Yemenat: New enhancements to the supporters of al-Qaeda in Abyan

According to local sources in the city of Jaar, in Abyan province, south of Yemen, the city witnessed the arrival of new fighters and additional military reinforcements to support the armed groups that are believed to belong to al Qaeda.

The sources pointed out that the military buildup, which includes a large number of fighters who are nationals of various Asian, African and combat equipment, and arrived to the province of Abyan by sea in the coastal city of Shakra, which is still controlled by armed elements in their hands since the fall several months ago.

The same sources that were distributed to combatants and military equipment on many areas of the province of Abyan to support the armed groups that have controlled it since the fall with their hands in late May / May last in its war against the military units of the Yemeni army, which fell to the evacuated a large number of dead and wounded in among the parties to the conflict and civilians, and caused the displacement of more than one hundred thousand people to the provinces of Aden and the pilgrimage and safe districts in the province of Abyan.

The city of Zanzibar and its suburbs have seen on Saturday night of fierce battles between the army and armed groups during which a number of sites for the artillery groups, which led to the killing and wounding a number of their fighters.

Source: “The Gulf”

Car bomb kills CT chief in Aden

Yemen Security Brief

A Yemeni security official reported that a car bomb killed the head of the anti-terrorism police force for Abyan governorate, Ali al Hajji, in Aden. The bomb blast also wounded three others.[1]

European Union (EU) Ambassador to Yemen, Michele Cervone d’Urso, met with Yemeni Vice President Abdul Rab Mansour al Hadi, in Sana’a, on Wednesday to discuss the conflict there. D’Urso stressed the eagerness of EU ministers to ending the conflict quickly adding, “Twenty four million Yemenis cannot wait indefinitely for an end to the crisis by a comprehensive national consensus.” Hadi responded with saying that the only way to ending the conflict is through dialogue in order “to reach a national solution” that is based on the guidelines set forth by the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) initiative and in agreement with the standards set forth by the international community. Hadi also said that military force is not a solution to ending the conflict and that it will only aggravate the crisis.[2]

Maritime Security Asia: [NMS: It seems that the mystery surrounding the whereabouts and status of the French yacht has been solved, sadly with a tragic outcome, with EU NAVFOR playing a key role in the interdiction of the attackers and rescue of the remaining crew. There are still rumours of another French yacht going missing at around the same time, although these have yet to be completely confirmed and have been denied by Yemeni authorities. The story illustrates the confusion that can result with pirate attack reports as well as illustrating the desperate measures some pirate gangs are resorting to.]

MARSEILLE – Pirates who attacked a yacht in the Gulf of Aden killed its French skipper before abandoning it, a close to the family said Sunday, the day after the dead man’s wife was found unharmed.

Christian and Evelyne Colombo’s family was informed overnight that the 55-year-old was killed during the attack and his body thrown overboard before their catamaran was found abandoned on Thursday, the same said.

A German warship found the couple’s catamaran, the Tribal Kat, adrift in waters off Yemen on Thursday after it broadcast a mayday appeal for help.

There were signs of struggle, including bullet holes and blood stains, and no one was on board, prompting commanders from the EU’s anti-piracy naval task force Atalanta to launch an air and sea search for the attackers.

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.

Terror Free Somalia: The U.S Navy has intercepted a Somalia bound Yemeni cargo ship carrying weapons suspected to be for Somalia’s Al Qaeda linked Al-Shabaab militia.Somalia consulate in Yemen said the cargo ship en route from Yemen to Somalia coastline ended up in the hands of U.S Navy at the Gulf of Aden.The Somali consul Hussein Hajji Ahmed said U.S navy opened fire on the ship after the ship captain defied Navy orders to stop the vessel but later surrender to the United States navy.

He added that the ship is suspected of carrying military supplies for the Al-Shabaab militia in Somalia, a clear indication that Yemeni Al-Qaeda supports the militia in terms of weaponry.Ahmed said investigations into the issue are currently underway.He urged the Somali government to boost security along the country’s coastlines and seek supports from the neighbouring countries in making sure that no arms are illegally smuggled into the country through the coastal areas.The U.S has recently received critical information suggesting that Yemeni based Al-Qaeda network provides weapons and other military necessities to Somalia’s Al-Shabaab insurgents fighting the Somali government.

