The Houthi rebels are considering a coalition with the Joint Meeting Parties, an opposition alliance in Yemen, Saadaonline reported on Friday. The coalition comes based on the united views of the Houthi and the JMPs of the situation in the country, according to the website.

‘Intellectual and cultural views of the Houthi and the JMPs would not be a roadblock to the coalition that comes within the framework of important and the most important as the situation deepens a day after a day,’ spokesman for the militants was quoted as saying.

The JMPs led by the Islah Party has a realistic view of the current situation in the country, he said, adding that arrangements were underway to solidify the coalition.

Related: Dire Humanitarian Conditions Ignored by West in Rush to Tackle al Qaeda

Islam Online GENEVA – The United Nations is accusing the international community and donors of turning a blind eye to the escalating humanitarian crisis in Yemen, while focusing on security threats.

“The humanitarian situation is just getting worse without any doubt,” John Holmes, UN emergency relief coordinator, told Reuters in an interview.

“Needs are great and in danger of not being met because the international community, the donors, have not responded as we would have hoped.”

The UN appealed late last year for $177 million in humanitarian aid to help some 250,000 people displaced by the ongoing fighting between government troops and Shiite rebels. However, it is only 0.4 percent funded.

“If we don’t get some money, the aid pipeline will run out,” Holmes warned.

The World Food Program (WFP) has warned that its food pipeline is about to break.

The WFP is feeding Yemenis in camps for displaced persons, as well as children in schools and many of the 150,000 Somali refugees in Yemen.

The Yemeni government has been fighting Shiite rebels, known as Houthis, in the northern province of Saada since 2004.

Sanaa accuses the rebels of seeking to reinstate a form of clerical rule that ended with a republican coup in 1962.

The rebels deny the claim, saying they are defending their villages against what they call government aggression.

Saudi Arabia was drawn into the conflict last month when a Saudi border guard was killed and two villages were briefly seized by the rebels.

Security Vs Food

The UN coordinator said that donors were focusing more on security threats than the humanitarian needs in Yemen.

“Yemen has been on the media profile because of the bomber, worries about counter-terrorism and al-Qaeda, and the fragility of Yemen more broadly,” Holmes said.

“But very little attention is being paid to the humanitarian situation.”

I agree completely that the Saudis should stop funding the Sa’ada War (and the hard core religious institutes and tribal Sheiks!) and instead funnel all available funds transparently into development projects. Saudi aid is estimated to be in the billions but it is used to fight the Houthis, spread Wahabbism and keep Yemeni sheiks divorced from both the central government and their own tribal constituencies. Rationalizing Saudi aid could have an immediate impact on stability. For Dr. Al Faqih’s website, click here.

The Challenges of Dealing with Yemen’s Deep Crises (ARI)
by Abdullah Al-faqih ARI 29/2010 – 4/2/2010

Theme: President Saleh’s foremost concern is to keep total economic and political power in his own hands as long as he lives, and to hand it down to his son afterwards. The US and the international community are concerned with the threat posed by al-Qaeda to regional and international peace and many educated Yemenis are concerned about the potential for tension between Saleh’s goal and that of the international community.

Summary: The first decade of the new millennium was supposed to be Yemen’s best in modern times. However, in the summer of 2004 an open-ended rebellion broke out in the Saada region in the far north. By mid 2007, resentment against President Ali Abdullah Saleh’s regime among the population of the southern governorates came to a head, with thousands of people pouring out onto the streets every day. While Saleh is busy waging war against the insurgents in the north and trying hard to quash the massive unrest in the south, Saudi and Yemeni al-Qaeda operatives have merged together in the so called al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP). Any sound strategy to tackle Yemen’s complexities should meet several conditions: (1) it should be comprehensive in scope and inclusive of political, economic and security issues; (2) its priority should be to dismantle the ongoing political conflicts in the north and south; and (3) it should fully engage Saleh using a combination of incentives and disincentives.

Analysis: The first decade of the new millennium was supposed to be Yemen’s best in modern times. President Ali Abdullah Saleh, who came to office in north Yemen in 1978, had by the beginning of the decade survived the unification of the two Yemens, eliminated his southern Socialist opponents in a brief civil war in 1994 and solved his country’s border disputes with Oman, Eritrea and Saudi Arabia. He also centralised power in his own hands and in the hands of his very loyal sons, brothers, nephews and in-laws, and weakened all potential competitors within his family, clan, larger tribe, ruling and opposition parties, the country as a whole, and even among Yemeni politicians living in exile. While grooming his son Colonel Ahmed to succeed him, Saleh perhaps thought he had brought Yemen’s history to an end.

