Armies of Liberation

so says the judge…

SANAA: A Yemeni court yesterday sent back to prison a convicted top Al Qaeda militant with a $5mn US bounty on his head, rejecting his appeal to be released on bail.
The appeal court in Sanaa turned down the bail application by Jaber al-Banna, one of 36 convicted militants who are appealing prison sentences of between two and 15 years.
Banna was sentenced to 10 years in jail last year while he was still on the run after being convicted of plotting a suicide bomb attack on oil facilities in Yemen in September 2006 that was foiled by police. He was ordered yesterday to return to court on October 11 when the verdict on his appeal would be delivered.

(Read on …)

The last time we heard about JI in Yemen was the Ayyoub brothers.

Yemen Observer

The source was quoted as saying that the arrested suspect is a high-profile al-Qaeda militant and has provided important information during interrogations.
An informed source revealed to the Yemen Observer that the arrested person was an Indonesian citizen.
Prior to this event the Yemeni authorities announced the arrest of 11 suspected al-Qaeda militants in the capital Sana’a.
The security apparatuses also detained some persons suspected of protecting and sheltering escaped al-Qaeda fugitives in Marib province
In the last few weeks the security forces have launched many raids against al-Qaeda in Yemen, particularly after al-Qaeda militants carried out several attacks against facilities and residential buildings in the country.

Update: Elbaneh is being held in the same jail he escaped from previously, I believe. My question today is, did they ever close up the tunnel?

Original post: Who was it who pretended to be in jail? Oh yes, it was convicted Limburgh bomber Abu Bakr al-Raibee who the security forces used to dress up in prison clothes to bring him from his home to court. According to his father, Abu Bakr never spent a day in jail despite a ten year sentence because he had a deal with President Saleh, just as Elbaneh claims to. And maybe Elbaneh is behind bars, but after so much duplicity on the part of the Yemeni regime, its difficult to have any real faith in their assurances. Jaber Elbaneh is an American citizen who attended the al-Farouk training camp in Afghanistan along with six of his friends from Lackawanna, New York. The six eventually all pled guilty to terror related charges upon their return to the US. Elbaneh went to Yemen.

Local News: Al-Bana’s trial postponed Tuesday 03 June 2008 / Mareb Press

A Yemeni appealing court postponed today the trial of the 36 men accused of carrying out terrorist attacks against Yemeni-western interests and trying to bomb oil installations in Hadramout and Marib in September 2006.

In the session, the lawyer of Jabr al-Bana, one of the defendants, demanded the court to acquit al-Bana and release him on bail.

“The Yemeni constitution gives al-Bana the right to continue his trial outside the prison because he has provided the court with the necessary guarantee,” the lawyer said.

(Read on …)

IHT

Yemen puts Qaeda operative back in jail

Reuters
Monday, May 19, 2008
SANA, Yemen: A Yemeni-American on the FBI’s most-wanted list of terror suspects was jailed in Yemen after an appeals court upheld his 10-year prison sentence, officials said Monday.

(Read on …)

FBI Most Wanted Jaber Elbaneh was jailed after losing his appeal. Evidence against the Yemeni-American in the 2006 pre-election attack on oil facilities was weak, Interior Minister Rashad al-Alimi had said in defending Elbaneh’s prior release on bail after surrendering to President Saleh. However its possible that Elbaneh is innocent in the “thwarted attack” case and the whole thing is a temporary ploy to take some pressure off Saleh after the news about the USS Cole bombers being effectively pardoned.

Wasn’t al-Badawi also charged in the oil facilities case? Saleh’s cousin, the bin Shamlan bodyguard was acquited earlier, and is still rather peeved about the whole thing.

YO: The political security personnel arrested al- Elbaneh immediately and took him from the court hall to the political security prison.