LAT

Reporting from Washington— Al Qaeda’s powerful branch in Yemen has provided weapons, fighters and training with explosives over the last year to a militant Islamic group battling for power in Somalia, according to newly developed American intelligence, raising concerns of a widening alliance of terrorist groups.

Leaders of Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula in Yemen also have urged members of the hard-line Shabab militia to attack targets outside Africa for the first time, said U.S. officials who were briefed on the intelligence.

The information, they said, comes in part from a Somali militant who was captured en route from Yemen to Somalia and interrogated aboard a U.S. warship before being arraigned in New York on terrorism charges this month. Further intelligence was gleaned from detailed digital files found at Osama bin Laden’s hide-out in Pakistan after he was killed in May.

U.S. counter-terrorism officials, speaking on condition of anonymity in discussing intelligence matters, say text messages found on portable flash drives at the compound where Bin Laden was killed establish that he had sought to strengthen operational ties between Al Qaeda and the Shabab.

The heads of Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula in Yemen, or AQAP, acted at times as Bin Laden’s go-betweens to the Somali fighters. Among those who tried to forge the alliance was Nasir Wahayshi, an AQAP leader who previously operated as Bin Laden’s personal secretary, said a former U.S. intelligence official who was briefed on the matter.

“There was a lot of traffic” about Somalia in the Bin Laden house, the former official said. Some of the thumb drives were smuggled out of Somalia and through Yemen before couriers hand-delivered them to Bin Laden in the Pakistani city of Abbottabad, the ex-official said.

The CIA gained other information when Somali authorities allowed them to interview Shabab militants imprisoned in Mogadishu, the Somali capital, U.S. officials said. The CIA asked about the militants’ ability to launch attacks outside Somalia as well as the group’s command structure.

Discussing the threat with reporters at the Pentagon recently, Adm. Michael G. Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said that Al Qaeda operatives in Yemen are “trying hard to kill us” and “there is a growing cell [in Somalia] and a growing connection to Al Qaeda that we are all concerned about.”

In a sign of the expanding front, U.S. drone aircraft fired missiles at suspected militants in Yemen in May, and in Somalia in June. They were the first known U.S. military attacks in Yemen since 2002 and in Somalia since 2009.

Other messages about the Shabab circulated among Bin Laden, his chief deputy and now-successor Ayman Zawahiri, and Atiyah Abdul Rahman, a Libyan who acted as Al Qaeda’s chief operating officer, said the former U.S. official. Zawahiri’s location is unknown, and Abdul Rahman was reportedly killed in October in Pakistan although American intelligence officials believe he is still alive.

The three militant leaders sought to persuade the Shabab to shift its focus away from Somalia to directly target the United States and its allies, the messages showed. The Al Qaeda leaders also pushed the local group to change its name to Al Qaeda in East Africa.

In January, Bin Laden and his aides agreed to elevate the Shabab to the same status as Al Qaeda franchises based in Yemen, Iraq and North Africa, said the former U.S. official. But the Shabab’s leaders did not adopt the Al Qaeda brand name, fearing it would fracture the group and draw more attention from Western intelligence groups.

Contacts between Yemeni and Somali militants have taken place in the past. The Shabab has bought weapons and explosives from Al Qaeda contacts in Yemen using money from piracy and kidnap-for-ransom schemes, said a U.S. counter-terrorism official.

Until recently, Shabab insurgents have focused on trying to overthrow the United Nations-backed transitional government in Mogadishu. However, the group claimed credit for two suicide bombings in Uganda’s capital, Kampala, last summer that killed at least 74 people, including one American, its only known attack on foreign soil. Uganda’s government has contributed troops to an African Union peacekeeping force in Somalia.

“We are starting to see a conflation of jihadi conflict zones,” said Frank Cilluffo, director of the Homeland Security Policy Institute at George Washington University. “Yemen and Somalia are moving together.”

