Armies of Liberation

Sounds bad, kind of a vehicular Mumbai style swarm. There’s no way the US embassy doesn’t know this already though right? The article was published last night at 9pm. Also note there’s sources and there’s security sources. This is but one reason why freedom of the press is so important in Yemen–open source AQAP reporting. There’s history and links to news articles on Ibrahim al Banaa below.

Related: Yes they are apparently all over it. US drones strikes kill 25 in Yemen overnight:

US drones raided several hideouts of the Yemen-based Al-Qaeda wing in the southeast restive province of Al-Baydha on Friday night. At least 25 AQAP militants were killed, including senior figures, with several other militants being wounded in an air strike conducted by the United States forces according to local website news…Moreover recent news that al-Shaba’a, the Ethiopian al-Qaeda wing had sent hundreds of Jihadists over to Abyan to join in Ansar al-Sharia, has been the cause of great concerns for both the government and the civilian population, as they feel their land could become the ground of a mighty war.

Ethiopians? al Shaba’a? 1) Maybe these are the nine mystery ships that everyone is talking about arriving before last Sunday’s attack on the military base in Abyan that killed nearly 200 Yemeni soldiers and 2) How weak is AQAP that they need to import fighters?

There’s also reports of drone strikes in Jaar, Abyan that destroyed the military equipment AQAP captured from the army last week-end. Update: The al Baydah airstrikes hit the AQAP training camp and targeted local al-Qaeda leader Abdulwahhab al-Homaiqani, the BBC reports. Its always good when there are no immediate reports of civilian casualties, I would have heard by now.

The Yemeni soldiers captured (who weren’t beheaded or otherwise mutilated) were paraded around Jaar, forced to train the terrorists on how to operate the tanks, and now are threatened with execution if the govt doesn’t release AQ prisoners.

The YO article regarding reports of an impending attack follows: Yemen Observer:

Yemen based al-Qaeda plans strikes on Sana’a and Mukala Reliable sources have said that al-Qaeda has been preparing for its largest operations yet in the capital city of Sana’a, operations aimed at strategic sites including military and security installments and embassies.

Sources said that al-Qaeda cells in the areas of Zindan and Arhab have trained for operations involving the storming of fortified sites, attacking fixed and mobile targets while aboard vehicles and motorbikes, and that al-Qaeda militants have entered Sana’a in preparation for carrying out their attacks in the coming few days.

The sources expect that al-Qaeda’s potential targets include the Airbase in Sana’a, the Interior Ministry, Republican Guard units and a number of embassies, including the American embassy.

The sources confirmed information regarding intentions by al-Qaeda to attack Mukala to divert attention its plans in Sana’a.

Security sources said that over 400 al-Qaeda militants are currently in Shabwa’s Azan Directorate, with three al-Qaeda leaders in charge (Ibrahim al-Bana, an Egyptian, Qasem al-Rimi and Shaker Hamel) of plans to attack vital installations, security sites, and important government facilities as part of a plan to expand their so-called Azan Islamic state to Mukala. (Read on …)

The following article is in part a sociological sketch, with interviews and observations of the al Qaeda occupation of Jaar. One interesting point is that among the first tier of leaders are many bitter ex-prisoners of the political security organization. One was tortured and forced to eat from the toileting bowl; his crime was attempting to go to Iraq to fight US forces there. “He added: «I thought the Jews and the Christians were the only ones who should have jihad against them (but) if our fellow Yemenis are cursing God and apply electricity for trivial reasons». He is currently living the best days of his life in Abyan with his brothers «Mujahideen»”

There’s also a reasonable profile of new publicity hound and Prince Abu Hamza, and his depiction of AQAP’s provision of social services, basic needs and “justice.” So far they executed eight Saudis accused of spying, three people have had their hands chopped off. The authors note the Al Qaeda “court” considers defense lawyers irrelevant. Tobacco, qat, alcohol and all smoking is prohibited. “The “popular satisfaction left by those acts and policies (ed- bountiful gas, water and electricity) of some residents of Jaar are offset by resentment at the vast majority of the population of those areas.” They consider Khalidabdul Nabi a Saleh operative, and fought his operatives before gaining control.

