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.

Fighting with northern “Houthi” rebels and southern militants are among a list of challenges facing Yemen’s new president, Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi, a man Washington was hoping could end a year of turmoil in the country, which is near key oil shipping routes.

Ansar al-Sharia, a Yemen-based Islamist group linked to al Qaeda, said it had attacked and killed a U.S. officer in the south on Thursday.

“The mujihadeen (holy warriors) killed a CIA officer on Thursday while he was in Aden province, after tracking him and determining he was cooperating with the Sanaa government,” it said in a text message sent to journalists in Yemen.

A Yemeni security official in Aden, speaking on condition of anonymity, said a gunman fired on a U.S. security team on Thursday, but the shots had hit their armored vehicle without injuring anyone.

In Washington, a Pentagon spokesman confirmed that a gunman fired several shots at an armored vehicle carrying a U.S. security team in Yemen and that no one was injured.

Fears that political turmoil in Yemen would embolden al Qaeda’s wing in the country led Washington and Gulf Arab states to broker the exit of Hadi’s predecessor Ali Abdullah Saleh after a year of mass protests against his rule.

Saleh’s exit made him the fourth Arab leader removed from power since mass uprisings and war swept east from Tunisia in late 2010, rattling U.S. client states and foes alike.

Hadi, who won a one-candidate election to replace Saleh last week, has promised to lead Yemen to new elections, create a new constitution and a reform the military within two years.

He inherits multiple conflicts including clashes with secessionists in the south and a long-simmering insurgency in the north.

Islamist militants took control of swathes of territory in southern Yemen during the struggle over Saleh’s fate, and hold the city of Zinjibar in southern Abyan province.

PROTEST BOMB “INJURES 22″

A bomb exploded during a protest against U.S. involvement in Yemen on Friday, injuring 22 people in the north of the country, the leader of Shi’ite Muslim rebels that control the area said.

In a statement, the leader of the Houthi movement – Shi’ite rebels that Yemen’s military tried to crush in campaigns in 2004-2009 – said the U.S. ambassador in Sanaa was personally responsible for the bombing in Saada, near the Saudi border.

“The one behind this attack is the U.S. ambassador and his agents,” Abdel Malek al-Houthi said. “It targets our rejection of foreign interference from the ambassador such as interfering in the structure of the army … and his satanic efforts to change its creed.”

The region has seen fighting in recent months between the Houthis and Sunni Muslims espousing puritanical Salafi doctrines influential in Saudi Arabia that cast Shi’ites as heretics. The Houthis have accused Riyadh of arming their foes.

Souther secessionists have rejected the transition deal that put Hadi in power, saying they want northing to do with a process involving a united Yemen.

In the capital Sanaa, thousands of protesters gathered near Hadi’s residence demanding the military be shaken up to exclude Saleh’s relatives and loyalists, witnesses said.

Bombings in Yemen Kill 4 VOA: Posted Saturday, March 3rd, 2012 at 8:05 pm

Two separate bombings in Yemen have killed at least four people, including two suicide bombers.

Yemeni authorities said that, in the first incident Saturday, two suicide bombers drove a truck into a Republican Guard camp in the town of Bayda, killing one soldier and wounding five others. A local official blamed al-Qaida for the attack.

Hours later, two explosions rocked the southern port city of Mukalla, killing another soldier. Local authorities said the blasts were aimed at a central security force building.

The blasts came a week after another suicide car bombing killed 26 people outside a presidential palace in Mukalla, just hours after longtime vice president Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi was sworn in as the country’s new leader in the capital, Sana’a.

One link: Alsahwah.net – UN Envoy Jamal Benomar has affirmed to the leader of Houthi group Abdul-Malki Al-Houthi that his group must take part in the presidential elections, otherwise it would be included in the list of terrorist groups, AFP quoted sources close to Benomar .

Some southerners will boycott peacefully as they think voting will reaffirm unity. The Beidh allied faction said they will violently prohibit voting, and there was more violence in the south today. I am starting to understand the earlier Nuba statement waring about Iranian influence in the south.

From Nasser Arrabyee today: This violent group is refused by the majority of the separatists and it is loyal to the German-based former president of the south, Ali Salem Al Beidh, who is reportedly receiving support from Iran. Al Beidh said a several times over the years that he would turn to Iran if he did not get western support. I couldn’t imagine he was that stupid. Maybe I should have.

