Armies of Liberation

Odd the explosives expert would kill himself, normally these cowards send brainwashed teenagers to do the dirty work. We have al Shahrani showing up several times on the lists of the Saudi Most Wanted. Yemen is becoming the proxy location for the conflict between the Saudi royals and the Saudi fanatics. Related: Wahishi pledges AQAP loyalty to Zawaheri, a tad late no? Jealous or under pressure maybe. Wahishi notes both the government and the opposition support the drone campaign.

Yemen Post: The Yemeni authorities identified the bomber who rammed an explosive-laden car into a military convoy on Monday in Aden as Turki Saad Muhammad Qulais Al-Shahrani. (Read on …)

Wednesday a British worker was killed when his car exploded in a terror attack and today, Sunday, a car bomb rammed a military convoy, killing 8. There were many messages of outrage and condolences posted by Yemenis regarding the murder of the British national. Car bombings are a hallmark of the so called AQAP: the tactic was used in the attacks on two oil facilities in September 2006, on tourists in Marib were killed in July 2007, in the bombing at the Sayoun police station in July 2008. The September US embassy attack also included car bombs, as did the suicide attack on a Zaidi religious procession organized by the Houthis in November 2010 which killed 17. That’s off the top of my head. (Yemen released those murderers responsible for training the driver who carried out the 2007 car bombing which killed two Spanish tourists in Marib after two years in jail, if they even served that much time.)

On Wednesday, a car bomb killed David Tom, David Mockett who worked as a marine surveyer through his office in Al-Mualla St, detonated when he left his office. It was followed by an attack today on a military convoy.

Yemen Post An explosive-laden car was rammed into a military convoy on Sunday morning in Yemen’s business capital Aden killing at least six people including soldiers and the attacker, eyewitnesses were quoted as saying.

Almost twenty others were injured, the website said, quoting medical sources as saying that the death toll is likely to rise.

The suicide attack took place near an air force camp in Al-Mansoura district while it was heading to Abyan province, where the army has been fighting Islamists for almost two months, it quoted military sources as saying.

One guard was killed during the 8 am prison break by 63 prisoners through a tunnel 35 meters long, some were convicted some never tried, many arrested for traveling to Syria to go the Iraq. From Bakeel.net the info and the names are here.

a) the prison warden was replaced two weeks prior to the escape

b) 12 dangerous al Qaeda transferred in to the Hadramout prison from Sanaa prison prior to the escape (just like Jaber Elbaneh was transferred into Sanaa prison before the 2006 escape)

c) later Wednesday firing heard from jail and strange men wandering the streets with guns asking for water

d) use of a drill (like Sanaa escape 2006, as I noted at the time) (Read on …)

a) Drone attacks with civilian casualties could trigger a civil war if the previously unarmed Southern Movement believes it is being arbitrarily attacked by Saleh’s forces or Mohsen’s. Vid of some aircraft bomber in South Yemen is widely assumed to be Saleh’s air force and is provoking panic at the thought of a new bombing campaign like the one that occurred in Saada. (Update: Vid likely not US, has the wrong contrail, vid recorded yesterday and supposedly hit Abyan City. Whereas US air strike was in Shabwa and days earlier.) (Local reporting on Shibuya.)

Update: CNN reports Abu al Harithy Jr. was in Shabwa and the Yemeni government is taking credit on TV.

A U.S. military official with knowledge of the Yemen campaign told CNN that U.S. military-led air operations recently resumed after a pause of some months. He also said the United States believes it likely killed al-Harithi in an airstrike in southern Yemen in recent days. But he cautioned its “very difficult” to confirm the killing.

The official said the pause was due to the fact the United States “didn’t have faith in the information available,” to conduct targeting against individuals in Yemen during that time frame. He could not say what led to the improved intelligence picture, but the Yemeni government has been absorbed with the anti-government demonstrations raging in big cities and fighting tribal forces.