There is an “active working relationship” between Al Qaeda’s groups in Yemen and Somalia, said Seth Jones, a senior political scientist at Rand Corp., a nonprofit research institution. “The two groups are attempting to coordinate actions between the Arabian Peninsula and East Africa.”

The New York court case this month drew public notice to the Shabab’s links to AQAP. After an alleged Shabab commander, Ahmed Abdulkadir Warsame, was indicted on terrorism charges, White House officials disclosed that U.S. forces had captured Warsame in the Gulf of Aden in April and interrogated him for two months aboard a U.S. Navy ship.

Warsame was a “key interlocutor” between Shabab and AQAP and “of course had ties and a relationship” with U.S.-born radical cleric Anwar Awlaki, an alleged terrorist planner and recruiter who is believed to be hiding in Yemen, a U.S. official said.

Al Qaeda operatives in Yemen were behind a failed attempt to mail bombs aboard cargo planes headed to Chicago in October 2010, as well as an unsuccessful effort to detonate a bomb on a Detroit-bound plane on Christmas Day 2009.

Yesterday, in an interview with Al Sheba, about what promoted the power of “the existence of al-Qaeda in Yemen”, Shekh Sadiq al Ahmar stressed that the so-called al-Qaeda elements are out of the house of the presidency and they exist in an anti-terrorist forces and the Republican Guard and the Central Security, noting that 16 members of Al Qaeda leaders who fled from the prison of Al-Mukalla month the past, “present in the villas in the capital alone to them the system in it.” He added, “The system uses the al-Qaeda bogeyman to extort from the Gulf, and promoted himself to America.”

Second, Shabab fighter Ahmed Warsame, arrested in the Gulf, was brought to the US for trial. Warsame has ties to both AQAP and al Shabab and met Anwar. Awlaki has been pimping al Qaeda to the Somalis since (at least) 2006 when the eight westerners were arrested trying to smuggle weapons to Somalia from Yemen. The enmeshment between al Qaeda in Yemen and al Shabab was politically inconvenient prior to the rev and is an expedient sound bite now.

NYT 7/10: In his remarks on his plane, Mr. Panetta said there were greater dangers to the United States in Yemen. “There’s no question when you look at what constitutes the biggest threat in terms of attacks on the United States right now, more of that comes from Yemen and people like Awlaki,” he said. He added that in Yemen, “There are a number of operations that are being conducted not only by the Defense Department, but by my former agency to try to focus on going after those targets. I would say that’s one of our top priorities right now.”

Fox News: The Somali terror suspect transferred this week to a New York City federal court spent “significant time” with American-born cleric Anwar al-Awlaki in Yemen, a U.S. official told Fox News.

Ahmed Warsame, described as a senior commander with the Al Qaeda franchise known as al-Shabaab, was in Yemen for one year, Fox News has learned. While there, he met with Awlaki to “build bridges and a closer relationship” between al-Shabaab and the Al Qaeda affiliate in Yemen, the official said.
Warsame was on his way back from Yemen when he was picked up in the Gulf of Aden in April during a U.S. military operation.

Awlaki’s contact with the senior al-Shabaab leader is another indicator, according to U.S. officials, that the first American on the CIA’s kill-or-capture list has reached “the upper echelons” of the group in Yemen — which is seen as the most operational and global franchise within Al Qaeda. Its primary goal is to launch attacks on the United States.

The contact between Awlaki and Warsame is now part of a growing body of evidence that the two franchises are working to develop a closer union. As one U.S. official told Fox News, “Al Qaeda in Yemen wants to be global and is in an expansive frame of mind. Al-Shabaab is physically close and a natural partner to work with.”

As Fox News has previously reported, U.S. officials say they are seeing jihadists from Pakistan traveling to Yemen — which is seen as lawless and without a government since the Yemeni president left the country after he was wounded in a mortar attack.

Meanwhile, the circumstances surrounding Warsame’s capture continue to stir controversy in Washington. Republicans criticized the Obama administration this week for bringing the suspect up on charges in a civilian court after he was detained on a U.S. warship.