But by the middle of the decade, Saleh’s greatest achievements began to crumble. In the summer of 2004 an open-ended rebellion broke out in the Saada region in the far north with the government in Sana’a accusing a Shiite group called the Houthis of trying to reinstate Imamate rule, which had dominated Yemen’s history for more than a millennium before it was finally overthrown in 1962. In 2005 Yemen’s divided opposition, which Saleh had succeeded in weakening, surprised him by adopting a shared comprehensive reform agenda, calling among other things for a parliamentary government similar to those found in India, the UK and many other genuinely democratic countries. In the late summer of 2006 the opposition rallied behind a single candidate to challenge Saleh in the first reasonably competitive presidential election in the country’s history.

By mid 2007, resentment against Saleh’s regime among the population of the southern governorates, the former South Yemen, came to a head with thousands of people pouring out onto the streets on a daily basis. To make things even worse, the booming oil revenues on which Saleh’s regime depended to meet the country’s need for hard currency, took a nose dive by the end of 2008, depriving the country in 2009 of almost 65% of its foreign revenues. While Saleh is busy waging war against the insurgents in the north and trying hard to quash the massive unrest in the south, Saudi and Yemeni al-Qaeda operatives have merged together in the so called al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP).

Saleh, who celebrated 31 years in office in July of last year, often quotes an old Yemeni adage, telling journalists and visitors: ‘ruling Yemen is like dancing over the heads of snakes’. In saying so, Saleh is probably trying to imply that ruling Yemen is no easy task and that he is the only dancer in town who can manage not to be bitten. But the convergence of Yemen’s mighty challenges –a war in the north, a secessionist movement in the south, AQAP and the economic crisis– casts a dark shadow of doubt not only on the dancer’s ability to perform but on the stability of the stage itself.

War in the North
For most of Yemen’s history in the Islamic era, political, economic and social power was dominated by the Hashemites, comprising around 12% of Yemen’s current population of 24 million. The Hashemites, who claim to be descendants of the Prophet Mohammed through the sons of his daughter Fatimah, ruled Yemen intermittently for some 11 centuries. They legitimised their reign exploiting two mechanisms: (a) the teachings of Zaidism, a very moderate Shiite school followed by roughly a quarter of Yemen’s total population; and (b) a carefully crafted and maintained social structure in which one’s political, economic and social roles were determined by lineage.

In September 1962 the Hashemites’ theocratic rule in North Yemen was abruptly brought to an end when a group of military officers backed by Gamal Abdul Nasser of Egypt took over the Imam’s palace and declared the establishment of a Republic. The event marked the beginning of a six-year civil war between the Republicans supported by Nasser and the Royalists backed by the Saudis. With the Royalists failing repeatedly to capture the capital, the two sides finally agreed on a power-sharing deal which preserved the Republican regime but tilted power towards an alliance of Zaidi sheiks and military officers, who come from the two very powerful northern Zaidi tribes: Hashid and Bakeel. One unresolved issue in the new regime was and still is the question of religious legitimacy. According to the Yemeni Constitution and laws, any Yemeni can be a legitimate ruler, but in Zaidi doctrines only a Hashemite male fulfilling certain conditions can be a legitimate Imam.

For Hashemites and tribesmen sharing power in the Republican era, the question of what makes a legitimate Imam served as a dividing factor. Therefore, consecutive republican Presidents, who came from strong and heavily-armed northern tribes, tried constantly to undermine the Zaidi faith in order to prevent a come-back by the Hashemites. By contrast, the Hashemites of the Zaidi sect defied attempts to assimilate them into the mainstream Sunni sect. Parties to the conflict, however, succeeded in keeping their differences within certain well-defined limits. The dynamics of political conflict between the two groups were transformed only after the unification of Yemen. On the one hand, the newly-founded Republic of Yemen (RoY) embraced a fairly open political system that allowed citizens to exercise some political and civil rights, including forming political parties and interest groups, establishing and owning newspapers and freedom of expression. On the other, the Zaidi Hashemites of northern Yemen sought to take advantage of newly introduced reforms by allying themselves with the Socialists of the south –some of them secularised Sunni Hashemites–.

