Armies of Liberation

Yemen Post reports the demands are money and the release of imprisoned terrorists, but the demands themselves and the timing of the kidnapping, following a French call for Saleh to step down, the odd video without any al Qaeda characteristics, the tension with (if not expulsion of) the French ambassador for his remarks, the bombing of TOTAL’s pipeline and the pending UN resolution may all indicate the statement is yet another attempt by the Sana’a regime to spin the media away from the slaughter in the capital.

The situation echos that of the German hostages, a crime thought committed by Saleh loyalists linked to drug smugglers and al Qaeda. As the recent West Point paper pointed out, many of the security officials murdered by al Qaeda were in fact counter-narcotics agents, and that’s another area where the footprints of al Qaeda and the Sana’a regime overlap.

Obama should grab that sleazy slimy mass murderer rat Saleh by the throat and throttle him until he gives up these and all the Yemeni hostages. Dozens more severely wounded Yemenis were kidnapped by security forces in the last days, including women, but likely the Yemenis will get much less publicity. The regime has got to go.

Yemen Post: French Hostages in Yemen Face New Challenges

On May 28th, 2011, 3 French aid workers were kidnapped in the eastern Yemeni province of Hadramaut as they were conducting a field trip near Sayyun. (Read on …)

Damn. Its so shocking to see a video like that in Yemen but at least there’s no mention of AQAP or an AQ flag behind them. Article at al Masdar (ar). They were kidnapped after France expressed support for the revolution and urged Saleh to step down immediately.

Update: In French, each said his name and then the man speaks, apparently reading from a paper in front of him, that they were abducted in Yemen. The French man says that he was speaking on the 102 day since the abduction, which means it was registered before five days.

He said that the French government did not do anything for their cause, to free them, and directed his appeal to the French people, before the end of the video cuts off his words.

ah better. English:

ADEN — Three French aid workers feared to have been kidnapped in Yemen appeared in an online video on Monday nearly 11 weeks after they went missing, saying their abductors’ demands have not been met.

Al-Masdar Online, an independent Yemeni news website, posted the video on its website showing a man and two women, and saying that they were the French aid workers taken hostage in the southeast on May 28.
(Read on …)

Ammar wants new toys? There was never a legitimate ransom demand from al Qaeda in Yemen in the past. Its interesting the regime knows the hostages are in good health. But then again, Saleh’s network has many conduits to “al Qaeda.” The French workers were kidnapped after France made a statement urging Saleh to leave the throne immediately.

News 24: Sanaa – Three French aid workers who were kidnapped in southeastern Yemen are held by al-Qaeda members who are seeking a $12m ransom for their release, tribal sources said on Wednesday.
(Read on …)

One guard was killed during the 8 am prison break by 63 prisoners through a tunnel 35 meters long, some were convicted some never tried, many arrested for traveling to Syria to go the Iraq. From Bakeel.net the info and the names are here.

a) the prison warden was replaced two weeks prior to the escape

b) 12 dangerous al Qaeda transferred in to the Hadramout prison from Sanaa prison prior to the escape (just like Jaber Elbaneh was transferred into Sanaa prison before the 2006 escape)

c) later Wednesday firing heard from jail and strange men wandering the streets with guns asking for water

d) use of a drill (like Sanaa escape 2006, as I noted at the time) (Read on …)

The escape is one part of the state’s plan of generating al Qaeda chaos. There is a high likelihood that the escape was arranged by the head of the security forces like Ahmed, Saleh’s son or one of the nephews. These officials are also the US’s important partners in counter-terror efforts and have been the recipients of millions in counter-terror funding.

The Saleh regime has repeatedly released al Qaeda prisoners over the years often in exchange for support as mercenaries. Individual jihaddis were released to go fight in Saada, but larger scale escapes and releases (like the 109 released in 2009 or the escape in 2006) are a habitual characteristic of the Saleh regime and generally part of a much larger deal. . The international media is uniformly reporting idiotic statements like this from Fox: Wednesday’s escape was the latest sign that Yemen’s months-long upheaval has emboldened Al Qaeda militants to challenge authorities in the country’s nearly lawless south. No, they are not challenging the authorities but working in concert with them.

Yemen Post: 62 Al-Qaeda Prisoners Escape Yemen Prison
At least 62 suspected al-Qaeda prisoners escaped from the central security prison in the southern city of Mukalla Wednesday morning.

One security personnel was killed as well as a prisoner. The security official said that a number of the escaped prisoners were arrested after coming back from Iraq, where they were fighting American forces. This is considered the biggest prison breakout for suspected al-Qaeda suspects.

Opposition forces are blaming senior military officials with close links to President Saleh for allowing and easing the escape of al-Qaeda prisoners to cause chaos in the south and get more US support and prolong the Saleh regime.

This comes at the time where the assistant secretary of state is visiting Yemen. He said the the majority of the escapees had court sentences of over five years in prison on terror charges.

More to come

Sahwa Net- Well-informed sources have accused a high-ranking military commander close to President Ali Abdullah Saleh of plotting to release Al-Qaeda suspects in Hadhramout governorate. (Read on …)

Many foreigners, dozens, have been kidnapped in Yemen by tribes over the last decade and all have been returned without harm. The timing of this is off though. Some are saying that since the “AQAP take-over of Abyan” didn’t generate a US reversal, Saleh is continuing to play on AQ fears with this incident. Maybe his forces will find and rescue them into order to put Saleh in a good light.

BBC: Three French aid workers are feared kidnapped after going missing in southern Yemen, officials say. The three are reported to have gone missing in Hadramawt in the south-east.

They had been in Seyun since mid-April working for Triangle Generation Humanitaire, a French NGO working in Yemen since 1998. (Read on …)

The spree continues, Yemen Post

At least three people were killed, including two soldiers and another wounded in Yemen’s southern province of Hadhramout.

Private sources said that suspected Al-Qaeda militants attacked a governmental patrol vehicle at a checkpoint belonging to the Central Security Unit in Mukalla, killing two soldiers and a civilian and wounding another. (Read on …)

A follow up to our earlier story Nehm tribes take tanks from army, when the tribe prevented the RG from deploying to Hadramout to crack down on the protesters there. The term “heavy weapons” here likely means Kastushka type rockets, mortars etc and represents an escalation of tactics.

Sahwa Net- The Republican Guard bombed on Saturday night Nihm and al-Haima districts of Sana’a governorate as a retaliation of their support to the Yemeni revolution, local sources told Sahwa Net.

The sources said the Republican Guard used heavy weapons wounding two children, an elderly man, and damaging a number of houses.

They said that residents of Al-Haimah and Nihm refused to allow forces of the Republican Guard to enter their areas due to their involvement in killing peaceful protesters in Sana’a.

Meanwhile, major cities witnessed near-daily civil disobedience as shops, schools, private companies and banks were shut down at the request of the protest organizers to force Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh out of power.

The same story as reported by the YT, notes dozens of homes destroyed by shelling, the RG deployed 200 soldiers in the area.

The Yemen Times: SANA’A, May 15 — For the fourth day in a row, Republican Guard soldiers under the command of Ahmed Saleh have been engaged in ongoing attacks against villages surrounding the Al-Manar military base in the Al-Haima area, 60 KM outside of the capital Sana’a, local sources told the Yemen Times. (Read on …)