Armies of Liberation

UN

22 July 2010 – The United Nations is expressing concern about the humanitarian situation in northern Yemen, where the needs of the local population displaced by ongoing fighting vastly outstrip the funds provided so far by donors.

Less than $70 million, or 36 per cent, of the $187 million sought this year by aid agencies for assistance in Yemen has been received, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) reported today.

UN agencies and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) have been providing relief to civilians in Yemen’s north, where Government forces have engaged rebels in sporadic armed conflict in recent years. (Read on …)

Yemen Observer: The Information Office of the rebel leader, Abdulmalik al-Houthi, launched an awareness campaign and educational activities in the areas of Sa’adah province, Sufyan district, and al-Jawf province last week about the dangers of “al-Qaeda,” according to al-Houthi and local sources in Sa’adah province. Al-Houthis described al-Qaeda as the “U.S. intelligence tool used by Washington to occupy any Arab or Islamic country under the pretext of combating terrorism.” (Read on …)

UN re-opening office in Sa’ada City.

Reuters: “Now the situation is better we are just planning to send the staff back again as soon as next week,” he said, adding that life is back to normal in Saada city. The office houses various U.N. relief agencies.

Humanitarian access is needed to other areas in Saada as well as al-Jawf and Amran governorates, where continued insecurity and land mines have hampered or delayed aid distribution, a U.N. statement said Friday.

“Security is the same as it was before the war … Outside Saada city we still don’t know because we have not been there.”

That’s some good targeting right there, if it turns out to be true. Two cars, no civilians, direct hit. Ammar Al Waeli? Fascinating. Update: They are “almost certain” al Reimi was killed. Also: Mr. Ayman was an Egyptian jihadist who had arranged many suicide bombings in Afghanistan, the official said. He had moved in and out of Yemen recently, and has been on Yemen’s most-wanted list for years… Another man targeted in the raid was known to have escaped, the official said: Ammar al-Waeli, an important arms dealer for Al Qaeda.

Update 2: Almotamar.net The ministry said the killed terrorists are Qassim al-Raimy, Ammar Abadah al-Waili, Saleh al-Tais, Ayedh Jaber al-Shabwani and Ibrahim Mohammed Saleh al-Banaa.
(Read on …)

Poor al Jawf. This was the governorate where the local council voted its conscience in the governor’s election, and elected an independent. The results were promptly thrown out, the GPC’s candidate installed and the actual winner given a far off post just to get him out of the governorate. In this election, a popular vote, the polls were closed when it appeared the GPC’s candidate was losing. So much for changing your government through peaceful means…

Yemen Post: Two people have been killed and seven others injured in the violence that accompanied complementary elections for vacant parliamentary seats in some of Yemen’s 21 provinces. (Read on …)

This is quite an interesting report from the Yemen Post that focuses on the absence of state control in many areas and identifies what alternate power structures are in place. Regarding Marib, the report notes, “Al-Qaeda is strongly present in Wadi Abeedah, a wide desert district with some rugged and mountainous areas. The same holds true for Al Shabwan.” The various southern leaders are noted by their level of popular support by location.

Several areas witness resurrection against the state, tribal conflicts, mobility or violent acts and these acts are associated with complete absence of state presence. In most governorates, the state does control only the main cities.

Bani Dhabian, Sana’a

Bani Dhabian is a tribal district in Sana’a province’s Khawlan region whose tribesmen implement constant kidnapping operations. There is no presence for security or the state apparatuses there and the last kidnapping incident targeted Businessman Tawfiq Al-Khamri’s brother. Prior to this, the tribesmen released the business manager of Shahr Abdul Haq following tribal mediation efforts. The tribesmen make big sums of money, as kidnapping is a source for wealth and it is a direct result for the lack of trust in judiciary. (Read on …)

This is a really good report from SABA, part 1 is posted here.

Jawf, forgotten governorate , 2-3
[24/August/2009] By: Faez al-Makhrafi, Translated by: Mahmoud Assamiee

SANA’A, August 24 (Saba)-Jawf needs 48 physicians, say officials, but there is only four and what is odd is that the whole governorate lacks ambulance.

