Armies of Liberation

It doesn’t appear to be the transitional council, but rather a unified front to lead the rev to the point of the transitional council. Its a good step if they make an action plan, drawing on input from their constituencies, as opposed to devolving into a top heavy, bickering entity that issues statements. They better have an English spokesperson unlike the JMP, CCYRC, Civil Coalition, the Southern Movement and the Houthis who all left the regime’s propaganda statements unchallenged in English for a decade. Photos.

Sahwa Net – Yemen opposition parties, the ruling party’s defected politicians met on Wednesday and formed a 143-member national council which aims at uniting various groups against the rule of President Ali Abdullah Saleh.

The council included representatives of civil society, members of the secessionist Southern Movement, and the northern Shiite Huthi rebels, as well as independent activists

According to Yemen’s opposition parties, the national council will lead the forces of the revolution until Ali Abdullah Saleh’s departure.

The opposition meeting was held at a hall in Sanaa University amid tight security enforced by the army’s First Armoured Division led by General Ali Mohsen al-Ahmar, who defected to the opposition in March.

More on the anticipated function from the WaPo:

Salem Mohammed Bassindwa, a top opposition figure, says youth groups and political parties named 143 council members to represent the people, a rare show of unity.

“This is a revolutionary council aimed at toppling the rule of the (Saleh) family and the remnants of this regime,” Bassindwa said. He clarified that it is “not an alternative to the government.”

The council members will elect a president and an executive body. It will also form “popular committees” in Yemeni cities, to be in charge of “protecting citizens’ properties and state institutions” at time of crisis and street clashes, he said.

Ok a listing of the names from News of the Yemen Rev in English

1. Ahmad Al-Qatabi
2. Ahmad Bahaj
3. Ahmad Bazarah
4. Ahmad Salem Obeid
5. Ahmad Said Hashed
6. Amat Al-Salam Raja’a
7. Amal Al-Basha
8. Ameen Al-Akemi
9. Ensaf Mayo
10. Bushra Al-Maqtari (Read on …)

Update: SABA provided a translation of Saleh’s speech to the tribal leaders which indicates that he is back to square one, elections in 2013. Same old rhetoric applied to the new oppositionists: he trashes the youth as Marxists, Royalists seeking to restore the Imamate, and the Taliban. How many times have we heard it before? He accuses the tribal elements of stealing the rev from the youth and says, without a trace of irony, he is committed to a transition of power.

SABA:

In the name of God, the Merciful, the Compassionate,

Let me first congratulate you on the occasion of the blessed month of Ramadan. I salute you and pay tribute of respect to you for convening such a conference and I hope that it will conclude with effective decisions and recommendations. I have here with me my brothers parliament speaker Yahya al-Ra’i and prime minister Ali Mohammad Mujawar. They also salute you and salute your conference, which is being held amid dangerous and important circumstances.

We must discuss all the available data, all the events in Yemen, and how to get our country out of the crisis – the crisis which was fabricated by some political forces to reach power. We welcome the opposition and tell them that “you can reach power through ballot boxes, not through coups, statements, denunciation, insults, or irresponsible speeches.” (Read on …)

There are a lot of murders that require an international investigation, many occurred before the rev, but any international investigation of the crimes of the Saleh regime would be a good step.

Sahwa Net- Alliance of Yemen opposition, the Joint Meeting Parties, has demanded to carry out an international probe on all mass murder atrocities in which hundreds of peaceful protestors were killed and wounded in Sana’a, Taiz and other governorates.

In a statement, JMP also demanded to investigate into the incident in which President Ali Abdullah Saleh and his aides were injured in a presidential palace attack and transferred to Saudi Arabia for treatment, pointing out that the Yemeni regime tries to blackmail opposition parties and other political opponents through accusing them of the incident.

In a statement, JMP said that the Yemeni regime still launches its war against Yemenis, kills peaceful protesters in Sana’a, Taiz , and other governorates.