The US also pledged $26 mil in humanitarian aid today.

b) The embedded links in this section lead to contemporaneous posts on the 2006 trial of the 19 member Zarchawi cell headed by Ali Abdullah Naji Al-Harithi, nicknamed Abu Ali Al-Harithi junior. This is the cell that won its appeal to reduced charges by arguing successfully that its legal under Yemeni law to commit murder abroad in the name of jihad. They admitted traveling to Iraq as well as establishing training camps in Yemen. The cell made explosive belts because John Kerry mentioned something about Yemen during a presidential candidates’ debate, but then when he didn’t win, they claimed at trial they gave the belts to the intelligence services. Al Hairthy was killed in a recent US air strike (Friday 6/3) in Yemen per the NYTimes report below.

c) Another thing I will never understand about US CT policy is why Yemen got a total pass from 2004-2007 when literally thousands of jihaddists, Yemeni and non-Yemeni, were being trained in Yemen to kill US troops in Iraq. There is an incorrect concept that there was little AQ activity in Yemen during that time frame, however Yemen was buzzing with activity, receiving and exporting jihaddists. They would leave by the plane load openly. Its reasonable to say half of US military deaths and injuries in Iraq were perpetrated by individuals who in some way were connected with the Yemeni pipe line. That’s a mind boggling statement when Bush was always whining about Syria letting them into Iraq but never once publicly about Saleh letting them out of Yemen. Overview of Yemenis in suicide ops in Iraq as well as coordination with Baathists in Yemen here. Saddams nephew never located as far as I know.

NYT: June 8, 2011
U.S. Is Intensifying a Secret Campaign of Yemen Airstrikes, By MARK MAZZETTI

WASHINGTON — The Obama administration has intensified the American covert war in Yemen, exploiting a growing power vacuum in the country to strike at militant suspects with armed drones and fighter jets, according to American officials.

The acceleration of the American campaign in recent weeks comes amid a violent conflict in Yemen that has left the government in Sana, a United States ally, struggling to cling to power. Yemeni troops that had been battling militants linked to Al Qaeda in the south have been pulled back to the capital, and American officials see the strikes as one of the few options to keep the militants from consolidating power.

On Friday, American jets killed Abu Ali al-Harithi, a midlevel Qaeda operative, and several other militant suspects in a strike in southern Yemen. According to witnesses, four civilians were also killed in the airstrike. Weeks earlier, drone aircraft fired missiles aimed at Anwar al-Awlaki, the radical American-born cleric who the United States government has tried to kill for more than a year. Mr. Awlaki survived. (Read on …)

Like the USS Cole bombers, all the surviving member of the Aden Abyan Islamic Army who kidnapped 16 western tourists in 1998 were ultimately released. The US is trying to get Abu Hamza to the US to stand trial.

NY Times: A British government ruling stripping the Egyptian-born Muslim cleric known as Abu Hamza al-Masri of his British citizenship was struck down Friday by a special immigration court. But government officials said the court’s action would not affect the government’s plan to extradite the cleric to the United States, where he is wanted on terrorism charges. (Read on …)

Of course they did.

The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) : As many as 15,000 people – most of whom are children – have been displaced by the recent clashes, which are based around Mayfa’a district in Shabwah governorate. Air strikes have been reported, UNICEF said yesterday.

Yemen Observer: Al-Qaeda retaliated shortly after Yemen’s security forces drove them out of al-Huta village, in the southern province of Shabwa earlier this week.

Al-Qaeda tried, unsuccessfully late Wednesday , to assassinate the military, security and political leaders who led and supervised the campaign against them in al-Huta.

One soldier was killed and seven others injured when al-Qaeda fighters ambushed the governor of Shabwa Ali Al Ahmadi, deputy chief of general staff, Salem Al Kotn, security director, Ahmad Al Makdashi and other officials in the area of Yashbom, between Atak and al-Saeed. Security forces are chasing after the attackers who used RPGs to strike the convoy of officials. (Read on …)

And then called them al-Qaeda. The local story seems to be the Yemeni security forces attempted to arrest some activists in the southern movement in Loder City, Abyan who argued and refused to go. The soldiers opened fire randomly, provoking clashes. Then they began shelling the city. Three civilians killed and five wounded. Shelling continues. The RPG attack came after the civilian deaths in this version.