Hassan Zaid said in an interview that there was an explicit threat from the western nations that if they did not sign the GCC deal, the protest squares would become a blood bath like Syria. It was not a prediction, an analysis or an implication; Zaid says it was an overt threat. The ambassador has said many shocking, aggressive and undiplomatic statements, so the benefit of the doubt is gone. Its also pretty ironic the US ambassador is lamenting foreign intervention after imposing the GCC deal despite public objections and while leaning on the wrong faction.

al Sahwa: Alsahwah.net- The US Ambassador to Yemen Gerald Feierstein has expressed sorrow at foreign intervention in Yemen, pointing out to the Iranian support to the Houthi group.

“We would be so worried about any foreign interventions in Yemen that aim at raising security or political troubles,” he said In an interview with a Yemeni state-run TV.” We are so concerned about the Iranian attempts to undermine stability and security in Yemen.”

He had renewed the attitudes of his country toward the power transfer and the efforts of the political settlement under the GCC-deal and working with all political parties to sustain the interim government.

This is really nauseating and indicates the whole thing is a total sham. The US hanging on to Saleh’s relatives and Saleh himself: Saba (Feierstein) criticized the protests within the government institutions, in particular military units, affirming the legal actions against any government leaders accused of corruption must be taken. “The accused should have the opportunity to defend themselves”, he underlined.

Regarding the President Ali Abdullah Saleh’s political activity, Feierstein said the US does not have any reservation about the President’s political activities after ending his current presidential term, via leading the General People Congress Party.

Yemen: Unlawful Attacks, Denial of Medical Care in Taizz
US, EU, Gulf Should Reject Immunity for Saleh, Aides

(New York, February 8, 2012) – Yemeni security forces stormed and shelled hospitals, evicted patients at gunpoint, and beat medics during an assault on Yemen’s protest movement that killed at least 120 people in the flashpoint city of Taizz last year, Human Rights Watch said in a report released today. Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh, who is in the United States receiving medical treatment, received amnesty in Yemen for such attacks.

In the 75-page report, “‘No Safe Places’: Yemen’s Crackdown on Protests in Taizz,” Human Rights Watch called on the United States, the European Union, and Persian Gulf states to publicly acknowledge that the domestic immunity granted Saleh and his aides last month has no legal effect outside Yemen.

“President Saleh’s forces killed and wounded hundreds of civilians, evicted hospital patients, and blocked war wounded from reaching care,” said Letta Tayler, Yemen researcher at Human Rights Watch. “Saleh is entitled to medical treatment, but he and his aides have no right to immunity from prosecution for international crimes.”

When Yemenis took to the streets in January 2011 to demand an end to Saleh’s 33-year rule, Taizz, 250 kilometers south of the capital, Sanaa, became a center of both peaceful and armed resistance – and the scene of numerous human rights abuses and violations of the laws of war. “No Safe Places” is based on more than 170 interviews with protesters, doctors, human rights defenders, and other witnesses to attacks in Taizz by state security forces and pro-Saleh gangs from February to December 2011.

Yemeni security forces repeatedly used excessive and lethal force against largely peaceful protesters in Taizz. During attacks on opposition fighters that began in mid-2011, they also indiscriminately shelled populated areas of the city. Government troops conducted much of the shelling from al-Thawra Hospital, the city’s biggest medical center, which they occupied from June to December, virtually closing it to medical care.

One of the biggest attacks on protesters took place on the night of May 29-30 at Freedom Square, in Taizz, when state security forces and armed gangs fired on protesters, set fire to their tents, and bulldozed an outdoor area they had occupied since February. Fifteen protesters were killed and more than 260 wounded. Arif Abd al-Salam, 32, a history teacher and protester, described the security forces’ attack:

They had tanks and bulldozers. They were throwing petrol bombs into the tents and firing from many directions. I saw with my own eyes a man with a loudspeaker calling on the security forces to stop attacking and killing their brothers. He was shot dead with a bullet.

