out of the leadership of the camp and started down the road towards the Public Security Department and did not know the mission objective.”

And a truly gruesome video of the deceased at Youtube. A less hysterical rundown from the YT:

Yemen Times: SANA’A, August 4 — Nine soldiers were injured when a soldier blew himself up in front of the Al-Dhale’ General Security Office last Tuesday.

Of the nine injured soldiers, two are said to have been seriously injured. A 15-year-old child was also injured as he was passing near the office.

It was reported on the army website 26th September that the deputy of Al-Dhale’ governorate, Abdulla Husain Al-Haddi, had accused Al-Qaeda of organizing the attack.

According to local sources, the soldier committed this suicide bombing because his salary had been suspended for months and he had not been treated well by his commanding officer.

According to reliable sources, Al-Qaeda cannot be behind this suicide bombing because the group is not present in the governorate, and some even think that the soldier himself may have unknowingly been rigged with explosives. (Read on …)

Update: The state is blaming the southerners with another theory that the biker was tricked into delivering explosives to the intel HQ. The “suicide bomber” was a soldier from the 35th armored brigade.

Yemen Post: Security sources in Dhale Province said on Wednesday the southern separatist movement was behind the suicide attack against the police headquarters that injured 9 policemen, two seriously.
The Alsahwa website quoted the sources as saying elements from the movement asked the owner of a motorbike to deliver food for a detainee at the building and the meal was an improvised explosive device that was set off when the motorcyclist arrived at the building.
However, the sources revealed the motorcyclist was a soldier from Sana’a Province and his motorbike was packed with explosives while he was shopping in the Dhale market.
Saleh Ali Hadi was one of the personnel at the armored brigade 35, they said.
On Tuesday, the authorities said 8 policemen were wounded when the motorbike exploded at the gate of the police office. The office suffered damages as well.
Initially, they said the attack bore the hallmarks of Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula which claimed responsibility for recent attacks against offices of public security and intelligence in the south.
But other sources dismissed Al-Qaeda had been behind the bombing, saying the bomber might be used by another group that put explosives in his motorbike.

Original Post: Could be anything from intra-governmental wrangling to propaganda for the west to increasing muscle-flexing by the wild-eyed fanatics or violence by the southern fringe.

M&C
Sana’a, Yemen – Eight policemen were injured when a suicide bomber attacked a police headquarters in southern Yemen on Tuesday, police sources said. The sources told the German Press Agency dpa that the attacker blew himself up at the gate of the police building in al-Dhalea city, capital of the province of the same name. They said the attack bore the trademarks of al-Qaeda.

Someone lobs a grenade in Abyan, Yemen Observer: (Read on …)