In turn, and fearing the impact of racial affinities, President Saleh supported the creation and expansion of the Yemeni Congregation for Reform –known by its Arabic short name Islah (reform)– as an Islamic-oriented Sunni party comprising Yemen’s Muslim Brotherhood and other Sunni and Zaidi groups close to the regime. Apparently, Saleh wanted first to balance the Socialists of the south with the Islamists of the north, and then to further weaken the potential for a come-back by the northern Hashemites. Concurrently, Saleh also made sure to divide the Hashemites into several political parties, preventing them from establishing a unified political force.

In the summer of 1994 Saleh, with the support of the newly-founded Islah, defeated his southern Socialist rivals in a brief civil war that lasted for about 70 days. In the aftermath of the war, Saleh started to shift his political alliances gradually away from Sunni Islah towards a Zaidi group called the Youth Believers (YB), that portrayed itself as a revivalist group within the Zaidi sect. Possible reasons for the shift were many but the most important were Saleh’s worry about the growing power and influence of Islah –perceived to be supported by the Saudis– as well as his desire to pursue old policies of undermining Zaidism, this time by encouraging new trends seeking the legitimisation of his reign. In addition, Saleh faced strong pressure to settle his country’s border dispute with the Saudis, and by supporting the Youth Believers –who were concentrated in border areas– he might have sought to counterbalance Saudi influence itself and not only pro-Saudi political forces. In supporting the Youth Believers, Saleh allowed them to establish religious schools to teach Zaidism, receive Iranian support and have their textbooks printed by the government. Saleh also provided them with a modest monthly allowance, the exact amount of which has always been disputed.

It is not quite clear how the relationship between the Youth Believers and Saleh changed over the course of 10 years from alliance to rivalry. What is evident is that during the period Yemen did witness many internal and external developments affecting not only Saleh’s regime but also the Zaidi revivalist group. Internally, Saleh’s concerns for his own political survival and for retaining power within his own family afterwards seem to have collided with the Youth Believers’ growing influence and independence. Externally, Saleh solved his country’s border problems with the Saudis and he badly needed to offset the Sunni Saudi’s fear of a growing radical Shiite group on its southern front.

After concluding a border agreement with Saudi Arabia, Saleh pursued a policy of containing the Youth Believers by various means, including strengthening his support for a Saudi-backed and presumably apolitical Salafi movement. Included in the Salafi movement are groups such as the revivalists al-Hikmah al-Yamaniah Anthropic Association and the traditional Dar al-Hadith. In return, the Youth Believers exploited Saleh’s alliance with the US in the global war on terrorism and adopted the famous Shiite slogan ‘God is great, death to America, death to Israel’. The Youth Believers’ followers began chanting the slogan in mosques and daubing it on walls around Yemen’s capital city. In response, Saleh ordered a crack-down, eventually apprehending and jailing scores of Youth Believers’ followers. But when he sent troops to the Saada region in June 2004 to capture Hussein Badr al-Din al-Houthi, the leader of the Youth Believers, after whom the group would later be named, the Youth Believers responded violently and the event marked the beginning of the first war. Since 2004 Yemen has witnessed an average of one war per year, with the sixth round of violence starting in August 2009 and continuing to the present.

The Saada war has served as a catalyst for the failure of the Yemeni state by draining the country’s limited resources, encouraging southerners to challenge the regime, creating a haven for al-Qaeda and eroding Saleh’s legitimacy. Nevertheless, Saleh seems unwilling to accept the Houthis as a political and social force. In fact, the weaker he becomes, the more he is insisting on a military solution to this political conflict.

Calls for Secession in the South
Having militarily won the political conflict with his southern partners in the process of unification, Saleh’s victory and subsequent policies shattered the national feelings that served as the driving force for unity. The northern military, tribal and jihadist invasion of the south in 1994 looted community, state, and private assets, including state buildings, equipment and most of the country’s land, which was publicly owned under the command economy followed in the south during the period from 1970 to 1990. In addition, the government adopted policies that intentionally or unintentionally led to the cultural, political and economic marginalisation of southerners. Most senior and junior officials ended up in exile or were forced to take early retirement, or chose just to quit their jobs and seek refuge in the seclusion of their homes. Names of streets, schools, TV and Radio stations and other public places were changed as a part of a comprehensive unwritten policy of erasing any memory of the past. Public enterprises of the former southern state were privatised –usually sold to officials in highly corrupt deals–. As it turned out, southern Yemenis lost more than the war of 1994: humiliated by defeat, most southerners went unheard, while others staged small-scale protests but faced brutal repression.

