Armies of Liberation

All the reporting about Dammaj is skewed one way or another. The article below is from Yemen Fox, an outlet of Gen. Ali Mohsen al Ahmar, and says the Houthis looted the relief convoys. The Houthis have an opposite story–the relief convoys were smuggling weapons into the school. It is sadly ironic that one of Ali Abdullah Saleh’s war crimes is the denial of international aid to the citizens in Houthi held areas of Saada for years, and now one of the main humanitarian issues regarding the current clashes is the lack of food in the school.

However the numbers of foreign students killed in the fighting are undisputed as is the fact that the siege is not completely lifted, impacting the women and children at the school. Only France and Russia called the school regarding the identity of the dead, although Sheik al Hajoree’s phone number is widely published on the web (usually in the context of refuting those who say they are collecting money for the school.)

Yemen Fox: Human Rights Information Center in Sana’a and Office of Media Coordination for beleaguered people of Dammaj condemned continuous violations by Houthis in Sa’adah against relief convoys for Dammaj Area.

“Despite the announcement of Houthis to lift blockade from Dammaj according to reconciliation convention sponsored by Sheik Hussein al-Ahmar, Houthis still denied access of relief convoys to Dammaj Area,” said Human Rights Information Center in Sana’a and Office of Media Coordination for beleaguered people of Dammaj in press release Sunday morning in Sana’a.

During the press release, Women’s Committee of Solidarity with the children and women of Dammaj was declared headed by Rasheeda al-Qaily, Member of Council of Peaceful Revolution Forces.

Human Rights Information Center in Sana’a and Office of Media Coordination for beleaguered people of Dammaj asserted that Houthis confiscated two relief convoys of Dammaj since the announcement of reconciliation convention, sponsored by Hussein al-Ahmar, one of which organized by Women’s Committee of Solidarity with the children and women of Dammaj estimated at more than YR 5 million.

Delegated member to accompany the relief convoy which started from the Change Square in Sana’a, Abdul-Malek al-Shaibani, said in the press conference that the convoy started from Sana’a on Friday 22 December after the announcement of the convention sponsored by Sheik Hussein al-Ahmar.

Shaibani added that Houthis held back the convoy in al-Amsheea from Harf Sufian side, adding that Houthis confiscated cell phones, copies of the Holy Quran, Janbyas and money of the committee accompanying the convoy. He pointed out that Houthis conveyed him to Al Amar Area and arrested him in a school used as prison for them.

“They emptied the load of the convoy and stole it,” said Shaibani, pointing out that the prison where he was arrested there was of other detainees who Houthis had arrested due to rejection to pay Zakat to Houthis.

Shaibani asserted that Houthis investigated him and accused him of transferring military supply to Dammaj, pointing out that focus of the investigation was concentrated on asking him about his doctrine. He said that they insulted the Companions of the Prophet in front of him in an attempt to provoke him.

During the press conference, the total number of dead foreigners fell in Dammaj was revealed. Wounded foreigners were 41 while dead foreigners reached 32 people. They dead were 5 Indonesians, 5 Algerians, 4 Russians, 4 French, 4 Libyans, 2 of the Sudan, one Iraqi, 2 Americans, an Ethiopian, an Indian, a British, a Malaysian and a Somali.

The committee which organized the conference condemned the ignorance of embassies of states of those dead foreigners from following their citizens who died in Dammaj, pointing out that only French and Russian embassies had contacted Dammaj Center to inquire about the identities of their killed people.

The committee said that dead of Yemenis of Dammaj people during clashes with Houthis reached 41 people including 6 children and two women one of whom was old. The number of wounded of children and women reached 25 wounded including 6 children and 19 women.

Then the update from the Yemen Times has the Houthis accusing Saudi Arabia of instigating sectarianism, a run down on the fighting in Hajjah and battling accusations of state collusion: “The Houthis released a statement on Wednesday evening accusing Saleh’s 101st Brigade of handing military sites to pro-Salafi tribes in Kittaf. For his part, Al-Yamani denied the Houthis’ accusations and said they are baseless, insisting that the 101st Brigade, led by general Fadl Hasan, is neutral.”