Victims of the Taizz crackdown included both protesters and bystanders. Qaid al-Yusifi, a teacher, was killed on July 9, as he was bringing milk to his children in al-Rawdha, an opposition stronghold that was repeatedly struck by government artillery. Al-Yusifi’s wife, Labiba Hamid Muhammad Saif, told Human Rights Watch that she heard at least three shells hit the area around the couple’s house:

We tried to look out the window because we heard screaming. There were a number of wounded and there were people from the neighborhood trying to rescue them. The electricity was cut and I could not recognize the injured. Then I recognized one of them as my husband, Qaid. He was carrying juice, milk, and water, not bombs or bullets.

Of the 120 deaths Human Rights Watch confirmed in Taizz, 57 were protesters and bystanders killed in attacks by security forces and gangs on largely peaceful rallies and 63 were civilians killed in shelling and other attacks during military operations against tribal opposition fighters. At least 22 victims of the attacks in Taizz were children.

On May 30, during the attack on Freedom Square, security forces and armed gangs forcibly entered five medical facilities receiving injured protesters. At one medical facility, a doctor described a security officer smashing the face of a wounded protester with his gun butt, knocking him unconscious. Inside a mosque on Freedom Square serving as a field hospital, security forces thrust gun butts into protesters’ wounds, witnesses told Human Rights Watch.

On November 11, the military shelled al-Rawdha hospital, as civilians wounded that day in other security force attacks rushed there for treatment. Ordnance from the attack on the hospital suggests direct-fire impacts from tanks, indicating that it was deliberate. One patient fell to his death through a hole in the wall created by the blasts.

Many of the unlawful attacks documented in the report were committed by Republican Guards, an elite army unit commanded by Saleh’s son, Brig. Gen. Ahmed Ali Abdullah Saleh, and by Central Security, a paramilitary unit run by the president’s nephew, Gen. Yahya Muhammad Saleh.

The attacks on protesters by Yemeni security forces violated international human rights law, including the right to peaceful assembly and expression, and were contrary to international standards on the use of force and firearms. Denial of medical assistance to injured protesters violated the right to health.

International law governing armed conflict was applicable to the fighting between the security forces and opposition fighters commanded by local sheiks. The security forces violated international law by indiscriminately shelling populated neighborhoods. The security forces’ occupation of hospitals and mistreatment of medical workers violates the principle of medical neutrality and the duty to respect and protect medical facilities and personnel.

Opposition fighters unlawfully placed civilians at risk by deploying in populated areas, Human Rights Watch said. “We asked them not to shoot next to our house,” one al-Rawdha resident said in September, “but they kept on doing so.”

Saleh blamed bloodshed in Taizz and other cities on “terrorists.” In a written response to Human Rights Watch’s findings, the government in December blamed casualties involving protesters and civilians on “sudden attacks … launched by the [opposition] armed militias.” Human Rights Watch’s field research found no evidence of this.

Since April, an accord brokered by the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), and backed by the US and EU, promised Saleh and his aides blanket immunity if the president ceded power. Saleh signed the deal in November and on January 21, 2012, the Yemeni parliament granted immunity to the president and his aides. As a head of state, Saleh also enjoys diplomatic immunity abroad until he formally leaves office on February 21.

In addition to dismissing the immunity law, the US, EU, and GCC member states should encourage the new Yemeni caretaker government to revoke the measure on grounds it violates Yemen’s international legal obligations, Human Rights Watch said. International law does not recognize amnesty for war crimes, crimes against humanity, and other serious violations of human rights.

“The US, and EU and Gulf states should make loud and clear that the immunity is no good abroad and should be revoked at home,” Tayler said. “No one responsible for grave international crimes should get a free pass.”

To read the Human Rights Watch report, “‘No Safe Places’: Yemen’s Crackdown on Protests in Taizz,” please visit:

http://hrw.org/reports/2012/02/06/no-safe-places-0

For more Human Rights Watch reporting on Yemen, please visit:

http://www.hrw.org/middle-eastn-africa/yemen

Yemen Post: Shiite Houthi leader, Abdulmalek al-Houthi, in Yemen called on Saturday for establishing a civil state that lives up to the people of Yemen, who took to streets demanding change.
In a speech he delivered in front of tens of thousands of his supporters, who gathered to commemorate the prophetic cradle anniversary in the northern Yemeni province of Saddah, al-Houthi called on political forces to respect the will and choice of Yemeni people.
A panel of qualified Yemeni experts should be formed to draft a new constitution, the Military Committee quickly restructures the army, and Security and Political intelligent Security should be dissolved, he demanded.
His followers have reportedly closed all routes from and to Saddah and forced the residents to use excessive fireworks, leaving at least one killed and two injured, local media reported.
“Such ceremony of this magnitude in Yemen to celebrate the prophetic birth anniversary is the fruit of the revolution, which brought down the head of the regime,” al-Houthis said.