DOJ:

AHMED ABDULKADIR WARSAME, aka “KHATTAB,” aka “FARAH,” aka
“ABDI HALIM MOHAMMED FARA,” aka “FAREH JAMA ALI MOHAMMED,”

WARSAME, a Somali national in his mid-twenties, was
captured in the Gulf region by the U.S. military on April 19,
2011, and was questioned for intelligence purposes for more than
two months. Thereafter, WARSAME was read his Miranda rights, and
after waiving those rights, he spoke to law enforcement agents
for several days. Warsame arrived in the Southern District early
this morning, and was arraigned before U.S. District Judge
COLLEEN McMAHON in Manhattan federal court earlier today.
Manhattan U.S. Attorney PREET BHARARA said: “As
alleged, Ahmed Warsame was a conduit between al Shabaab and al
Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula — two deadly terrorist
organizations — providing material support and resources to them
both.

The Indictment further alleges that from about 2009
until April 2011, WARSAME conspired to provide, and provided
material support to AQAP, in the form of money, training,
communications equipment, facilities, and personnel. While he
was in Yemen in 2010 and 2011, WARSAME allegedly received
explosives and other military-type training from AQAP. In
addition, he allegedly possessed and used grenades and an AK-47
semi-automatic assault weapon in Yemen in furtherance of crimes
of violence.

According to the charges, WARSAME also worked to broker
a weapons deal with AQAP on behalf of al Shabaab. He is also
charged with conspiring from about 2009 until April 2011 to teach
and demonstrate the making of explosives, destructive devices and
weapons of mass destruction, and to distribute such information
to others.
A

AHN: Al-Qaeda-linked Al-Shabaab extremists in Somalia have been evacuating its foreign mercenaries from the capital for the past several weeks, and sources close to the militant group indicate that foreign militants within the group have escaped to Yemen where unrest has been raging for the past few months.

An Al-Shabaab fighter who identified himself only as Abu Hureryah told All Headlines News on Tuesday morning that a small boat carrying 76 foreign fighters, including top commanders, sailed from the southern key port town of Kismayo on Sunday evening. Kismayo is about 500 kilometers south of the capital Mogadishu.

He said that the boat headed to Yemen where clashes between government forces and opposition supporters have been taking place since early this year.

“For the past several months we have been losing more lands and many fighters of us were killed, so this time it seems that our brothers in Yemen have more chance than we have here in Somalia so that is why the Mujahideens have left for Yemen,” the militant fighter said during a telephone conversation with AHN.

Third, 7/14/11 A story that a US drone strike on Al Quso was a near miss, and almost identical to the near miss on Awlaki some months ago: at the last minute they jump out of the car just before the drone hits. Amazing.

NYT: SANA, Yemen — American drones and fighter jets hit suspected Qaeda-affiliated militants in southern Yemen early Thursday, killing at least eight fighters sleeping in a police station they had overrun, according to local residents and American and Yemeni security officials.

The strikes were part of an expanded air war in Yemen by the American military aimed at militants who now control large swaths of southern Yemen amid a power struggle in the impoverished desert country.

In recent months, the Obama administration has escalated a campaign of airstrikes carried out by the Pentagon’s Joint Special Operations Command with the assistance of the C.I.A. The C.I.A. is building a base in the region to serve as a hub for future operations in Yemen.

According to both American and Yemeni officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the attacks in Yemen are rarely acknowledged publicly, the strike on Thursday hit a police station that had been occupied by 20 militant fighters in the town of Al Wadyia, in Abyan Province in southern Yemen. One Yemeni security official said that eight people had been killed, including the gathering’s leader, identified as Hadi Mohammad Ali.

Separately, a person close to Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, the group responsible for a wave of violence in Yemen and several terrorist plots against the United States, said an American strike on Thursday hit a car thought to be carrying Fahd al-Qusaa, a leader of the group and a suspect in the 2000 bombing of the American destroyer Cole. The person said that Mr. Qusaa and a group of aides had left the car moments before the attack, and local residents said he had survived.