12/21/11 SANAA, Yemen (AP) — Nearly 200 people, among them 15 foreigners, have been killed in clashes over the past few weeks between an ultraconservative Islamist group and former Shiite rebels in northern Yemen, a military official and the leader of the Islamist faction said Wednesday. In Moscow, Russia’s Foreign Minister said four Russian citizens were among those killed. (Read on …)

Update 3: vid

Update 2: More from the Yemen Post:

One Salafi student was killed in clashes between the Shia Houthi Movement and the extreme Sunni Salafi movement in the northern Yemen Sa’ada province.

The escalations between both groups started when Houthis claimed that Salafis are entering weapons inside their educational institutions in the town of Dammaj, and demanded that all military posts are emptied.
(Read on …)

The following interview with the manager of Saada Radio gives a glimpse into Saada and al Jawf including the recent clashes between the Houthis and local Islahis:

Yemen Times
Q: But, some locals in Sa’ada told us that the Houthis do not allow anyone to air an opinion against them, for instance, describing them as Twelver Shiites.

A: First of all it is misleading to say that the Houthis are Twelver Shiites. They are not. They are Zaydis.

Are you a Houthi?

No I’m not Houthi, I’m a state-employee at Sa’ada Radio. We used to be against the Houthis. I’m Zaydi and over 99 percent of the population in Sa’ada is Zaydi, but there is no group here called Twelver Shiites.

And it is not true that the Houthis prohibit others from expressing their opinions. If this were true, they would prevent the Salafists from practicing their traditions such as Taraweeh prayer [a prayer done at night during Ramadan after the Al-Esha festival], which does not exist in the Zaydi school.

But if you went to Sa’ada today, you would find the religious traditions of both Zaydis and Salafists performed in their mosques with no problems. They are not going to bring their prayers out of the mosque and argue that our Zaydi School approves of this religious practice. And not only Salafists, but Islahis practice there as well.

There is also hard-core group of Salafists called Muqbil group. They are extremists and they have their school in Damaj, Sa’ada. They carry out their traditions in complete freedom. (Read on …)

Sahwa Net – Forces of the Central Security stormed on Saturday Hodeidah University using live ammunition and toxic gases on protesting students, leaving dozens of students wounded and suffocated.

The Central Security also attacked the correspondent of Sahwa Net, Abdul-Hafeez Al-Hatami who was seriously wounded and taken into hospital. Al-Hatami said he was assaulted while he was covering the attacks against students, pointing out that he was enforcedly taken into a military vehicle following the attack.

Eye witnesses affirmed that forces of Central Security arrested dozens of students and they have been taken into unknown places.

An unfortunate counterpart to my earlier post about the Saleh regime distributing weapons. Ali Mohsen is such bad news. I have no doubt this is true. This pipeline (from al Iman to Ali Mohsen’s nearby camp) has been in place for years. I wrote about it in 2005 and people thought I was nuts but its all coming out now. A few years ago there were some Somali students who returned and perhaps are with al Shabab now. Also this journalist is among the most professional, independent and neutral in Yemen where most papers are affiliated with a party or cause and spin the news.

Nasser Arrabye; Weapon pieces were and are distributed to sincere supporters of both the largest Islamist opposition party, Islah, and Saleh’s party in the neighborhoods of Sana’a city at least, according to people who already received their weapon pieces over the last few weeks.

Furthermore, about 2,000 students from El Eman fundamentalist University, run by the extremist cleric Abdul Majid Al Zandani, have been receiving weapons and military training in the 1st armored division of the defected general Ali Muhsen, according to some students who believe that doing this is Jihad.

“Yes, we joined training courses with Ali Muhsen about one month ago, now I have my gun and I safeguard as a sentry,” Said the 20-year old student who identified himself only as Jamil.

“I’m very happy to work with a straightforward and devout man like Ali Muhsen,” said Jamil who now works as a sentry close to his university El Eman which is adjacent to 1st armored division of Ali Muhsen at the northern outskirt of the capital Sana’a.

Update: what a lot of flack I got over this post.

Al Shameri is a very interesting guy, close to Ali Mohsen al Ahmar, with a lot of connections to disparate groups. Supposedly al Shamari was carrying a half million dollars to dole it out to Yemeni students in Egypt but that’s unbelievable.