SOHR report Dec 2011

On Monday, December ,5 Sheikh Tawfiq Ali Mansour Juneidi ,nicknamed
“Hawas “the leader of the People’s Committees in the town of Lauder of
Abyan province ,died as a result of wounds sustained by a blast of an
explosive package targeted him on Friday, December ,2 and which also
caused the death of his colleague ,Ali Nasser Houshan .The Web site” ,Taj
South Arabia “reported that the People’s Committees protect the district
from the al-Qaeda operatives ,since it is believe that the al-Qaeda is behind
this assassination….

“Al Qaeda “operatives on the evening of Monday, December , ambushed
two vehicles to target a number of people from Almayaser Tribe from the
Farajs when they were passing in” Ekd “area between the districts of Lauder
and Wadiea .Aden News Agency said that the ambush caused injuries
among three people ,they are :Ahmed Hussein Ashal ,Hussein Ali Ashal and
Ahmed Mohammed al-Ghairi.

Both of the citizens Haaj Obeid and Adel Amari were seriously injured on
Friday, December ,2 by an armed group opened fire on a security leader in
the city of Ghail Bawazir of Hadramout province .The Aden News Agency
said that the unknown gunmen were riding a Hilux car ,passed in front of the
Abu Saba’a Cafe and opened heavy fire on the security leader and those
around him…

The group calling itself” Ansar al-Sharia “,on Saturday, Dec ,31 .fired in the
air to suppress the march of dignity ,which started from Aden province
toward the city of Zanzibar, demanding an end to the war in the city between
the Yemeni army and the group .The march was attended by thousands from
the South ,in particular from Abyan province .The website” ,Sada Aden ”
quoted from Mohammed Ahmed Qais ,the Chairman of the Organizing
Committee of the March of Dignity, that the peaceful march aimed at
demanding the departure of the militants of” Al Qaeda “,as well as the
Yemeni army troops from their city, but the militants of” Ansar Al-Sharia ”
stopped the march in the village of Alkod that is located five kilometers
away from the city of Zinjibar, firing in the air to prevent their progress…

The main road linking the provinces of Aden and Abyan has been closed
since the events of the city of Zinjibar of the incursion of armed elements
“Ansar Al-Sharia “to the neighborhoods until now .There have been several
attempts to open it and to allow travelers to pass through it ,but they all fail
because of the tense military situation between the forces of the Yemeni
army and the armed groups .Following the closure of that road, citizens from
both sides are affected and suffer from traveling from one province as an
alternative way make them spend a lot of time and efforts ,as well as
depriving the citizens of the cities of Zanzibar and Jaar from returning to
their homes which they had abandoned fearing for their lives….

On the morning of Tuesday, December ,6 warplanes flew at low height over
Abyan province ,in the city of Wadiea ,breaking the sound barrier ,and
triggering fear and terror among the children and women.
The Aden News Agency said that the people of the city fear of possible
bombing maybe exposed to innocent civilians, especially of the flights of the
U.S. drones hovering constantly over the cities and villages of the region for
long periods. (The fear comes after)
The U.S. aircraft on December ,2009 17 ,launched several Cruz rockets from
American battleships in the Gulf of Aden to strike Al- Majala village in the
district of Al-Mahfed in Abyan province that killed dozens of innocent
children, women and elders.