The original article is is here and the GT is below. Following that is a GT’d research paper by the Aden Research Center about al Qaeda, then an AP article on the AQAP statement of responsibility, a YT round-up of the Dofus attack and a random southern comment on the whole scenario. (Read on …)

Reuters: – A gunman opened fire on a U.S. security team as it trained Yemeni soldiers in the south of the country, the Pentagon and a security official said on Friday, both denying reports from an Islamist group that a CIA officer was killed in the assault.

In the north of the country, a bomb blast hit an anti-U.S. protest, injuring at least 22 people, a rebel group that controls much of the region said. (Read on …)

Barak Obama’s friend, the war criminal Ali Saleh departed the US and is back in Yemen. Saleh’s immunity is a central part of the US sponsored “transition” plan that followed a 48 million dollar, single candidate (sham) “election.”

Yemen’s first new president in 33 years, Abdo Mansour Hadi, previously Saleh’s Vice, was sworn in on Saturday. Hadi received 6.6 million votes of 10 million registered and two million eligible new voters. On election day, the electoral commission said 13 million votes were printed and they had run out of ballots during the day.

Also on Saturday, a suicide bomber in a slow moving pick-up truck killed 28 soldiers in Hadramout. Al Qaeda claimed responsibility via a text message to Reuters.

Link save: April 9, 2010, Yemen National Dialog Coalition Seeks Reform, Broad Political Inclusion

In the first half of the story, South Korea was paying well under fair market price since 2005 despite opposition and activists strenuous objections.

Yemen LNG and Total Gas LIFT gas shipments redirected to Korea
[18 / February / 2012] Saba

Agreed Yemen LNG, Total Gas & Power to increase the number of shipments transferred by 20 shipments per year to Korea during the years 2012.2013 and 2014 m due to the continued low gas prices in the U.S. market.

Under the new agreement which was signed in Paris on the fourteenth of February, the ongoing presence of the Minister of Oil and Minerals Engineer Hisham Sharaf Abdullah, will be selling LNG to Kogas, according to the current price of the market. (Read on …)

to avoid tribal revenge. Later in the day, Tariq’s gang attacked Hazam’s house and in total 17 are dead. Several articles are citing an inheritance dispute among 20 brothers, but that was in play by 2007 when Nabil was released from prison alongside Anwar al Awalki. The overt enmity between these two began last month when Tariq tried to occupy Raada, al Baydah in order to release his brother, Nabil.

Al-Qaeda leader in southeastern Yemen killed by elder brother

Yemen Post Staff: Hazam al-Thahb, Yemeni tribal chief from the southeastern Yemeni town of Rada, which was briefly taken over by al-Qaeda militants, killed his younger brother, Tariq al-Thahb, a high-profile leader in AQAP.

Hazam broke on Wednesday evening into a mosque, where his brother and some of al-Qaeda militants were living, and killed his Tariq and some of his followers, tribal dignitary from the area told Yemen Post on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the subject.

“He has killed his younger brother after he repeatedly warned him not to align himself with the islamists, however his brother was obstinate and did not pay heed to his warnings and advice. That’s why he had to kill him before he is killed by the authorities, said the tribal dignitary. (Read on …)

Abdulmutallab was found guilty and sentenced to death for trying to murder all the people on the airliner. I’m sure he’ll appeal.

