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.

Yemen: Reject Immunity Law for President Saleh and Aides
Unlawful Blanket Amnesty Bill Gives ‘License to Kill’

(New York, January 10, 2012) – Yemen’s parliament should reject a draft law that would grant amnesty to President Ali Abdullah Saleh and anyone who served with him for crimes committed during his 33-year rule, Human Rights Watch said today. The sweeping measure could result in impunity for serious international crimes such as deadly attacks on anti-government demonstrators in 2011.

“Passing this law would be an affront to thousands of victims of Saleh’s repressive rule, including the relatives of peaceful protesters shot dead last year,” said Sarah Leah Whitson, executive Middle East director at Human Rights Watch. “Yemeni authorities should be locking up those responsible for serious crimes, not rewarding them with a license to kill.”

The draft law, which the parliament is expected to debate as early as January 11, 2012, violates Yemen’s obligations under international law to investigate and prosecute serious international crimes such as torture, war crimes, and crimes against humanity, Human Rights Watch said.

Bowing to international pressure and 10 months of protests against his rule, Saleh agreed in November to cede power under an accord brokered by the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC). In exchange, the GCC deal instructed Yemen’s parliament, which the ruling party dominates, to act on an immunity law before Saleh is to step down formally on February 21, 2012.

The granting of immunity would not prevent courts in other countries from prosecuting serious human rights crimes in Yemen under universal jurisdiction laws, Human Rights Watch said. “Even if the Yemeni parliament grants immunity, the law will not hold water abroad,” Whitson said.

An article in the draft law bars its “repeal or appeal” by either lawmakers or the courts. However, article 51 of the constitution of Yemen says citizens have the right of recourse to the courts to protect their rights and lawful interests. Article 153 of the constitution designates the Supreme Court as the highest judicial authority in the land and empowers it to strike down laws that are unconstitutional.

The preamble to the immunity law wrongfully suggests it was drafted to implement United Nations Security Council resolution 2014 of October 21, 2011, Human Rights Watch said. In fact, the Security Council resolution calls on all parties in Yemen to implement a political settlement based on the GCC accord – rather than adopt the accord itself – and also emphasizes that “all those responsible for violence, human rights violations and abuses should be held accountable.”

International law rejects impunity for serious crimes, such as genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity, and torture. International treaties, including the UN Convention against Torture and the 1949 Geneva Conventions, require parties to ensure alleged perpetrators of serious crimes are prosecuted. As recently as January 6, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay reasserted that amnesty cannot be granted for serious crimes under international law.

Human Rights Watch has confirmed the deaths of 270 protesters and bystanders during attacks by government security forces and gangs on largely peaceful demonstrations against Saleh’s rule in 2011, most in the capital, Sanaa. Dozens more civilians were killed last year in apparently indiscriminate attacks by security forces on densely populated areas during clashes with armed opposition fighters. Human Rights Watch also has documented a broad pattern of international human rights violations and laws-of-war violations by government security forces in previous years, including apparent indiscriminate shelling in the 2004-2010 civil war against northern Huthi rebels and the use of unnecessary and lethal force since 2007 to quash a separatist movement in the south.

“From north to south to central Sanaa, the Saleh government has violated the basic rights of the Yemeni people,” Whitson said. “Without accountability for these crimes, there can be no genuine break from the past in a post-Saleh Yemen.”

For More Human Rights Watch Reporting on Yemen, please visit:

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

Related from from al Sahwa: Republican Guard kills four civilians in rural area

Alsahwah.net- Forces of the Republican Guard headed by Ahmed Ali Abdullah Saleh, son of the outgoing Yemeni president bombarded on Tuesday some villages of Bani Dihrah, killing four civilians including child.

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 whow 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.

The Life March from Taiz was attacked by Central Security forces in Sanaa with live fire and tear gas. Nine wounded marchers were transported to the field hospital in Sana’a Change Square. One fatality has been reported, Abeer AlFaten, murdered for walking. As is standard practice for a decade, security forces are preventing ambulances from reaching the wounded pedestrians. NYR

Meet the new boss, same as the old boss. By re-branding the Sana’a dictatorship and shoving down the citizenry’s throat. the UN, US, EU and SA are publicly treating the entire Yemeni population like petulant children who don’t know what good for them.