The order came during the Appeal Court’s session for trying 36 al-Qaeda suspects accused of committing terrorist acts in Yemen, including the bombing of some oil facilities in Marib and al-Dhabah of Hadramout in 2006. They are also accused of planning to attack several foreign interests and governmental institutions, as well as public places, including main hotels.

The court also ordered the general prosecution to publish the photos of the suspect Fahd Saleh al-Hawani who is still at large and also for the prosecution to respond to the requests presented by the suspects that demanded they be released.

Update: Appeal still on going

He resurfaced on February 23, when he walked unannounced into a courtroom at the state security court in Sana’a, escorted by two bodyguards. He left the court after the court hearing.

His appearance before the court’s judge was to appeal against a 10-year absentia jail sentence handed to him by a lower court last November.

Since then, he has attended five court hearings without being arrested, prompting US officials to object to the Yemeni government’s leniency with him and renew demands for his extradition to face trial in the United States.

In the sixth hearing on Sunday, prosecutors demanded al-Banna be arrested pending the verdict by the appeal court. The court’s presiding judge Muhammad al-Hakemi responded to the demand and ordered al-Banna to be jailed.

Al-Banna is on trial at the state security court of appeals in Sana’a along with 31 other men convicted by the first instance state security court in Sana’a on November 7, 2007 of plotting terror attacks, including two car bombs attacks at oil facilities in eastern Yemen in 2006.

When he first appeared at the court on February 23, al-Banna, 41, told judges that his conviction was “unfair” and he said he hadn’t plotted any attacks in Yemen or the United States.

“I have not committed any act, neither in this country nor in America,” al-Banna told the court’s panel. “I was sentenced to 10 years in prison for doing no offence. This is not fair,” he said.

Elbaneh was convicted in a Yemeni court and his appearances in court over the last few months relate to the appeal process. So is the Interior Minister saying Elbaneh was framed? I would believe that.

Washington Post He resurfaced nearly three months ago, on Feb. 23, when he walked unannounced into a cramped Sanaa courtroom, escorted by four bodyguards.

Interrupting a trial of other al-Qaeda suspects, he told the judge his name and declared that all charges against him were bogus. “I haven’t committed any crimes in this country or in the United States,” he said.

He dropped another bombshell by saying he had personally surrendered to Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh and was under his protection. Then he walked out of the courtroom. Stunned court officials did nothing.

U.S. officials objected and renewed demands for his extradition to face trial in Buffalo. Yemen has refused, and senior officials in Sanaa have downplayed the seriousness of the U.S. charges.

Although Elbaneh faces charges in Yemen for his alleged involvement in attacks on foreign oil workers and in another plot, Interior Minister Rashad al-Alimi said the case against him was weak. Alimi said that Elbaneh was cooperating in other investigations and that the government was inclined to treat him leniently.

“One of our tactics is if these terrorist suspects have no blood on their hands and if they are moving in the right direction, let’s help him move in that direction,” Alimi said. “Long imprisonment sometimes makes people angry and makes them vicious, so that they want revenge. That’s their nature — Yemenis are like that.”

Abdel-Karim al-Iryani, a former prime minister and adviser to Saleh, confirmed that Elbaneh had surrendered to the Yemeni president in exchange for a guarantee of protection.

“It’s a very traditional thing in Yemen,” Iryani said. “You surrender yourself to a high-ranking official. His surrender was accepted on the basis that he would cooperate.”

Meanwhile, Elbaneh is allowed to remain free as long as he promises to appear in court when summoned.

What a bunch of elitist imperialist lunatics these al-Qaeda are: they annointed themselves as gatekeeper for the entire nation and magically endowed themselves with the right to murder anyone they please. Somehow these fanatics think they know better than all the other 20 million Yemenis what is right.

Osama gets the final say on who lives and dies in Yemen? Ok so we can start the list of who’s safe.

Thankfully they haven’t learned yet to shoot a mortar. Maybe the regime got a bad shipment from Kim Jung Ear. Maybe not.