USA Today: According to court documents, Abdulmutallab spent months pursuing American-born Muslim cleric Anwar al-Awlaki in Yemen, where the two men eventually met and hatched out a plan to blow up an American airliner over U.S. soil on Christmas Day 2009. In the weeks leading up to the bombing attempt, the two men texted each other, spoke briefly on the phone and ended up spending three days together at al-Awlaki’s house planning the attack, the government wrote in court documents. (Read on …)

The western media black-out continues:

Clearly for FOX News, news worthiness depends on who is doing the killing; one person killed by al Qaeda vastly outweighs the hundred killed by the Yemeni government in the last week. For a day, CNN ran the headline: Yemeni women burn veils, wow, interesting, at least they mentioned “Yemen,” as the state was simultaneously pounding residences in Taiz with artillery and shelling villages in Arhab with missiles.

And neither one can find for five seconds for this from today, (if its not working try this direct link.)

Fox News: Car Bomb Kills Anti-Terror Chief in South Yemen.

VS.

- Airstrikes on Arhab leave 120 civilians killed, 340 wounded

- Nationwide slaughter since UN SC council resolution 2014

- One million demand regime change

- Yemen Post: Several Million of Yemeni gathered nationwide in the streets of Yemen yesterday, demanding the fall of the regime and Ali Abdullah Saleh’s trial as they say the president is continuing to murder his people.

Protesters had spell out “butcher” across their chest in red ink in denunciation of president Saleh’s many crimes. “He’s using snipers to gun down women and children, Sana’a and Taiz are under shelling attacks everyday…Saleh is killing Yemeni and the World stands silent…We will not,” said Mohamed Hassan Said a defected officer.

In Sana’a, the capital, a funeral march was organized to bury the bodies of the victims of the revolution amongst whom was 4 year-old little Waffa. While carrying the coffins the crowd was chorusing anti-regime slogan, asking the international community to bear witness of the crimes committed against peaceful Yemeni people. (Read on …)

The Yemeni-American teenager is widely perceived in Yemen as an innocent, and therefore his death in a US drone strike is causing mass outrage on a level much, much greater than that of his father. There is a birth certificate showing he was 16 at the time of his death, and many photos have been posted. Like the December 2009 strikes, its the civilian casualties of US drone strikes that provoke mass public outrage. Yemeni would have liked to see some evidence on Awlaki or better yet, to bring him to trial. But killing his teen-age son, or any innocent teen, is way over the top of acceptable counter-terror collateral damage, Yemenis say.

Yemen Post According to the al-Awlaki family back in Sana’a, the Yemeni capital, Abdul rahman al-Awlaki, the cleric’s son would have run away from home after news of his father’s death in a desperate bid to find him. The 17 year-old was killed subsequently in an American air raid this Friday. Outraged, his family is now speaking out against what they call a murder.

The family’s statements to the WaPo is here. His family says he ran away from home and was having a picnic when the drone hit. However what he was doing with known terrorist Ibrahim al Banaa and Fahd al Quso’s brother is unknown and not raised in the article.

Related: I posted this below but it belongs in a drone-related post: Marib Press Tribes in Marib issued a statement saying Sheikh Saleh al Taaman was killed in the air rad with Ibrahim al Banaa but not reported killed by the regime. The Sheikh was connected to the state’s security policy and paid by Ghalib al Qamish (PSO) 100K YR/month; tribesmen accuse the regime of the manipulating the terror file and US CT ops to retain power. They say the Sheikh was not listed among the dead and that’s reason to ignore the regime’s fatality lists.

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 …)

Photo from scene; you don’t want to see the close-ups:

Its just doesn’t add up as actual AQAP somehow. Maybe a splinter faction from the amorphous group in Abyan, but its too early to tell. Maybe another one of those last seen arrested in Abyan or one of the 16 AQ prison escapees sheltering in one of the presidential palaces. The 26 Sep says two policemen were injured in the suicide bombing. In addition, a car bomb was planted in an officials car and exploded, killing him, as he left the air base in Lahj; it seems obvious it was planted while he was at the base:

TASS: On Tuesday, an explosion in Yemen killed a high-ranking military commander: Amin al Shami’s car exploded after he left a military aircraft base in the province of Lahej. Two people, who accompanied him, survived. The explosion was set by the same terrorist group which set an explosion at a police station on Saturday, and attempted on the life of Yemen’s defense minister in Aden last month. (ed- the driver of the Def Min’s car said there was slumped body in the car which exploded as they drove by and the bomber was last seen when arrested in Abyan.)