The UN SC statement fails to acknowledge, much less take into account, the demand for political empowerment by both the revolutionaries and the southerners. Ironically, while the international community seeks to secure its own goals, these nations are in fact damaging their own mid-term security and national interests, at a time of opportunity, in facilitating the continued imprisonment of a millions determined for freedom.

From my article: The Obama administration’s insistence in retaining elements of the Saleh administration and security forces has thwarted the regime change demanded by millions and allowed al Qaeda to flourish in southern towns. Although US counter-terror efforts have had more latitude to operate since protests began, the Saleh regime and al Qaeda have long had a symbiotic relationship.

Read Noon’s article at Global Voices here: “These GCC states are not at all competent to deal with popular requests for liberty and freedom, not to mention democratic government, because they themselves are mostly despotic regimes,” observed Yemen’s Coordinating Council of the Youth Revolution of Change (CCYRC). “They themselves would never welcome such requests from their own people, let alone be ready to accommodate such demands by people in neighboring states.”

The regime’s denial that they were brought in to attack the protests is total blather; its more likely that one of the leaders in the Syrian Baath Party like, lets say errrr, Adbel Hafidh Kaid Noaman, hooked up the Syrian pilots for Saleh. UPdate al Masdar publishes the names of the dead and injured Syrian pilots.

Yemen denies opposition claims on the military aircraft crash 27/10/2011 Yemen Online: A military source has revealed the aircraft that crashed in Lahj province south of Yemen two days ago was carrying a number of Syrian and Yemeni trainers. The crash occurred during the landing in Al-Anad air base, as a result of a technical fault and an incorrect navigational measurement by the pilot. The landing took place over an area adjacent to the base runway.

The military source said that the accident had led to the killing of eight Syrian trainers and one Yemeni passenger. Seven other Yemenis escaped unscathed from the accident, including the pilot, Colonel Mahmud Yahya Muhammad al-Armazah, along with two Syrians.

The Syrian killed in the accident work as professional aviation trainers at the Faculty of Aviation and Air Defense. They have been providing fundamental aviation training for 11 years’ the military source stressed

The military source notes that the Yemeni armed forces do not need to seek the assistance of any foreign fighter pilots, as the media run by the Joint Meeting Parties (Opposition) claimed.

Raxanreeb: U.N. Emergency Relief Coordinator Valerie Amos said millions of people in Yemen face “a daily struggle for survival” due to conflict, poverty, drought, soaring food prices and collapsing state services.

They include 100,000 displaced by recent fighting in the south, 300,000 uprooted by a previous insurgency by Shi’ite rebels in the north, and thousands of refugees from the Horn of Africa, she said….Rising insecurity has forced U.N. agencies and other humanitarian organisations to leave or cut back their staff levels in the Arab country, the U.N.’s Amos said. Accurate information on what is happening is becoming increasingly hard to gather, she added.

“Yemen is the poorest country in the region, and has suffered chronic deprivation for years. If we don’t act now, the situation could become a catastrophe,” Amos said in a statement.

“In neighbouring Somalia, we have seen what happens if warnings go unheeded, and too little is done in time to stop a crisis. Let us not repeat the same mistake in Yemen,” she added….Meanwhile, across the Gulf of Aden in Yemen, a third of the population is suffering from hunger, and health facilities are overcrowded or simply not working, according to the United Nations.

Children have been hit hard by the fallout from the growing political chaos. In some parts of the country, one in three are malnourished – among the highest levels in the world, the U.N. says. And tens of thousands are missing out on their education due to the closure of schools, some of which are sheltering displaced families.

At least 94 children have been killed and 240 wounded by gunshots or shelling since civil unrest began in Yemen earlier this year, the executive director of the U.N. children’s fund (UNICEF), Anthony Lake, said last week.

“The children of Yemen should be busy going back to school at this time of year. Instead, they face armed men rather than teachers, bullets instead of books,” he said in a statement. “The country is sinking deeper into a humanitarian crisis.”

A joint international appeal for $290 million to respond to humanitarian needs in Yemen this year is so far 60 percent funded, according to the U.N’.s Financial Tracking Service.