The South and the Northern Government: A Persistently Troubled Dialogue
By Nedhal Moqbel

A recent episode of “Agenda Maftouha” (Open Agenda) program, broadcast by BBC Arabic TV, discussed Yemen’s security situation. Among the program’s guests were the Southern activist Saleh Al-Jabwani and Colonel Abdullah Al-Hadri who represented President Ali Abdullah Saleh’s opposition. Mr. Al-Hadri dilated on Saleh’s crimes against protesters in Sanaa and Taiz squares and the destruction he left behind. However, Mr. Al-Hadri obviously got nervous and impatient when the issue of Southern secession was raised. As he responded to Mr. Al-Jabwani’s comments, Colonel Al-Hadri used an emotional speech and a sharp tone, contending that the current situation is the cause of the entire “Yemeni nation.”

“Our cause is one . . . why do you want to divide us amidst this continuous uprising?” added Mr. Al-Hadri. Wait a minute! Wasn’t it a “one Yemeni nation” when Southerners began their own uprising after 1994, demanding their right to a merely dignified life? Wasn’t it a “one Yemeni nation” when you and your boss (Saleh) brutally persecuted them? Weren’t those protesters your fellow citizens and, therefore, part of this “Yemeni nation”? Moreover, Mr. Al-Hadri stated that General Ali Mohsen Al-Ahmar was an honest military man who refused to stand by a dictator, and so did Colonel Al-Hadri and many others in the military. He said, “Yes, we used to be Saleh’s partners before. But when he stained his hands with blood and began to distort the country and foster Al-Qaeda, we decided to stay away and choose the homeland and the nation.” How devious! How provocative!

In a sympathetic tone, Mr. Al-Hadri spoke of Saleh’s crimes during the recent protests in North Yemen, stressing that this bloodshed was the reason he (Al-Hadri) and others like General Al-Ahmar seceded from Saleh. As if Saleh’s hands were clean until before these protests! What about the blood he has shed in the South since 1994? What about the thousands of Southerners whom he and his allies killed and wounded in that short-term civil war with military tanks and rockets? What about many extra thousands of Southerners whom they have killed, detained, tortured, and wounded since the outset of the Southern Peaceful Hirak? Why did Mr. Al-Hadri and his fellow military men not distance themselves from Saleh while he was shedding those bloods in the South? Why did they continue to support him, to represent his iron fist over the South? Why did they turn against Saleh only when his victims were Northern citizens?

Of course, my intention is not to attack anyone. I simply reject the twisted language Mr. Al-Hadri used to obscure the Southern cause. He went on, using the same emotional appeal: “It’s shameful to talk about South and North now . . . our cause now is that of a homeland and a nation.” Well! What is really shameful is that Colonel Al-Hadri does not consider the Southern issue itself a cause of an entire homeland whose lands and natural resources and jobs have been robbed, an entire people that used to exist independently but now is under a real occupation. What is really shameful is that Mr. Al-Hadri’s words echoed Saleh’s attitudes toward the South even though the former was presented in the program as an anti-Saleh figure. The same old regime being reproduced! No wonder that most of the oppositional figures affiliated with the “new” government participated in various ways in the 1994 war against the South. No wonder that they still unjustly and irrationally compare the Southern cause (a cause of a homeland) with the Huthi issue (a cause of a sectarian group).

Northern military figures like Colonel Al-Hadri know well the many injustices from which Southerners have suffered too long. Therefore, it is unacceptable that he accuse them of having “ruptured the country.” The country has been torn apart since the 1994 civil war. I wonder if Mr. Al-Hadri still remembers when his citizens in the North celebrated their “victory’ over the South on 7/7/1994; the Sanaa official TV then displayed Northern women uttering trilling cries of joy and Northern men chanting on streets, “Allah Akbar! Long live our leader Ali Abdullah Saleh!” On the other side of the country, Southerners were collecting the dead bodies of their loved ones in order to bury them. This black day, with all the sad memories it carries to Southerners, was made an official holiday and a national day to celebrate annually. Technically, unification ended in 1994 and was replaced by an occupation of the South and a robbery of its natural resource revenues, history, culture, and dignity. Who, then, tore up the previously unified Yemen?

The General People’s Congress and the Joint Meeting Parties are two faces of the same coin. The talk about having given Saleh immunity from prosecution is only half the truth. This “new” government has, in fact, given immunity to itself, too, since the majority of its officials were yesterday’s strong allies of Saleh’s. What we see now in the Sanaa government is the same old regime, and what we hear is the same old language, especially when it comes to the Southern problem. This government’s officials may undergo internal conflicts, but the Southern issue is always the thing that eventually brings them together due to their shared fear of losing the South with all its many treasures. Until Southerners achieve their goal of liberation, we will continue to hear the same rhetoric from Northern officials (and from Northern ordinary citizens) who often argue fearfully and impatiently, “there’s only one Yemen . . . unity is a red line . . . we’re ready to die for it . . . we’ll protect it with our own blood . . . unity or death.”