AFP: ADEN — A colonel in the Yemeni air force and a police officer were killed in separate attacks in south Yemen on Tuesday, military and police officials said.
(Read on …)

Heavens to Betsy! Not a false flag suicide attack organized by the Sanaa regime and blamed on al Qaeda… I find it interesting how nearly all westerners will reject the notion and the implications entirely, finding it improbable because it is so repulsive. However, the Sanaa regime is certainly in close enough contact to AQAP through an intermediary, and cold blooded enough to order up a suicide bomber. In fact, Saleh bragged repeatedly after the 2006 escape that he was in touch by phone with all the escapees. Or the intelligence services could do some plot themselves and blame al Qaeda, as many assert has happened previously.

The story at Aden Online comes from Major General Major Ahmed Mansour Alsoumma and is that the suicide bomber in the assassination attempt against General Mohammed Naser Ahmed was arrested in Abyan, jailed in Aden and later placed dead in the car which exploded as Defense Minister Mohamed Naser Ahmed drove by. The Def Min hasn’t commented but one of the security guards said the driver (suicide bomber) seemed slumped and sleeping.

Al Qaeda never claimed responsibility. The state announced the the identity of the bomber very quickly as it is prone to, having the fasted DNA lab in the world. Its the second assassination attempt on the Def Min. Aden Online asserts that there are dozens of young men arrested in jail that are held to become suicide bombers.

Update: Xinua 10/8/11:

Yemen Identifies Suicide Bomber in Attack on DM Convoy
2011-10-09 05:53:30 Xinhua Web Editor: Guo
Yemen’s interior ministry managed on Saturday to identify an al-Qaida suicide bomber, who detonated his explosives-packed vehicle on the passing convoy of Yemeni Defense Minister Maj. Gen. Mohammed Nasser Ahmed, who survived the attack late September in the southern port city of Aden.

The country’s interior ministry quoted a senior security official in Aden province as saying that the 17-year-old buy, who was killed in the blast, identified as the Yemeni national Abdul Rahman Abdu Aziz al-Doarde, an Aden’s native and a member of al- Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP).

The investigations revealed that al-Doarde has stayed for two years in Abyan province, some 480 km south of the capital Sanaa and one of AQAP’s key strongholds, where the army forces have been battling the terrorists for more than three months, the ministry said, adding that five suspected al-Qaida members involved in the assassination bid against the defense minister were arrested also in Aden.

There have been several reports like this including one suicide bomber, I think it was in Sayoun 2008, who was arrested as a southern activist. He was a student of medicine and a member of the Southern Movement, and the next time he was located weeks later when the state ID’d him as a suicide bomber. The Yemen Times reported earlier the assassination:

The General Mohamed Naser Ahmed, Yemen’s minister of defense in the care-taker government has escaped an assassination attempt targeted his convoy in Aden on Tuesday by a suicide bomb attack in which the government immediately blamed Al-Qaeda for the attack.

This is the second time in which the defense minister targeted in less than a month. In late August Ahmed’s vehicle was struck by RPG shells while he was on visit with other generals to some military units in Abyan south Yemen where Al-Qaeda took over its capital Zunjbar late May.

The original in Arabic: (Read on …)

Update: Yemen Officials report he was not killed.

Original: Nice! The death of Ibrahim al Asiri is huge and should quell any whining doubting the threat from Anwar, who in reality was fully operational, focused on the US and associated with numerous plots. Al Asiri was responsible for the bomb in the assassination plot on Saudi Prince Naif, the Nigerian’s underwear bomb, the toner cartridges on the UPS plane, and they were experimenting with poisons including the poison perfume plot and there was the warning about riacin and the castor beans. Bad news dudes all around.