- Defense Ministry annouced the death of a military commander that belong to Al-Qaeda named Waleed Mushafi Al-Aseri (Waleed Osairi) he is one of the most-wanted to Saudi authorities; when Brigade 25 Mika artillery shelled them yesterday.

Clashes in Abyan have been ongoing for the last 40 days as Islamic militants still control large areas of the province. More than 150 government soldiers have been killed in the ongoing clashes. At least 40,000 Abyan residents fled the province to neighboring Aden escaping death.

- MasdarOnline : four soldiers were executed by militants in Louder , Abyan

AP Yemen airstrikes kill 6 militants, 3 civilians
By AHMED AL-HAJ, Associated Press
SANAA, Yemen (AP) — Officials in Yemen say airstrikes have killed six militants and three civilians in southern towns seized by Islamist fighters.
Military officials say the attacks seek to oust militants from Jaar and Zinjibar.
The militant takeovers are part of widening chaos in Yemen since protests broke out in February calling for the ouster of President Ali Abdullah Saleh.
Medical officials say Tuesday’s strikes killed six militants in Jaar.
A lawmaker, Salem Mansour, says an airstrike in Zinjibar killed three civilians. He says another strike hit the home of the deputy parliament speaker, who has joined the opposition. The house was empty.

6/23 Arrested in Egypt

CAIRO — Authorities at Cairo Airport on Thursday detained an Egyptian national suspected of belonging to al Qaeda in Yemen, an airport official said.
Rabie Abdullah, who was traveling under a false name, arrived on a flight from Yemen and was stopped by authorities, the official said. He was traveling with his wife and three children.
The official said Abdullah, who was sentenced by an Egyptian court in absentia to five years in a terror case, had been living in Yemen and is accused of belonging to the al Qaeda group there.

6/12/11 AQAP liaison to al Shabab, mastermind of 1998 bombing, killed in Mogadishu

: The death in Mogadishu of Fazul Abdullah Mohammed, the mastermind of the 1998 bombings of U.S. Embassies in Tanzania and Kenya, is a major disruption of Al Qaeda’s efforts to expand its hold on havens in the Horn of Africa, U.S. officials and counter-terrorism experts said Saturday….Mohammed, an East African by birth, was crucial in bringing such groups as the extremist Shabab in Somalia into the Al Qaeda fold, as well as attracting militant movements from other parts of Africa.

He also was a key link between militants in Africa and Al Qaeda’s most dangerous affiliate, Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, based in Yemen, immediately across the Gulf of Aden from Somalia.

The L.A. Times reports that Carlos Bledsoe, a Muslim convert and admitted radical who allegedly shot and killed an American soldier and wounded another outside of a recruitment office in Arkansas in 2009, will be tried in a state court on criminal charges instead of facing federal terrorism charges (LAT).

Euro news: LONDON (Reuters) – Somali pirates have been using Yemen’s remote Horn of Africa island of Socotra as a refuelling hub enabling their attack craft to stay restocked for longer periods at sea and pose a greater hazard to shipping, maritime sources say.

Despite an international naval presence in the region, seaborne gangs have been exploiting political turmoil in Yemen to pick up fuel, and possibly other supplies including food, sources told Reuters.

“Socotra has been used for months if not longer,” said Michael Frodl, with C-LEVEL maritime risk consultancy and an adviser to Lloyd’s of London underwriters, citing intelligence reports he was privy to.

“It is perhaps the most important refuelling hub for hijacked merchant vessels used as motherships, especially those operating between the Gulf of Aden and India’s western waters, mainly off Oman and increasingly closer to the Strait of Hormuz.”

“A hijacked merchant vessel, unlike a hijacked dhow, has a voracious thirst for fuel and needs a very well stocked refuelling station,” Frodl said…“Socotra has been a favourite stomping ground for pirates for centuries as both Marco Polo and the great 14th century Islamic scholar and traveller Ibn Battuta attest,” said J. Peter Pham, with U.S. think tank the Atlantic Council.

“A credible amount of evidence has emerged in recent years that Somali pirates have certainly taken advantage of jurisdictional issues to operate in and out of the Socotra archipelago with at least the tacit connivance of at least some Yemeni authorities.”