When, in 1995, the government started to implement an economic restructuring programme aimed at stabilising the economy, it focused primarily on cutting expenditure on social programmes and withdrawing subsidies from basic commodities. The southerners, whose lives were completely dependent on public programmes, were hit the hardest. While the northern-dominated government in Sana’a relied for survival on revenues from resources extracted from the south, the people of the south were by the beginning of the new millennium living on the sidelines of the national economy. Rocketing inflation consumed their income and the economic restructuring programme deprived them of free education, health and other public services.

After approximately 13 years of deprivation and frustration, southerners finally took to the streets, sometimes in their hundreds of thousands. There were many factors responsible for the southerners’ outrage, but three stand out. The first is the failure of the September 2006 presidential elections to produce any meaningful change in terms of leadership or policies. In fact, the strong show by the opposition parties during the election led Saleh to adopt tougher policies. Surprised by a strong campaign against his policies and leadership style, and by the southern-born opposition candidate’s refusal to accept the results as legitimate, Saleh viewed the whole affair as a personal insult and in retaliation began his new term in office by imposing measures restricting the freedom of expression and travel. Activists who backed his opponent during the election were jailed and tried in fabricated cases or in cases related to acts during the campaign. While the election campaign weakened Saleh vis-à-vis his challengers from within his ruling General People’s Congress and from opposition parties, his reaction has been to concentrate power and wealth and centralise decision-making in his inner circle. The second and third factors contributing to the uprising in the south have been the regime’s inability to crush the insurrection of the Houthis in the far north and the deterioration in their living conditions.

When the southern movement started in mid-2007, it was led by ad hoc organisations formed by military and security retirees. At the time, protesters called for the return to service, promotion and compensation of those southerners who were forced to take early retirement or lost their jobs after the 1994 civil war. They also called for the return of land confiscated by powerful –mostly northern– military officers and sheiks.

Shocked by the magnitude and intensity of the protests, the government adopted a dual carrot and stick policy. On the one hand, it tried to reinstate, raise salaries and promote those who were forced to retire or had lost their jobs. It also sought to buy out influential leaders in the protest movement by appointing them to senior government positions and giving them cars, houses and other benefits. It tried, on the other hand, to repress the movement. Between mid-2007 and the end of 2009, scores of protesters and policemen were killed and thousands of people were detained for varying periods of time. Government repression increased rapidly as protesters started calling for the secession of the south although its ability to do so had significantly declined, leading it to lose control over certain areas. Some argue that the government might have been supporting jihadists to counter secessionist groups, a policy that aggravated the situation in some areas. In such a context of chaos and weak or missing government control, AQAP began to expand and establish training camps.

The Resurrection of al-Qaeda
The roots of the terror groups in Yemen lie in the dynamics of inter- and intra-Yemeni political conflicts. During the 1970s and 80s, religious extremism was encouraged by both the Yemeni and Saudi governments as a strategy to contain the Marxists in the south. Later on, the task of the Yemeni jihadists would be expanded to liberating Afghanistan from the Soviet occupation. In less than a decade, the Yemeni jihadists could claim several triumphs: (1) victory against the Marxist forces in the north who, with the backing of the Communist regime in the south, were trying to topple Saleh’s regime; (2) the expulsion of the Soviets from Afghanistan; (3) the disintegration of the Soviet Union; and (4) the reunification of the two Yemens –an event directly linked to the collapse of the Communist regimes around the globe–.

By the end of the 1980s and the beginning of the 1990s, the Yemeni jihadists began to return home. But they were not alone on their return trip. Many of their international comrades, unable to return to their countries out of fear of prosecution, found in the newly-founded Republic of Yemen a haven. While the chaos resulting from the hasty unification of the two Yemens may have played a role in attracting the so-called Arab Afghans, some argue that they came to Yemen because they had a role to play, a new round of jihad, this time against the Yemeni left in general and members of the Yemeni Socialist Party (YSP) in particular. In the first few years of unification, Yemen witnessed a wave of terror attacks mostly targeting leaders of the YSP and of parties close to it.