* Says cash for training and equipment cut, intelligence aid same,

* Says civil war unlikely despite “revolution of children and thieves”

* Calls potential U.N. resolution on transfer plan foreign interference

By Erika Solomon

SANAA, Oct 5 (Reuters) – The United States and other Western donors have cut counter-terrorism aid to Yemen’s army during eight months of mass protests against President Ali Abdullah Saleh, his nephew and leader of a key paramilitary unit said on Wednesday, in effect supporting anti-Saleh groups.

Brigadier General Yahya Mohammed Abdullah Saleh, an important power broker in the country as the head of the Central Security Forces, said U.S. President Barack Obama was influenced by political players who oppose President Saleh.

Protests against his 33-year rule are sweeping Yemen and armed groups backing the opposition are fighting government troops, threatening to drag the impoverished Arabian Peninsula state into civil war on the border of oil giant Saudi Arabia.

“With recent events, some of the aid has lessened. The intelligence aid continues but in terms of training and equipment it has decreased,” Yahya told Reuters in an interview, but he declined to give a specific figure.

The United States is believed to spend over $150 million a year in Yemen counter-terrorism aid to forces including Yahya’s Central Security Forces.

A joint Yemeni-American operation last Friday killed U.S.-born preacher Anwar al-Awlaki, al Qaeda’s English language propagandist, and that same day the White House called on Saleh to step down.

“What’s happening now is a conspiracy against democracy because they (the West) are supporting coup d’etat forces,” he said.

Sanaa was rocked by bloody battles and heavy shelling last month when an anti-Saleh march sparked days of clashes between rebel general Ali Mohsen’s troops and forces belonging to Yahya as well as Saleh’s son Ahmed. Over 100 protesters were killed.

Clashes still flare sporadically between the troops as both sides carve Sanaa into spheres of influence, digging trenches and manning checkpoints backed by armoured vehicles.

But Yahya said civil war was still unlikely: “The peaceful option is open until the last second. It all depends on the outlaw forces… They act like teenagers in politics.”

The general, dressed in a green camouflage uniform and a blue beret, brought Reuters journalists to his forces’ base inside the capital to watch his troops perform military drills as he shouted orders to soldiers not marching in unison.

He refuted Western diplomats’ accusation that Saleh and his family are resisting a Gulf-brokered transition plan, arguing that Yahya and Ahmed are afraid of losing their positions of power.

“Unfortunately the (American) president is influenced by reports without checking what the reality is. Maybe he was lied to,” Yahya said. “This is all lies … We do not have political ambitions and are not clinging to power.”

YEMEN CRISIS “INTERNAL MATTER”

The United States and Saudi Arabia are wary of rising turmoil in Yemen that has emboldened al Qaeda, which has taken control of several cities in the south in recent months, and they have pressed for Saleh to sign the Gulf deal, which he has backed out of signing three times.

Several near-deals with the opposition have been missed because the opposition wants Saleh to transfer his powers to the vice president before an election, while the government says he should only step down after a presidential poll.

The general said he was surprised by reports that Western diplomats may seek a resolution from the United Nations Security Council to press Yemen to reach a power transition deal, calling it foreign interference on behalf of the opposition.

“The Gulf initiative to transfer power is an internal matter — it’s not an American or a European affair. It (the deal) cannot be forced on us because the other side has a relationship with foreign governments to bring it to power.”

Yahya also showed Reuters journalists around armoured vehicles used by his riot control forces, to show pock marks in the heavy metal, camouflage exteriors and shattered windows –signs, he said, that his forces had been attacked by Mohsen’s men when they went to stop protests last month.

“Does this look like a peaceful protest to you?” he asked. He would not say whether his troops fired in response, saying only that the involvement of Mohsen’s forces confused his men.

He called the protests a “revolution of children and thieves”.

“We want to leave power democratically, through elections … the opposition needs to return to its senses, they shouldn’t be over ambitious, or they will end up with nothing.”

Yemen Times: Sunni-Shiites war in Al-Jawf

War broke out five months ago between Houthi rebels – who are Shiite Muslims – and the locals of Al-Jawf governorate – themselves Sunni Muslims – 143 km northwest of the capital city of Sana’a.

Around 470 Houthis were killed and over 85 of Al-Jawf’ s citizens lost their lives in this four-month-long war, Sheikh Arfj Bin Hadban, a local tribal leader in Al-Jawf, told the Yemen Times.