” Jawf is the worst governorate in terms of health and more than 500, 000 people are in bad need of health services,” said Director of Health Office Hussein al-Ghanimi. “Even existing health facilities are mostly closed or opened formally with deteriorated services.” (Read on …)

Its like the same day, over and over, again and again. During the last war, Saleh released several terrorists from jail on the condition that they go to fight in Sa’ada against the Houthi (Zaidi) rebels, but some ran away instead. Among the most repetitive reports since 2005 regarding the Sa’ada War and al Qaeda were those of experienced terrorists training the tribal militias for the state. Some foreign al-Qaeda always managed to show up for the prior Sa’ada wars to fight for President Saleh. Mercenaries is a more apt term. This time they started congregating before the war even broke out. Saleh whistled for his dogs apparently.

The article mentions the discovery of the terror training camp in Sa’ada during the international search for the missing foreign medical workers in June, but omits that the al Qaeda camp was actually an “abandoned military facility.” The surprising thing was that they discovered only one. If you want to find terrorists training in Yemen, start looking by at the military camps. Multi-tasking we can call it, perhaps sub-letting.

The unanswered question remains, what is the quid pro quo? Beyond the obvious transit of jihaddis of all nationalities from Yemen to Iraq, the money laundering, criminal facilitiation, prison escapes and the free flow of black market goods and services to Somalia and the Gulf, what else is al Qaeda getting for battling Saleh’s enemies?

While low level corruption and incremental deal making accounts for a good part of the subversion, there’s more going on in the upper eschelon than General Ali Mohsen’s extremist office manager Ashkar issuing fatwas against the rebels (and foreign medical workers), more than someone leaking the route for the South Korean diplomats. Terrorism as policy, Yemen gets get away with it time and time again.

On a less controversial note and previously discussed in context of the southern protests, the internationalization of any conflict in Yemen under the banner of jihad poses the serious threat of drawing foreign fighters, considering the Yemeni environment is so hospitable. However the Yemeni government is the one defining the conflict(s) in terms of apostasy and providing the hospitable environment. And in this war, this time, everything is bigger.

The following is a current report from the Socialist Party’s mouthpiece Aleshteraki, google translated:

Reports of Salafi on the battlefield, Friday, August 28th – August 2009 كشفت تقارير صحافية عن مشاركة فعلية لمسلحين متشددين ينتمون إلى “السلفية الجهادية” في الحرب التي تشنها القوات الحكومية والمسلحين القبائل ضد جماعة الحوثي في صعدة وحرف سفيان فيما يعرف بالحرب السادسة على صعدة التي انفجرت في العاشر من الشهر الجاري ولا تزال مرشحة للاتساع الجغرافي والاجتماعي بصورة غير مسبوقة Press reports disclosed on the active participation of armed militants belonging to the “Salafist jihadi” in the war by government forces and armed tribesmen against the Houthi in Saada, Harf Sufian known as the sixth Sa’ada war that exploded on the tenth of this month is still a candidate for the geographical and social expansion in non – unprecedented….

وكانت تقارير صحافية قد تحدثت قبل اندلاع الحرب الأخيرة عن مجاميع أصولية ومليشيات حزبية تتجمع في محافظة الجوف بكامل أسلحتها المتوسطة والثقيلة على اثر خلاف دام بين مواليين للجماعة الحوثي وآخرين ينتمون إلى حزب التجمع اليمني للإصلاح في المنطقة حول إمامة مسجد آل الوزير في مديرية الزاهر خلف عدد من القتلى والجرحى قبل تدخل وساطة قبلية لإجراء صلح هش بين الطرفي ما لبث أن تجدد تحت عنوان مواجهة تمدد الحوثي إلى الجوفي ولكن هذه المرة باسم قبائل دهم Press reports had talked before the outbreak of the recent war on the fundamentalist groups and militias party gathering in al-Jawf province full of medium and heavy weapons following a long dispute between the pro-Houthi’s group and others belonging to the Yemeni Grouping for Reform in the area around the mosque imam Al minister in the Department of bright behind a number of dead and wounded before the intervention of tribal mediation for a fragile reconciliation between the terminal’s just to renew under the heading face Houthi to extend the underground, but this time on behalf of Dahm…