The fact that the Saudi bomb maker al Asiri was in the car with two American al Qaeda jihaddists shows in itself what they were up to. The drone strike likely saved the lives of untold thousands and whether Yemenis believe it or not, saved a lot of misery for the Yemeni people. Also the strike was executed perfectly in that there were no civilians anywhere around.

There has been some confusion that the location of Awlaki’s death (al Jawf en route to Marib) means he wasn’t involved in AQAP (??!! really I read that today) or their occupation of Zinjibar; however, earlier reports indicated the terrorists brought items looted from Abyan residents to Marib to be divided up there, causing tension along regional lines.

Now that they are dead, lets get back to the war of ideas and support representative democracy, equal rights and freedom of the press.

There’s less much grumbling about the strike in Yemen than there is in the US, beyond the expected statement by HOOD. Actually many Yemenis are happy to be free of the burden of Anwar and all are cursing AQAP because of the atrocities the fanatics are committing in Abyan, including executing a suspected witch and another man after a dispute ( link to vid here) and cutting off a teen’s arm for stealing. The boy later died. Over 100,000 fled al Qaeda when they took control of, and looted, the provincial capital Zinjibar and the families are living in schools in Aden since May.

Yesterday’s anti-government protests by millions around Yemen was themed in unity with and support of the Syrian people’s struggle against Assad. A secondary theme was in rejection of the fatwa, requested by President Saleh and delivered by 500 state clerics, that finds public demonstrations against the state and for regime change are illegitimate under Islam. I am quite concerned by the fatwa; through the years, Saleh fatwa’d his opposition before attacking them. Nonetheless I am trying to convince the Yemeni protesters to adopt AC/DC’s Highway to Hell as a theme song.

Saleh continues to dissemble, as he will unto infinity, saying that the protests have to end before the VP can sign the GCC initiative: He pointed out that signing of the Vice President to the initiate depends on the readiness of the other side, adding that the Gulf initiative states to remove the causes of tension as tension elements are known to all and power can not be transferred without implementing this item. Saleh also says General Ali Mohsen and Hamid al Ahmar should leave Yemen before he does. The only bright spot is that Sec. Clinton appears to have moved off the GCC plan to an agreement of principles; nonetheless Saleh has never been motivated to any action by what is in the best interests of the Yemeni people. He only operates in self-interest although not in a rational manner.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Two US officials say the drone strike in Yemen that killed Anward al-Awlaki appears to have also killed al-Qaida’s top Saudi bomb-maker.

Officials say intelligence indicates Ibrahim al-Asiri also died in the attack. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because the death has not been officially confirmed.

Al-Asiri is the bomb-maker believed to have made the explosives used in the foiled Christmas Day airline attack in 2009 and last year’s attempted cargo plane bombing.

Al-Asiri’s death would make the attack perhaps the most successful single drone strike ever.

(HT: Weasel Zippers)

Some brainwashed teenager pays the price as AQAP tries to burnish its anti-regime credentials as they are being paid by the Saleh family. The perception is so widespread, USS Cole bomber Fahd al Quso had to deny it in an interview, but he’s been Saleh’s boy for a long time, a lot of give and take there.

Mareb Press: Likely another false flag attack, as the explosive was in one of the cars in the convoy, although the regime immediately blamed a suicide bomber of al Qaeda: General al Souma

CBS: (AP) SANAA, Yemen – A suicide attacker driving an explosives-laden car blew himself up Tuesday next to the passing convoy of Yemen’s defense minister, who escaped the attack unharmed, security officials and witnesses said.

The assailant detonated his car as Defense Minister Maj. Gen. Mohammed Nasser Ahmed’s convoy passed by on the coastal highway in the southern city of Aden, witnesses said. The ministry confirmed the attack and said in a statement that Ahmed, who survived another attempt on his life last month that killed two of his bodyguards, was unharmed.