The official version: M&C The sources told the German Press Agency dpa that the (al Qaeda) militants fired rocket-propelled grenades at an armoured personnel carrier in the Loudar district of Abyan province, killing eight policemen on the spot.

Update: What a disaster. Now 21 dead. Clashes lasted three hours.

This seems reliable: By AHMED AL-HAJ (AP) –: A Yemeni security official says a clash between troops and civilians at a market in the country’s restive south has left 13 people dead — including 10 soldiers. The official says the clash erupted after military vehicles drove into a market in the town of Lawdar in Abyan province, setting off a quarrel with the townspeople that eventually escalated into an exchange of gunfire…He says three of the townspeople died in Friday’s clash and one military vehicle was set ablaze.

Aden News Agency: استشهد مالايقل عن ثلاثة أشخاص وأصيب خمس آخرون بجراح خطيرة جراء قصف مدفعي نفذته وحدات عسكرية تابعة لقوات الاحتلال اليمنية بمدينة لودر كبرى مدن المنطقة الوسطى عصر اليوم الجمعة Cited at least three people and wounded five others were seriously injured due to artillery shelling was carried out by military units of the occupying forces the Yemeni town of Lauder, the largest city in the central region on Friday afternoon
وقالت مصادر محلية بمدينة لودر كبرى مدن المنطقة الوسطى بمحافظة أبين لـ”وكالة أنباء عدن” ان قوات الجيش اليمنية نفذت قبيل دقائق من الان حملة قصف بالمدفعية استهدفت وسط المدينة وان عدد من قذائف المدفعية سقطت في محيط روضة الأطفال بالقرب من سوق السمك رافقها إطلاق نار من أسلحة متوسطة وخفيفة مسفرة عن سقوط ضحايا . Local sources said the City of Lauder, the largest city in the central province of Abyan of “the news agency of Eden” that the army of Yemen carried out, such as minutes from now campaign artillery shelling targeted the city center and the number of artillery shells in the vicinity of the kindergarten near the fish market was accompanied by fire from Medium and light weapons, thus giving casualties.
وتحصلت “وكالة أنباء عدن” على أسماء عدد من الشهداء بينهم رياض محمد ناصر ناصروه وهو مالك متجر صغير كان بداخله لحظة القصف وادهم الشيابي قتل أثناء مروره وسط السوق العام في المدينة. And social development, “news agency of Aden,” the names of a number of martyrs, including Nasroh Riaz Mohammad Nasser, a shop owner was inside a small moment of the bombing and Adham Alhiappi killed while passing through the center of the public market in the city.
وقال شهود عيان لـ”وكالة أنباء عدن” ان عشرات الشباب من أبناء المدينة هاجموا مدرعة تابعة للجيش ردا على القصف وشوهدوا وهم يقومون بإحراقها بعد هروب الجنود من عليها . Witnesses said the “news agency of Eden” that dozens of young people of the city attacked an armored military response to the bombing and burning were observed after the escape of soldiers from them.

OK they admit bombing the city and it is still going on. MOI is certain its al Qaeda; other officials say maybe members of the Southern Movement. Southerner spokesmen deny.

(AFP) ADEN, Yemen — Eleven soldiers were killed on Friday as the Yemeni army fought gunmen in the southern city of Loder, the interior ministry said, and medics said three civilians also died. The soldiers were killed “in an ambush set up by Al-Qaeda terrorists and outlaws cooperating with them,” the ministry said. (Read on …)

I would think AQIY would haven taken credit as they do for their other failed operations especially after the Nigerian.

Ethioguardinan: British intelligence agents have reopened their investigation into the mysterious crash of an Ethiopian Airlines passenger jet last February after a terror suspect taken into custody in Saudi Arabia confessed it was bombed, according to a report from Joseph Farah’s G2 Bulletin. The information came after the mass arrest of more than 100 al-Qaida terror suspects in the Middle East (Saudi Arabia). (Read on …)