“This is a religious war. The tribesmen here had fought against the Houthis after they [Houthis] came to our land and attempted to impose their doctrine, which is Shiite, and no one in our area believed in it. This doctrine insults the wives of the prophet Mohamed PBUH and his companions and this is not permissible in our religion,” said Hadban.

Both sides have used a large variety of weapons during the bloody confrontations, an exception being use of planes, according to the tribal leader.

“All of the population here is heavily armed, and the Houthis are equipped with advanced weapons because they occupied some state- military camps during their fighting with the government’s army in the six rounds of war,” he said.

Two months ago, a local tribal mediation committee was able to bring about a truce between the two sides. According to a tribal leader who participated in the battles with the Houthis, the ceasefire was conditional on the Houthis withdrawing non-resident elements from Al-Jawf, as well as on a cessation of their disseminating religious ideas in the governorate.

Local sources state the the Houthis did indeed abide by the conditions, leading to a suspension of war since that point. But this truce may break at any moment amidst a lack of state control after opposition forces took over the governorate last April, in line with nationwide protests demanding an end to president Ali Abdullah Saleh’s 33-year rule.

“Nowadays there is an uneasy calm in the governorate and we think it is merely a break; if they attack us again, we will fight back,” said the tribal leader in Al-Jawf. “They have no land, nor inheritance or power in our area,”

The same opposition forces affiliated with the traditional opposition coalition known as the Joint Meeting Parties (JMP) – which itself participated in fighting against the Houthi Shiites – were also involved in a four-month war against the Houthis, but not for religious purposes.

“The local Islah opposition members who are affiliated with the JMP have entered into open battles with the Houthis over the 115th Military Brigade [which was occupied by tribesmen opposed to the current regime] and other state buildings in the governorate,” said Bin Hadban “They [Houthis] said that they are present in the change squares, so they want their share in the military camp and other state facilities.”

“The Islah members who are in control of the governorate have refused the Houthis’ demand and said that they will not hand over the camp and state facilities until a new regime is in place,” he added.

Paradoxically, the Houthis are united in peaceful protest with JMP members in the change squares against Saleh’s regime but at the same time engaged in war in areas where allies have taken control due to different religious backgrounds or interests.

Other tribal sources told the Yemen Times that a tribal negotiation committee suggested that the 115th Military Brigade, now opposition-held, be handed over to leading army defector Ali Mohsen’s First Armored Division?

“Now some military teams of the first armored division are being prepared to be sent to take over the camp,” according to a local source.

However, Dr. Ahmed Al-Daghashi, an expert on Islamic movements, said in an interview with the Yemen Times that “in general, what has been taking place between the Houthis and their rivals is not based on religion, but they [Houthis] use religion to extend their influence.”

“I think that the Houthis are moving on the basis of expanding their influence in an attempt to take over as much area as they can,” said Al-Daghashi.

He highlighted that the recent developments in Al-Jawf have revealed that “the Houthis were not serious when they used to say in the past that they were defending themselves.”

He explained that the Houthis used to speak about self-defense during their fighting against government forces, but after moving to Harf Sufyan of Amran governorate, some parts of Hajja and, recently, Al-Jawf, “this has clearly emphasized that they [Houthis] are working to take control of as much as possible of Yemen’s northern areas.”

“It is irrational that the Houthis fight violently against their current allies in the political work [Islahis] who are well-connected to one another during this revolution against Saleh. They attempted to prevent the Islahis from protecting state buildings in the governorate until handing them over to the coming regime when the revolution succeeds, according to the statements of the Islahis,” he said.

“And this is the thing the Houthis did not like which confirms that religion has nothing to do with what is going on,” he said ” They are not moved by the religion in their conflict either before the 2011 revolution or after it, but only power longing to rule Yemen.”

Update: Regime bombing of residential areas kills seven year old.

Houthis statement – Saada 23/09/2011 Tazahria mass demonstration was the morning of this day, Friday, 24 / October / 1432 e roamed the streets (Saada), attended by tens of thousands of people of the province who have flocked to it since early morning. In the march chanted the masses (you rebel you are free, America, behind the scenes) (Say to the silent or Nam, will participate in crime) (whatever is spilled or kill, any initiative would not accept) (forward ahead of the change, and God is our best advocate) (Felthna spirit of the martyr , he lived the life of the new). Presented during the demonstration a number of rhetorical words and paragraphs of poetry and Message Board.