(AKI) - An al-Qaeda cell in Yemen has issued a threat against non-Muslim foreign tourists, particularly those from the West, who visit the Arabian Peninsula.

“We warn all the unbelievers who enter the Arabian Peninsula that [targeting] their money and their blood are religiously right for us,” said al-Qaeda of the Jihad in the South of the Arabian Peninsula in a statement that was published in its e-magazine entitled “Epic Echo”.

“We want to tell you that if you enter the Arabian Peninsula under any name or cover, whether as tourists, diplomats, university professors or journalists, know that we are justified in targeting you,” said the statement.

“We do not respect any of the agreements signed by the Yemeni president Ali Abdullah Saleh and various governments.”

The terrorists also mentioned the al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden and accused Europeans of not having accepted his offer of peace offered to European governments in April 2004.

“No-one will be safe without an explicit permission from Sheikh Osama,” said the statement.

The group also said that it would also target Yemeni security forces.

In recent weeks, Yemen has been hit by a series of attacks carried out by al-Qaeda against government targets.

Related: US Embassy Attacker Sentence Reduced

2008-05-12 SAN’A, Yemen (AP) - An appeals court in Yemen has reduced the prison sentence for a man convicted of shooting at the U.S. Embassy there. The 2006 shooting caused slight damage to the building in the Yemeni capital of San’a, but no one was hurt. Saleh Alawi al-Ammari was initially sentenced to five years in prison. But a judge on Monday reduced the penalty to three years.

Prosecutors have said al-Ammari went on a shooting spree after listening to videotapes calling on Muslims to wage jihad, or holy war, against the United States because of the Iraq war and American support for Israel.

al-Sahwa

May 10, 2008

Alsahwa.net – Security forces have arrested Najib Mohamad Abdu, known also as Hafsa, from inside a hospital in Aden, while he was treated after seriously injured by government forces.

Hafsa, a bodyguard of Aden-Abyan Army leader Khalid Abdul-Nabi, was taken into a jail in Aden governorate as a first step to transferr him to the central prison of Abyan.

For his part, Hafsa denied security source’s statements of being a wanted, alleging those statements just to justify their crime committed against him.

Yemeni security forces had shot Hafsa on his right leg, while he was shopping with his companion including Khalid Abdul Nabi.

RFERL

Meanwhile, a Yemeni state security court of appeals this week reduced a jail term for a national convicted of trying to go to Iraq for jihad. Bashir Muhammad Nu’man was sentenced last week to five years in prison for using a forged passport to travel to Syria with the intention of joining Al-Qaeda. The appeals court reduced the sentence to two years in prison for Nu’man, who was said to have been arrested in Syria and extradited to Yemen in February 2007, reportedly without offering any explanation….

Some neighboring states have taken the initiative to secure their borders with Iraq. Indeed, it does not appear that Arab foreign fighters have had any success in crossing the Kuwaiti, Saudi, or Jordanian borders into Iraq.

Syria has long been considered the main access point for foreign fighters, and despite some claims that the Syrian authorities are taking steps to control that flow, it is clearly not doing enough. Likewise, Iran has been reported to be another entry point for foreign fighters, particularly for Arabs entering Iraq from Afghanistan. Until Iraq can improve security along its porous borders with Iran and Syria, the problem will remain a major impediment to Iraqi security for years to come.

Yemen

Yemen’s 2007 counterterrorism record was mixed. The Republic of Yemen took action against al-Qa’ida (AQ) and local extremists, arresting and killing several individuals suspected of having AQ ties, and prosecuted the perpetrators of previous terrorist acts. However, significant setbacks included the June 22 announcement that Abu Basir Nasir al-Wahishi was the new head of al-Qa’ida in Yemen (AQY), and the July 2 terrorist attack in Marib that killed ten people. Despite United States pressure, Yemen continued to implement a surrender program with lenient requirements for terrorists it could not apprehend, which often led to their relatively lax incarceration. Yemen also released all returned Guantanamo detainees after short periods of assessment and rehabilitation, into a government monitoring program that lacked strict monitoring measures. U.S.S. Cole bomber Jamal al-Badawi’s continued incarceration remained uncertain at the end of 2007.