In the 1994 civil war between the ruling northern and southern elites, Yemeni and Arab jihadists, who fought in Afghanistan, took Saleh’s side in the war. In return, the government rewarded the jihadists in various ways. Yemenis were incorporated into security and military forces and some groups, especially in the south, were encouraged as a way of containing the moderate Islah. Some Arab jihadists were incorporated into formal and informal educational institutions, but most of them would soon be forced out of Yemen due to mounting pressure on the government from other countries in the aftermath of terror attacks in Saudi Arabia, Egypt and elsewhere involving elements believed to be operating from Yemen.

In the years after September 11 terrorist attacks, Saleh, who had resisted the idea of allowing US investigators access to detainees accused of attacking the USS Cole in October 2000 in the Gulf of Aden, willingly or unwillingly joined the international war on terror. In 2002 he allowed US drones to assassinate some al-Qaeda leaders on Yemeni soil. He later entered into a controversial dialogue programme with al-Qaeda, apparently giving them some financial benefits and allowing them to move freely. The latest resurrection of al-Qaeda can be attributed to three main factors: (1) the Yemeni government was pressured by the international community to restrict the movement of al-Qaeda operatives and prevent them from travelling to Iraq to engage in the jihad, much to the annoyance of al-Qaeda; (2) as the government’s financial resources dwindled, al-Qaeda operatives asked for more, while the government was unable to deliver; and (3) the intensification of political conflict –electoral or by other means– made the Yemeni regime reluctant to hunt down al-Qaeda members, either because they represented a potential ally in the regime’s war for survival, because the regime did not perceive al-Qaeda as a threat compared to other challenges or because the regime had become too weak to confront it.

As to the spark that triggered the recent events, it is very likely that the US was aware that al-Qaeda was plotting an attack against the US and, as a result, sought to foil the plan by carrying out –alone or in cooperation with the Yemeni government– the pre-emptive attacks that were finally launched on 17 and 24 December 2009. This assumption is supported by mounting evidence, including the following: (a) the father of the Nigerian youth Umar Farouk Abdulmutalib, who tried to blow up a Northwest Airlines plane, contacted US intelligence in early December and informed them of his son’s affiliation with al-Qaeda and his last call from Yemen; (b) the American media were at the time concerned about the role played by the US-born preacher Anwar al-Awlaqi, who is resident in Yemen, in the Fort Hood attack; (c) US officials had repeatedly expressed worries about AQAP’s exploitation of Yemen’s security conditions to establish itself and recruit and train new members; (d) Abdulmutalib, who left Yemen in early December, did not immediately head towards the US; (e) the US strikes targeted areas believed to have been the places where al-Awlaqi was hiding and in which Abdulmutalib is believed to have been trained and equipped with explosives; (f) AQAP operatives came out and threatened to retaliate after the first attack on 17 December; and (g) Saleh would have never allowed the US to strike areas controlled by one of his very important political allies –the Awlaqi tribe– unless he had been convinced that there was an eminent threat against the US.

A Rentier Economy
During the era of division, the two Yemens depended on a rentier economy, with the south relying on the Soviets and the north depending on the Gulf countries. After unification in 1990, Yemen faced its most serious economic crisis. This was largely due to its stance on the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait, that led it to be viewed by its neighbours and by the international community as a backer of the Iraqi dictator. To punish Yemen, the Saudis expelled hundreds of thousands of Yemeni workers and, as a result, the country lost not only its workers’ remittances but also development aid, taking the Yemeni economy very close to collapse.

At the time, the international financial institutions and the Yemeni government agreed in 1995 on a reform programme to stabilise the economy. The premise of the reform was to fund investments and create new jobs for the unemployed. But the programme had mixed results. On the one hand, the government succeeded in stabilising the economy; on the other, savings from the withdrawal of subsidies largely ended up in the pockets of corrupt officials. The reform programme ground to complete halt, especially after Yemen’s oil revenues started to rise, first because of increased production and afterwards due to rising oil prices.

While paying donors lip service, the Yemeni government evaded implementing any genuine reform that could have a negative effect on Saleh’s grip on power. In fact, Saleh has been keen to concentrate investments in the hands of his relatives and of those whose loyalty to him and his heir apparent is unquestionable. The outcome of Saleh’s self-serving policies has been catastrophic. Poverty grew so fast that it came to affect most of the population, making Yemen the poorest country not only in the Arab world but also in the Middle East and the world in general, aside from Sub-Saharan Africa. Levels of corruption climbed to new heights and the institutions responsible for holding public officials to account were further weakened to give corrupt officials full immunity from prosecution. Over a period of almost 20 years, the Yemeni House of Representatives was unable to impeach even a single official. Corrupt and incompetent officials were recruited on the basis of kinship and personal loyalty and have rendered state institutions almost useless by personifying the functions of those institutions.