A security official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to brief the media, said at least 10 were wounded in the blast. It was not immediately clear whether senior military officials were among the wounded.

The fanatics in Abyan are trying to replicate Afghanistan under the Taliban, and there’s little public outcry in Yemen, all to busy with the rev, I guess, but the danger of an al Qaeda state increases daily.

Inquirer: SANAA—A suicide car bomber killed three policemen and injured seven at a checkpoint in the port city of Aden on the Arabian Sea Saturday, a Yemeni security official said. (Read on …)

This may or may not be true or pure propaganda or the distortion of an event that occurred. The Yemeni government claims it thwarted a maritime suicide bombing attempt:

Yemen Online: Suicide maritime attack foiled: SANAA — Yemen’s navy has foiled a suicide bomb attack on one of its warships off the coast of the Al Qaeda stronghold of Abyan province in the south, the defence ministry said on its Internet site on Sunday.

“A small high-speed boat tried to approach one of our warships on Saturday at around 21:00 hours local time (1800 GMT)” off Abyan, navy chief Rear Admiral Ruiss Abdullah Mujawar was quoted as saying on the 26sep.net site.

The vessel continued on its course despite warning shots being fired, and “naval forces then fired at the craft, which sank along with its occupants,” he said.

The defence ministry said the small boat had been filled with explosives, but gave no information on those thought to have been behind the failed attack.

Yemen’s defense minister on Tuesday afternoon survived the attempted bombing, targeting his motorcade during his visit to the military units of the Yemeni army stationed in Western part of the city of Zanzibar, in Abyan province. The blast, which sources said was a mine planted in the minister’s car, targeted the minister and senior military leader, Major General Faisal Rajab 119 and the brigade commander, who announced his support for the protests against the regime of President Saleh of Yemen. al Teef.

The regime later denied the event occurred. For a wrap up of the last weeks, see Critical Threats Gulf of Aden Security Review.

Reuters – Two suicide bombs killed at least 14 people in separate attacks in Yemen’s volatile south on Sunday morning, including the bombers themselves, local officials and tribal sources said.

The attacks targeted tribesmen who have sided with the army in an effort to flush Islamist militants out of the south, where the government has lost control of some areas as months of protests against President Ali Abdullah Saleh’s 33-year rule drag on.

One of the suicide bombers blew himself up in a vehicle at a checkpoint set up by tribesmen in the al-Arqub area, killing 9 tribesmen and himself and injuring others.

The second attack took place in Mudiyah, where the bomber approached a crowd and then set off an explosion that killed him and three others.

They were coordinated bombings according to the Yemen Times:

Al-Qeada in Abyan escalates by attacking tribesmen

Sana’a, Aug. 21 — Rebel militant groups in Abyan believed to be close to Al-Qaeda escalated violence on Sunday morning by committing two simultaneous suicidal operations. This time the attacks targeted local tribes, rather than military forces.

The attacks took place in two of the central areas of Abyan, Moudia and Lauder. In Moudia three people were killed. In Lauder the attacks left 11 tribesmen dead and injured several others, who were taken to al-Baida Hospital.

Moudia’s attack targeted Abu Bakr Al-Ashal, the head of the ruling party in Moudia. Al-Ashal was also a leading figure of Ashal’s tribes and the brother-in-law of the governor. He was killed by a man wearing an explosive belt.

“The man who committed the suicidal attack came over to Al-Ashal where he was sitting with two others, chatting. The guy greeted them and sat for a bit and then pressed the button that ended him with the others,” said Ahmed Yaslem, a freelance reporter in Abyan. (Read on …)

Its al Qaeda and/or the Saleh regime that uses a remote control device to blow somebody up and/or convinces some hapless teen to become cannon fodder and/or puts a dead body in the car, and the Yemeni DNA lab that comes up with the positive ID in half an hour. As much as the Houthis are rabidly paranoid, its clear to them I’m sure that the long string of suicide bombings in Yemen would point to the AQAP murderers as the culprits in this one, either independently or as mercenaries. Maybe the Houthis are trying to de-escalate the situation by blaming the US because in no conceivable parallel universe did the US stage or execute a suicide bombing against the Houthis.