(Read on …)

M&C

Sana’a, Yemen - Yemeni security forces have arrested a member of the Egyptian militant Jihad group believed to have connections to terrorists behind a series of recent attacks against US targets in the Yemeni capital Sana’a, a news report said on Saturday.

An anti-terrorism unit captured the Egyptian man, identified as Muhammad Yaqout, in a sting operation in Sana’a last week, the RayNews website said, quoting a police source.

The unnamed source said Yaqout was a leading Jihad member and that he was linked to two mortar attacks that targeted the US embassy in Sana’a on March 18 and a residential compound housing US and Western citizens on April 6.

Interior Ministry officials were not available for comment.

Yaqout was arrested in Sana’a last August as part of a crackdown on Yemeni and foreign suspected militants after a suicide car bombing attack against a convoy of Spanish tourist in the north-central province of Marib on July 2, 2007.

He was released two months later after investigations showed that he had no links to the attack that left eight Spanish tourists dead.

YO

According to a photo at the YO dated 4/20

Abu Bakr al Reibi complains about lack of sun:

In a special release, the first suspect, Abu Bakr al-Rabiee, brother of fugitive Fuaz al-Rabiee, an al-Qaeda leader in Yemen who died in a gun fire with the security in Sana’a governorate, said that the prison authorities mistreated them by denying them medicines, preventing them from going to the bath at certain times, and not allowing them to be subjected to sunlight.

No laughing allowed!

Alsahwa.net

April 5, 2008 – The Yemeni collation of the opposition parties, the Joint Meeting parties, strongly denounced irresponsible practices of the authorities, stressing that such acts would escalate political and social actions and an all-out national crisis.

The spokesman of JMP, Mohammad al-Qobati urged the authorities to end its obsession which endangers, according to him, democracy margin, asking, in the meantime, for releasing all political prisoners.

The Yemeni authorities had arrested lately dozens of political activists, artists, professors and opposition leaders including the Secretary-General of the Yemeni Social party in Lahj, Hamid Araba and the comedic artist Fahd al-Qarni in Taiz province.

Alsahwa.net

April 5, 2008 – The Joint Meeting Parties in Taiz called all its members, supporters and civil society organization to sit in on Sunday before the Taiz headquarter of the Political Security Organization in solidarity with the comic artist Fahad al-Qarni and other political prisoners arrested recently in various Yemeni governorates. JMP leaders demanded to immediately release al-Qarni as he just criticize politics not national symbols as alleged by the authorities.

Marib Press

The Yemeni security authorities have arrested on Saturday a Yemeni popular singer for allegedly abusing senior officials including head of the state the president Ali Abdullah Saleh.

The political security (intelligence) in Taiz province told reporters that the artist Fahd Al Qarni had refused judicial orders before he was arrested.

Al Qarni has been criticising the policy of the government through his ironic songs in a way that attracted a lot of people to attend a series of opposition rallies organised by the Islamist opposition party Islah under the slogan “Our life is struggle”.

“Fahd Al Qarni is accused of abusing the head of the state, and ridiculing his speeches and this is a clear violation of the law,” said a spokesman at the political security office in Taiz .

The security official said Al Qarni will be handed over to the prosecution office over these charges.

“Such abuses and defamations are considered to be inciting against the state and its constitutional institutions,” the spokesman said.

On his part, the spokesman of the Islah party said that the detention of Al Qarni was a crime.

“The artist Al Qarni is one of the national symbols which criticise the corruption, injustice, and tyranny,” said Fathi Al Azab.

“The ability of this artist to express the sufferings of the people through his songs has angered the government,” he added.