Conclusion

The Way Out
President Saleh’s foremost concern is to retain total economic and political power in his own hands as long as he lives, and to hand it down to his son afterwards. The US and the international community are concerned about the threat al-Qaeda poses to regional and international peace and many educated Yemenis are concerned about the potential for tension between Saleh’s goal and that of the international community. Of all his enemies in the south and north, al-Qaeda appears to be the least dangerous and less of a threat to what he values most. In fact, he has had it on his side on at least few occasions. Saleh might not be using al-Qaeda or the Houthis to blackmail neighbouring and friendly countries, as some of his critics often suggest, but it is obvious that he lacks a strong incentive to be rid of al-Qaeda once and for all or to reach a settlement with the Houthis. With Saleh and his country’s future depending largely on what the outside world says and does, al-Qaeda is an insurance policy for dancer and stage, but can also become an accelerator for the collapse of both of them.

The international community’s options in Yemen are very limited. On the one hand, it cannot turn its back on Yemen without risking disastrous consequences; on the other, it cannot rally behind Saleh against his opponents either in the north or south or even against al-Qaeda alone while leaving the other two for Saleh to handle alone. Any sound strategy to tackle Yemen’s complexities should meet several conditions: (1) it should be comprehensive in scope and inclusive of political, economic and security issues; (2) it should aim as its priority to dismantle the ongoing political conflicts in the north and south –the Saudis, in particular, should immediately stop paying the bills of the war in the north and direct the money instead towards development and reconstruction–; and (3) the international community should fully engage Saleh using a combination of incentives and disincentives.

Containing the secessionist movement in the south and preventing Yemen from degenerating into a Somalia-like state will require restructuring and strengthening the Yemeni state and political system in ways that will allow meaningful power-sharing, accountability, the de-personalisation of power and the rule of law. Parliamentarianism, deep decentralisation, bicameralism, proportional representation and free media are all key components to any viable solution to Yemen’s current myriad problems. The separation of south and north is almost impossible and if allowed could lead to the breakdown of the country as a whole into warring tribes, sects, regions and ideological orientations. As in Afghanistan, Somalia, Iraq and elsewhere, only extremist groups focusing on passion and advocating terror can gain advantage in the event of a split.

Abdullah Al-faqih
Writer, activist and Professor of Political Science at Sana’a University, Yemen

The raid occurred within the ferocious campaign against journalists and southern political activists and their families. Authorities arrested Alsoolani’s younger brother Saleh Hussein Alsoolani 25 years, and his relatives Salah Al-ganhi 19-yeara and Ali Al-ganhi 15 years. They were taken and confined to the Political Security Prison (Alfateh).

According to our sources there, the security soldiers beat the detainees with rifle butts.

Within the last year, Yemeni security authorities raided the homes and arrested of many southern journalists and confined them to the prisons in Sana’a. Currently held are Salah Al-sakldi’ detained since April of last year and Salah Rashed editor of Almukla press .com Also Hesham Basharaheel editor of Al-Ayyam daily, along with his two sons. Journalist Ahmed Al-rabeezi and a hundred of the southern political activists been in prison more in one year without trial.

President Obama said he hopes to communicate to “Muslims around the world that al Qaeda offers nothing except a bankrupt vision of misery and death, including the murder of fellow Muslims, while the United States stands with those who seek justice and progress.” The hypocrisy is stunning.

The US administration is well aware that Saleh’s government is committing atrocities against civilians that rise to the level of war crimes. In a Darfur-like conflict in Sa’ada, northern Yemen, collective punishment of Shiite civilians includes indiscriminate bombing and intentional starvation. A former recruiter for Usama bin Laden leads the military with the help of tribal militias, former Iraqi army officers and foreign jihaddists. Over 200,000 are homeless from the war and largely deprived of aid. When Oxfam warned of a “humanitarian catastrophe of terrifying proportions,” the Yemeni Health Minister threatened to expel the organization.