Comment by Jane: It is true that the atrocities toward the southern protesters (2007-2010) provoked little if any outrage in other parts of Yemen. During the Saada War, civil groups aligned themselves with the concept of civilian immunity without taking a stand on either side of conflict itself. Conversely during the southern protests, the arrests, torture and cold blooded killings elicited little sympathy. Beyond the absence of media attention, some in Sanaa expressed the opinion that southern protesters deserved it. In 2007/8, Southerners were really expecting that their counterparts in the north would join their uprising against the regime.

The lack of domestic solidarity against the state’s systematic attacks on unarmed southern protesters that in part caused the shift in demands from equal civil rights to independence. Remarkably, some of the current revolutionaries (who are seeking to overthrow the regime) deny that southerners have the right to seek independence although both movements deny the legitimacy of the state. From the outset of the current revolution, few efforts were made to reach out to the southern secessionists. And many southerners viewed the year long protests in Sanaa and other parts of the country in a disconnected way, not wholly unsympathetic, but as if the bloody events were occurring in another county. As I’ve said before, many view the unity government as an re-branding of northern power. some also view all northerners as privileged and part of the oppressive structure, when in fact disenfranchised northerners are very poverty stricken and thoroughly without basic services.

In terms of raw numbers, Saleh’s trail of blood, more southern protesters were killed than “northern” protester fatalities over the last year of the rev, and it occurred week after week in an atmosphere of domestic and international silence.

alSahwa: Alsahwah.net- Forces of the Republican Guard bombarded on Saturday villages of Nihm, outskirt of Sana’a, using medium and heavy weapons, indicating that bombardment was arbitrary and intensive.

Local sources told Alsahwah.net that the forces used gun machines from mountains nearby to the villages, pointing out that no casualties fell.

Forces of the Republican Guard headed by Ahmed Ali Abdullah Saleh, son of the outgoing Yemeni president shelled on Tuesday killed four civilians including child in Bani Dihrah, a village of Arhab district, some 30 kilometers north of Sana’a.

For its part, Hood Organization for Human Rights and Freedoms affirmed that it received on Tuesday the corpses of the four killed civilians.

Hood said that forces of the Republican Guard rejected to allow human rights organizations to take the bodies of five civilians who were killed five months ago.

On Sunday, the Republican Guards bombarded villages of Bani Jarmooz and Bait Dihrah, using mortars and machine guns against civilians wounding several and damaging many properties.

Related: The international community leveled no sanctions on the Saleh regime whatsoever, no ban on weapons sales, no freezing of funds. Russia is still providing weapons, likely via a deniable proxy. Yemen owes Russia, its largest bilateral creditor, about six billion from prior weapons sales.

Alsahwah.net- A Russian-made ship loaded with heavy weapons including air-fighters, tanks and ammunition arrived in Hodeidah port on Thursday, sources of the port revealed.

The sources said the weapons are to be distributed to those military camps that are still loyal to the outgoing President Ali Abdullah Saleh.

Hundreds of protesters headed the port, demanding the port officials to uncover the sorts of these weapons and its producing country.

They affirmed that they would provide a notification for the Attorney General, demanding all local and international organizations to work to uncover those states that are involved in providing the regime with weapons to kill protesters.

SANA’A, Jan. 21 (Saba) – The parliament endorsed on Saturday a law granting president Ali Abdullah Saleh total immunity from legal and judicial prosecution.

This law also applies to the civil, military, and security officials, who were involved with the president in operations based on political motives rather than terrorist acts.

In addition, the parliament endorsed the recommendation for Vice President Abdo Rabbo Mansour Hadi to be the consensual and sole candidate for the early presidential elections to be held on 21 February.

The adopted law was voted on in the presence of the government and all members of the parliament.