AQAP previously declared jihad on the Houthis and killed Badr al Din al Houthi (along with 14 others) in a suicide car bombing November 2010, also in al Jawf. Its this kind of irresponsible rhetoric which the Saleh regime uses to manipulate the public that the Houthis have condemned for years.

The national: SANAA // Rebel forces yesterday accused US intelligence agencies of plotting the car-bomb attack that killed two people and injured one in Al Matamma, north-east of Sanaa, on Sunday.

Al Houthi rebels said in a statement that the blast targeted a government complex in which their leaders were meeting.

“This is clearly a US intelligence-style criminal act,” the rebels said, while offering no evidence supporting their claim.

The blast came two days after the Al Houthi rebels and the Islamist Islah party agreed to a truce to end the fighting that had flared intermittently since March when Al Jawf province, in which Al Matamma is located, fell to the anti-government tribes.

The Al Houthis said the attack was intended to “provoke sectarian divisions between Yemenis”, adding that the attack was aimed to “help maintain the unjust regime” of President Ali Abdullah Saleh, who has been facing six months of protests calling for him to relinquish power.

Pop quiz: Q: What was the characteristic response of the Saleh regime to power sharing demands following unity in 1990 that precipitated the 1994 civil war? A: Assassinations. Hundreds of southern political leaders were assassinated, often by veterans of the Afghan jihad who were allied with Saleh.

Five protesters wounded in Sanaa by an explosive device thrown from a car with police plates.

War planes bomb Arhab, five dead. Three houses, a mosque and many farms damaged. Clashes in Nehm, 20 km south of Arhab, eight wounded.

The Yemen Post reports Hamid Al-Qushaibi of the 310th escaped a car-bomb assassination attempt in Amran province but al Sahwa reports Major Ismail al-Ghurbani, commander of the 310th Armored Brigade of the 1st Armored Division was shot dead in an assassination in Amran

A truce between Islah and the Houthis in al Jawf will go into effect 8/17 when the JMP declares the national council; Fares Manna, UN sanctioned weapons dealer and long time associate of Saleh, will be replaced as governor by Sheikh Hussein Al-Thaneen from the Islah Party.

One person was killed and three wounded Sunday evening when a suicide car bomber detonated at a gathering of Houthis near the health center in al Jawf, News Yemen reported. The Houthis blamed the US, saying “The process shows the intense action and malicious plots by the Americans and the targeting of Yemen in general and the northern areas in particular.” Mareb Press reports dozens of injuries. Interior Ministery says 14 dead and the hallmarks of al Qaeda.

16 suspected al Qaeda were killed Sunday as clashes in the province take place in seven areas. The tribesmen (like the commander of the 25th Mechanized) say that the government is arming the al Qaeda militants and providing other support.

Yemen Post: Local tribesmen in Abyan province, fighting with government against militants, are accusing the government of helping al-Qaeda fighters stay strong by attacking tribal posts and arming the militants.

According to tribal sources in Abyan, at least 19 tribesmen have been killed by government attacks.

A senior Yemeni Defense Ministry official denies that the toll is that high, but did not deny that government raids did kill tribal fighters in accidental attacks.

Over the last month, tribes have succeeded to retake more than 60 percent of the province from the hands of suspected al-Qaeda militants after the government failed to show progress in its fight against the militants since May.

At least 1600 tribesmen are fighting al-Qaeda militants in the province.

More than 15 al-Qaeda fighters were arrested on Thursday by the tribesmen as their push to cleanse the province from the militants nears the final steps.

Update: Sultan al Barakani says Hamid al Ahmar is the prime suspect in the bombing on the presidential palace because the sims cards used in mobile phones belonged to SabaFone.