A maritime security source said there were transactions taking place between dhows in the Socotra archipelago as well.

“In addition to fuel, these exchanges involve arms, most of which are then shipped to Puntland for distribution either to pirates or to various armed factions,” the source said.

Pirates conducted several attacks in May in the Arabian Sea and some strikes in June. Maritime officials say the islands will become more difficult to reach in smaller ships until October because of wind, sea and swell conditions.

Yemen’s military is believed to have a base on Socotra, maritime sources said. “If the military wanted to supply mother ships with fuel from Socotra they could. Corruption in Yemen is rife,” another maritime source said.

NATO said it had ships in the Horn of Africa and Gulf of Aden since March 2009 and the presence of NATO warships and other nations’ navies had resulted in a significant reduction in pirate attacks in the Gulf of Aden over the past two years.

“We are not complacent and understand there is still much work to be done,” a NATO spokeswoman said.

“As Yemen forms the northern coast of the Gulf of Aden and is only 200 miles from Somalia, it is feasible that the pirates could use Yemeni ports for supplies. However, we have no evidence to suggest that this is happening. Similarly with Socotra, there is no evidence to suggest it is used as a pirate hub.”

Red Sea piracy may be going multinational – U.S.
Reuters; LONDON, March 7 (Reuters) – Piracy in the Red Sea may be becoming a “multinational” business with Yemenis joining Somalis in the lucrative crime, a senior U.S. official said on Monday.

“We are also seeing … perhaps a new business model occurring in the Red Sea and things that we have traditionally labelled exclusively Somali piracy may in fact be multinational piracy,” the top U.S. diplomat for Africa, Johnnie Carson, said.

Pirates involved in last month’s killing of four American hostages on a yacht seized near Somalia were both Somalis and Yemenis, while Yemenis were on board a pirate ship recently captured by a Danish warship, he said.

“We may be seeing a situation, as yet unconfirmed, where we have individuals from several nations on the periphery, from states that are not governed well … being involved in piracy,” Assistant U.S. Secretary of State Carson told reporters in London.

Yemen and Somalia are both riven by poverty and instability and are bases for militant groups.

The growing pirate threat to key supply routes in the Indian Ocean has prompted powers including Russia, China, India and Japan to send warships, working loosely alongside Western task forces including those of the European Union, NATO and United States.

But Carson said the problem of Somali piracy would not be resolved on the high seas. “We recognize that the area of the Red Sea is enormous and that you can put hundreds of boats out there,” he said.

The problem could only be resolved “by ending the impunity that exists on land. It will only be resolved when Somalia has a government with a security force, a police apparatus, a court system and laws that allow it to prevent and prosecute pirates who seek to carry out activities offshore,” he said.

The militant commander, who was named Rajah Abu Khalid, a Yemen national, was reported that he was seriously wounded with 13 other fighters and was taken to an Alshabab medical facility in Jowhar district, 90kms from the north of Mogadishu.

Martyr Rajah Abu Khalid, succumbed in Jowhar hospital last night, he died several hours later when he was wounded said an Alshabab sources in conditions of anonymity.

He was the replacer of Abu Musab, the commander of Alqaeda cell in Alshabab in East Africa who died in Mogadishu several months ago the source added.

The transitional government forces confirmed the death of Rajah Abu Khalid and called his death as a loss to Alshabab and its Alqaeda allies.

The commander of governments infantry forces told Sunatimes that they killed several foreign fighters including the commander of Alqaeda cell in Mogadishu who was leading the fighting in north of Mogadishu.

The commander said that On Saturday they killed 13 foreign fighters, among them the most senior of the Alqaeda armed cell in Alshabab Rajah Abu Khalid.

He promised to confirm the names of the others and published them to the media. According to the government the man was the most senior foreign fighter killed in Somalia since the death of Abu Musab, his predecessor, who was killed by the government forces in fighting.

Alshabab militants and its Alqaeda ally are fighting to overthrow the transitional government of Somalia led by President Sharif Sheikh Ahmed, a relatively moderate Islamist who is backed by the international community.