New Age: Yemen’s ambassador to Egypt was robbed by gunmen, who stole about 594,000 dollars in cash, security sources told the German Press Agency dpa on Wednesday. (Read on …)

Yemenat started an English page, excellent news. Click here for photos of the protest and other English language articles.

Yemen security arrests 8 protesters shout for Saleh overthrow,
By Abdullah Al-Qubati, for Yemenat

Sanaa- Hundreds demonstrated Saturday in Sanaa calling for the president Saleh and his regime for step down.

A security crackdown imposed blockade on entrances of the Sanaa university to prevent students stream from move to street rally. (Read on …)

The last time there were widespread protests against Saleh was the 2005 oil riots which overtook the whole country. This is different because there’s no easy way to placate the protesters (like reinstating the subsidies as occurred in 2005 after some tribesmen highjacked oil tankers). One similarity is that Al Motamar reports that university officials deny that any students attended the rallies and imply as usual that its all a JMP plot.

SANAA, Yemen January 22, 2011, NPR: Thousands of Yemeni protesters have called for the ouster of their president after 32 years in power. (Read on …)

Nu’man Abd al-Wahid: The Rise of North Yemeni Islamism in Birmingham, U.K.
Published by Diane Warth on 30 November 2010

http://karmalised.com/?p=14880

by Nu’man Abd al-Wahid

One of the reasons generally given for the rise of extreme Islamism is the Arab defeat at the hands of Israel in 1967 in the six day war.

It is theorised that, from this defeat (or Naksa as the Arabs refer to it), loomed the beginning of the end of Arab Nationalism and other, largely secular ideologies, which had hitherto led the struggle to liberate the Middle East from western domination and zionist colonialism. This defeat created the vacuum political Islamism has supposedly filled since. (Read on …)

1.8 million are out of school, many work on family farms in addition to the half million street children. Poverty drives child marriage and child trafficking in addition to child labor.

Yemen Observer: More than 500 thousand children working in the streets

Article Date: Dec 20, 2010 – 4:19:37 PM

More than 500 thousand children are working in the streets, according to new statistics from the Central Bureau for Statistics. This number has been documented to the Social Affairs Ministry through several implemented surveys. (Read on …)

Wow. That’s an interesting stat. The way it was explained to me is there is the headquarters of the Dar al Hadieth Institute in Dammaj, Saada and eight major flagship schools serving hundreds or thousands of resident students each, and hundreds of smaller outposts sprinkled all over Yemen. Recently the connection between the al Qaeda training camp at Abu Jabarah and the Dammaj Institute in Saada became clearer. The school is well funded.

Ahram: It is true that graduates of the Saudi-financed Salafi schools spread throughout the poverty-stricken country can be recruited easily by extremist groups. “Graduates of these schools are almost ready to be Al-Qaeda members,” Said Obaid, chairman of the Al-Jemhi Centre for Researches and Studies, a think tank specialised in Al-Qaeda affairs, told Al-Ahram Weekly.

Obaid mentioned in particular the first ever Dammaj Centre in Saada which was founded by the late Salafi cleric Mukbel Al-Wadi who graduated from the Saudi Wahabi schools. Nearly 4,000 schools now are offspring of Dammaj which was founded in late 1980s.

“The top leader of Al-Qaeda in Yemen, Nasser Al-Wahaishi, graduated from such a school,” said Obaid, who studied for a while in Dammaj before he became a researcher and the author of the book Al-Qaeda in Yemen. “The leader of Al-Qaeda in Mudia Jamil Al-Ambori, who was killed in a security operation last March and other prominent members are alumni.”

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.
,
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.

The school systems like everything else in Yemen are hyper-politicized, with teachers and students unions thwarted from self-representation, soldiers on campus and attempts at reform derided as opposition propaganda. The curriculum is outdated, cheating rampant and scholarships are awarded on the basis of nepotism. And the graduates are mostly humanities majors, when societal demands are in other areas.

ARAB NEWS, Oct 22, 2010,
SANA’A: A recent government report warned that the number of unemployed graduates in Yemen is on the rise.