This weeks compendium of ridiculous US statements about Yemen, including during the Brennan visits to Saleh in SA and with Prince Ahmed and the JMP in Sanaa, comes on the same day the US and the international community recognized the Libyan rebels as the legitimate authority in Libya. In Yemen though the US continues to blame the protesters for the uptick in al Qaeda activity, instead of the illogical and unprincipled US policy fostering the stalemate. The Obama administration also threatened the JMP that the international community would not to recognize a transitional council, should one be formed as the protesters have been demanding. Such a transitional council would be “meaningless” said another western diplo because of the presence of a parliament, VP and government. The reality is that the current parliament’s term expired two years ago and prior to that, it functioned as a rubber stamp for Saleh and an instrument of grand corruption. The parliament is another rigged institution of GPC hegemony, comprised of loyalist Sheikhs, businessmen and active duty generals. Most of the reformists within the GPC resigned in March.

In Saudi Arabia Brennan asked Saleh “to fulfill expeditiously his pledge to sign the GCC-brokered agreement for peaceful and constitutional political transition in Yemen,” according to a White House statement. How could Brennan even say it with a straight face? The US is just stalling.

Al Masdar 7/6/11: JMP opposition leader Yahya Abu-Osbu’a.spoke of threats from some Arab and foreign countries not to recognize the Transitional Council, which the opposition intends to form to manage the affairs of the country which is living under a vacuum for a month. Abu Osuba at a political forum Monday evening in Change Square that the countries that had threatened to do so are Saudi Arabia and the United States and European Union countries. (Read on …)

- Republican Guard shells a public mini-bus in Taiz, driver killed, 13 wounded including three children, attack occurred in front of a hospital, several other parts of the neighborhoods shelled by tanks and artillery: al Masdar Also Taiz, clashes after security tries to impede a mass rally demanding an immediate formation of a transitional council: al Masdar (Read on …)

Sahwa Net – A Yemeni opposition leader in Marib, Mabkhot Al-Shareef, has said that most those people involved in a 43- person blacklist published by the interior Ministry are members of the ruling party in Marib .

Al-Shareef affirmed that most of those included in the list accused of bombing oil pipelines and destructing electricity stations are the ruling party’s members of local councils in Marib. (Read on …)

President Saleh is alternately returning to Yemen within days or is negotiating for asylum in Germany or another European countries after the UAE refused the request.

At Asharq, a good profile of the al Ahmars.

The Yemen Post reports on a new broader opposition coalition: Opposition parties in Yemen announced that they would soon create a strong national coalition involving all the factions in the Yemen political arena. Mohammed Mutawakil, secretary general of the Popular Front party said that the new coalition will involve the Joint Meeting Parties, youth leaders, Houthis, Yemeni leaders in exile, and the Justice and Building party. “The coalition will soon be announced and it is now in its final stages of preparation,” said Mutawakil.

Feltman in Sanaa, still pushing the GCC deal.

News of the YR reports on more diversion of CT assets for use against the protesters: The communications system granted to the Coast Guard to combat terrorism was transferred to Sana’a and used by the family of Ali Saleh against the peaceful revolution.

A petition by over 100 tribal leaders and clerics including al Zindani calls on Saleh to step down and for new elections within two months

A US non-governmental contractor finds an advanced missile responsible for the palace attack: Aloula newspaper quoted a Yemeni official as saying that the missile an advanced Russian rocket. “The guided missile held a Russian name, FOGAZ,” the paper said.

Gates envisions a post-Saleh world:

Arab News 6/16:Gates also sounded a cautiously optimistic note about developments in Yemen, where the government and opposition tribes have engaged in armed clashes, pushing the country toward civil war. He said things have calmed down a bit since President Ali Abdullah Saleh left for neighboring Saudi Arabia on June 5 for medical treatment of wounds he suffered in an attack on his compound in Yemen.

“I don’t think you’ll see a full-blown war there,” Gates said. “With Saleh being in Saudi Arabia, maybe something can be worked out to bring this to a close” by finding an accommodation among Saleh’s family, the opposition tribes and the military.

Abdel Rahman Ba Fadel says the French aid workers were kidnapped because France called for Saleh to step down, unfortunately a likely explanation. He asks the west to step in.

Yemen’s opposition would be willing to sign an agreement with the West to combat al-Qaeda in Yemen, if Ali Abdullah Saleh, the country’s president, steps down, according to an opposition official.

Abdel Rahman Ba Fadel, a member of Yemen’s opposition Islah party, told Al Jazeera that the country’s opposition had contacted the office of the US ambassador in Yemen to this effect. At Youtube