A Yemeni draft law granting immunity to the outgoing president, Ali Abdullah Saleh, from prosecution over the killing of protesters was amended on Thursday to limit the protection his aides would enjoy, a minister said.

The draft law, which has been heavily criticized by rights groups, the United Nations and Yemeni protesters, will now shield the aides only in “political cases,” Legal Affairs Minister Mohammad Makhlafi told Reuters.

The illegitimate Parliament still has to vote on it to give it a veneer of legitimacy just like the uncontested election has no point other than to provide international cover for appointing Hadi. The US should just recognize him as president and avoid the unnecessary expenditures. Easing Saleh out of office was never a viable plan and only wasted a year, destroyed the economy and allowed AQAP to flourish. Sooner or later, Saleh has to be kicked out.

Original: Saleh the mass murderer, objects to immunity for those he alleges tried to kill him in the mosque bombing, Ali Mohsen al Ahmar and Sheik Sadiq etc.

But Ali Mohsen’s crimes extend far beyond that one incident to include the conduct of the first five rounds of the Saada War as well as embezzlement, all types of black market smuggling, land appropriation and torture. The US cant grant immunity to everyone in Saleh’s regime and exclude the current and former opposition. UN envoy Ben Omar is trying to placate Saleh’s victims’ families with financial compensation and its their choice, but many already turned down hush money and blood money from the regime at the time of the murders. The notion that the families and the protesters are out of line somehow for demanding Saleh’s trial is Orwellian.

Yemen Times
A source close to negotiations told the Yemen Times that one of the disagreements on a political level stemmed from the fact that Saleh did not want the law to include his opponents Major General Ali Mohsen and the leaders of the Hashid Tribal confederation. Both were accused of the June 3 attack on the presidential compound, which left 12 dead and injured president Saleh and other key government figures.

In December, the Yemeni revolution turned towards institutions as employees of government institutions protested and went on strike, commonly demanding the prosecution of “corrupt” officials and mangers – many of whom are members of the General People’s Congress.

The proposed immunity law goes against their demands if it is approved in its current form. It suggests that seeks to grant immunity not only to Saleh, but also to all who worked with him in state, civil, military and security institutions during his rule.

Law expert Nabeela Al-Mufti, said: “The problem is that the law is too general, giving immunity to all who worked with Saleh for 33 years. This gives it a dangerous dimension.”

Another issue is the proposal that the law be implemented both inside and outside Yemen. “The Yemeni parliament cannot dominate the world parliaments and force them to implement the immunity,” said Al-Mufti.

Many Yemenis wonder whether or not Saleh or his fellows can be prosecuted outside of Yemen. According to Al-Mufti Saleh can be prosecuted outside of Yemen but his crime must have been committed in the prosecuting country. However, the International Criminal Court (ICC) can still receive cases against Saleh for crimes committed in Yemen – but any case must meet the ICC standards as a humanitarian or war crime.

“It is possible that a Yemeni person could raise a suit against Saleh for a crime that was committed in Yemen in any of the 81 countries that signed the Roma Law and became a member of the ICC,” Al-Mufti explained, adding that ICC procedures are complicated and lengthy but still possible.

Issues with the immunity law led to the idea of a Transitional Reconciliation Conference. The brainchild of UN envoy Jamal Benomar, the conference would serve as a way to bring together Yemen’s conflicting parties for a new beginning, forgetting past crimes but also proposing compensation to victims and their families – an idea that worked both in Morocco and South Africa

“The law denies individuals their right to prosecute; the concept of reconcilement should be by satisfaction not by force,” she added. “Any reconcilement should offer something to the victims’ families and whoever was harmed by Saleh’s regime.”

Alsahwah.net – Three protesters and two policemen were killed, and 20 others were wounded on Friday as security forces used live ammunition against supporters of the Southern Movement.

Medics said that 26 protesters were taken to receive treatment.

Thousands of the Southern Movement’s followers protested on Friday to mark the annual anniversary of the civil war erupted in 1986 between fictions of the ruling regime then.

Witnesses said forces of the Central Security used gas bombs, live ammunition to disperse the protesters.

Press reports quoted eyewitnesses as saying that snipers shot fire on the protesters from the back of security forces.

Yemeni human rights organizations and political parties have called to swiftly identify those responsible for the killing of protesters and bring them to justice.