The report pointed out that thousands of university and secondary schools students with humanities majors who later struggle to find jobs are the reason for rising unemployment rates in the country. (Read on …)

SABA: SANA’A, Oct.12 (Saba)-The Cabinet discussed on Tuesday a report on the problem of overcoming in classrooms in public schools in the capital Sana’a and its negative effects on the quality of education.

The report, submitted by Minister of State and Capital Mayor Abdul-Rahman al-Akwa’a, pointed out the causes of the problem and its effects on the educational process as well as proposals of immediate and medium term solutions to address this problem.

The total number of classrooms required to reduce the problem is 4,271 classrooms, the report confirmed.

The report revealed that the rate of growth in the number of students, which reaches 55,000 students enrolled in the primary schools of the capital, and the non-expansion in establishing new schools are among the main reasons for this problem, as well as the internal migration from the various provinces to the capital, unprecedented urbanization in the outskirts of the capital, and the lack of land or sites to create or build new schools in some districts.

The average of density is 82 students per a classroom at the level of the capital’s schools, which amount to 290 schools and represent a rate of 2 percent of the country’s schools, the report indicated.

500,000 children in Yemen targeted in Back to School Campaign

SANA’A, Oct. 11 (Saba)- Half a million children in Yemen, including IDPs and refugees, were being targeted by the Ministry of Education and UNICEF in collaboration with UNHCR, Save the Children, CHF and other development partners, in a major Back to School Campaign. (Read on …)

It is an indication of the strength of Saleh’s extremist supporters that moderate books are excluded from a book fair, the point of which in theory is to bring new literature to the nation. Yemen Observer

A group of Yemeni intellectuals, writers, and thinkers are boycotting the 27th session of the Sana’a Book Fair, according to a release statement sent to Yemen Observer by the group.

The group said the Ministry of Culture, who is organizing the Book Fair, did not allow fiction works of Yemeni and Arabs to enter and be viewed in the Book Fair, well-known publishing houses were also absent, which “reflected on the credibility of the body that organizes the fair.”

Another objection the group noted was the oriented-takfir books which call for extremism and terrorism. (Read on …)

Update: And members of the Commission as announced by the President consisting of “Sheikh Abdel Majid al-Zindani, Judge Ahmed Mohammed al-Shami, Mohammed Ismail, Urban, and Hussein Mohammed Hadar, and Ali Baruiz, Ahmed Bamwalim, Mohammed Ali Marei, Abdul Malik minister, Omar Bin Hafeez, Nasser al-Shaibani, Abdullah Bahermz “.

OP: The JMP already discounted and disowned them as part of the dialog. Saleh is stressing the importance of grounding the discussion in religious legitimacy. Meanwhile the scholars position has been that opposition to Saleh is illegitimate under Islamic law. Al Masiri, the Salafi head of the Dar al Hadieth institute in Marib, said as much on TV during a rally during the 2006 presidential campaign

President receives dialog reference scholars committee SANA’A, Sep. 21 (Saba) – President Ali Abdullah Saleh met here on Tuesday with the scholars committee formed early in September as a reference for the national issues, including the national dialog. (Read on …)

I’m dubious and I hope its an inaccurate assessment.

Al Qaeda-trained Americans Washington Times: The FBI is working to track down several hundred American Muslims who traveled to Yemen in recent months and received training there at the hands of the al Qaeda terrorist group, according to U.S. government officials.

Intelligence reports from Yemen indicated that as many as 300 of the U.S. Islamist trainees had been given terrorist training and that many had converted to Islam while in U.S. prisons. It is not known specifically when the American al Qaeda trainees made the journey to Yemen, or — more significantly — how many of them returned to the United States, said officials familiar with U.S. counterterrorism intelligence and operations. (Read on …)

SANA’A, Aug 30 (Bernama) — Some 1.4 million Yemeni children is unable to attend schools in Yemen, a governmental report revealed, Yemen News Agency (Saba) said.

The report, issued recently by the Supreme Council for Education Planning indicated that this makes these children live under the threat of illiteracy and represent a major tributary to double the number of illiterates in the country. (Read on …)