يشار الى ان النسيج الاجتماعي والمذهبي في صعدة والجوف قد ظل حائلا دون اختراق القاعدة لهذه المحافظات الحدودية والمتداخلة اجتماعيا مع قبائل واسر سعودية tفي امارة نجران ومحيطها It is said that the social fabric and sectarian in Sa’ada, Al-Jouf has remained a barrier to penetrate al-Qaeda for these border provinces and overlapping with social tribes and the families of Saudi Arabia in the Emirate of Najran t and its surroundings

وكان حادث اختطاف وقتل اجانب يعملون في المستشفى الجمهوري بصعدة قد كشف وجود معسكر للمجاهدين في منطقة وائلة التابعة لمحافظة صعدة والمحاددة للسعودية The abduction and killing of foreigners working in the Republican Hospital in Saada has revealed the existence of the camp of the Mujahideen in the region and your gods of the province of Saada and Mahaddp to Saudi Arabia (Read on …)

From the gov’t website, SABA, confirmation of tribal paramilitaries fighting on behalf of the state (again) in the Sa’ada War. What kind of rules of engagement exist for these non-military combatants? Is there any attempt at command and control, or are they free to wander around and engage in firefights at will? The “pro-government people” are also authorized to make arrests, according to SABA. Another SABA report in Arabic report has 50 cars arriving in Sa’ada with fruit, water and food for the army. (Meanwhile thousands of women and children who fled the bombing are spread along the roads with nothing.)

Undoubtedly, both sides are using child soldiers.

The bombing is publicly acknowledged this time, but it was a tactic used extensively in prior rounds of the war, with the same consequences- civilian casualties and mass displacement. When the regime spent one billion on new weapons from Russia in March, following a major upgrade on Yemen’s fleet of Mig29’s in October 08, it was pretty apparent that the next war would be an air war.

Lastly, the UN said tens of thousands of refugees are in remote regions inacessable by air. Why not helicopters? Yemen has choppers. But the Yemeni govt is continuing to block international organizations from humanitarian access even to refugees who are reachable. And although the rebels agreed in theory to a truce during Ramadan, the military offensive continues. (ah a link at the Yemen Observer: The government refused on Thursday an initiative by some of the rebel leaders’ relatives to put an end to the war.

SABA: Yemen’s Air Forces have landed painful blows on the elements of a rebel group in several districts of the northern Yemeni province of Saada.

Security sources said on Saturday that groups of the al-Houthi rebels have been encircled and besieged in a number of the districts of Saada and Harf Sufyan area of the neighboring province of Amran….

At the same time, the Air Force landed painful blows on a number of strongholds belonging to the al-Houthi rebels in the areas of Matrah and Naq’ah.

Meanwhile, pro-government people in Saada, Amran and Jawf provinces have been fighting the al-Houthi rebels in some areas of those governorates in order to pursue, arrest and hand them over to the concerned bodies of the government.

The sources affirmed that the rebel group has attacked a health center aiming to kidnap health staff and medical supplies as well as they bombed some buildings of citizens in al-Qabel village of al-Mahadher district in Saada.

On the other hand, 28 rebels of the al-Houthi group were arrested by citizens after escaping from the confrontations with the armed forces in Harf Sufyan area.

This is a very good report on Al Jawf. Similiarly, the Sa’ada War has roots in the overall failure by the central government to promote development due to massive corruption.

SABA Jawf, forgotten governorate 1-3

[20/August/2009] By: Faez al-Makhrafi, Translated by: Mahmoud Assamiee

JAWF, August 20- ( Saba)- A visitor of Jawf governorate, 170 kilometers northeast of the capital Sana’a, is surprised seeing women with a belt of bullets on their waists for the arms they carry. In this governorate you can see everybody, men, women and even children carry weapons on their backs.

Local officials say that Jawf is only a big building for the governorate affairs (without basic services and development) though 47 years have passed since realizing Yemeni revolution on 26 of September 1962. They said the governorate is only a “basket for concerns, and a tragic image of negligence.” (Read on …)