Journalists who report on the carnage are tried as terrorists, like Abdulkarim al Khaiwani, or disappear like Mohammed al Maqaleh, who reported an air strike that killed 87 war refugees in September and hasn’t been seen since.

In south Yemen, police shot and killed dozens of anti-government protesters since 2007. Thousands were arrested. (Torture in Yemeni jails is brutal.) At a recent demonstration, southerners raised the US flag like a distress signal for rescue from tyranny. Funeral marches snake for miles along dusty roads.

If bombed starving children, disappeared journalists and bloody protesters aren’t enough for those who ascribe to the strongman theory of Middle Eastern politics, there’s also Yemen’s consistent duplicity on the terror issue.

President Saleh is a long time al Qaeda appeaser who relies on militants as an essential base of support and deploys terrorists as mercenaries. It’s no surprise Yemen’s al Qaeda morphed into a transnational threat or that its leadership survived a recent spate of Yemeni air strikes. The surprise is that the US is staking its security on President Saleh, the King of Spin.

Saleh promised to reform after the 2000 USS Cole bombing, the 2002 Limburgh bombing and after qualifying for the Millennium Challenge Account in 2005. He said things were going to be different after the 2006 donor’s conference and the 2008 US Embassy attack that killed 13. In Yemen, al Qaeda is dubbed “the other face of the regime” in reference to the multi-tiered enmeshment between the two. Officials covertly provide training, transport and passports to jihaddists. When Yemen needs fighters, it releases terrorists from jail and puts them on the payroll.

If Obama’s goal is to push back on the terror threat from Yemen for a few years, then Saleh’s messy air strikes, botched raids and half hearted hunting may achieve some limited disruption. But at the root of Yemen’s growing terror threat is elite, not popular, support for al Qaeda. In 1994’s civil war between north and south Yemen, Saleh used veterans of bin Laden’s Afghan jihad to defeat the “Godless communists” in the south. Some of these bin Laden loyalists are now military commanders, governors and ambassadors.

Conventional wisdom holds that al Qaeda fanatics could raise a small army in such a poverty stricken, rowdy and largely illiterate country. Saudi money funds the spread of hard core Salafism while most rural areas have no clean water, electricity or medical services. Jobs go to government loyalists. But instead of lining up as suicide bombers, Yemenis all over the country are protesting for civil rights.

Yemen is not, as Maureen Dowd said, a place “that breeds people who want to kill us.” Yemenis are a kind hearted and courageous people. Last week, Women Journalists Without Chains led the 31th weekly demonstration to support banned newspapers. When ten Sana’a University professors, Academics against Corruption, were fired for exposing massive theft, protesters took to the streets in solidarity. In Aden, security forces strafed a peaceful sit-in at al Ayyam Newspaper, an award winning independent banned in May. Police set the offices on fire and arrested its editors, claiming they were hunting al Qaeda.

The Yemeni people have their own narrative that delegitimizes al Qaeda’s bloody imperialism. In Yemen, democracy is not a dirty American word but a constitutional right denied by a thuggish regime.

Despite the smiling assurances of Yemen’s legion of Baghdad Bobs, Yemen’s government is a brutal mafia. The idea that has broad resonance in Yemen is not the coming of the global caliphate, but the coming of the democratic state.

What Yemen needs, if not a war crimes tribunal, is a major crimes tribunal to purge corrupt officials and foster governmental legitimacy. Yemen’s public funds and lands, foreign aid and oil revenue were stolen by President Saleh and his relatives for decades, while millions of children wither from malnutrition and never attend school. Stability will be achieved when the Yemeni oligarchy accounts for its crimes against the nation. Maybe with amnesty, they’ll leave quietly and a caretaker government of Yemeni technocrats can take the reins with little bloodshed.

by Jane for 9/11 Families for a Safe and Strong America

Houthi’s Ceasefire Offer Spurned
Saada War Rages On
By RANNIE AMIRI

To understand the true motive behind the relentless bombardment, one only need return to the primary demand of the rebels: an end to the ever-increasing socioeconomic marginalization and religious discrimination of the Zaidi community in Yemen.

This war was not just to aid the fledging Saleh regime in combating an enemy far less threatening to its existence than al-Qaeda, but to send a clear message to Saudi Arabia’s own citizens who suffer the same systemic and institutionalized discrimination as do the Zaidis. Namely, Shia Muslims, Ismaili Muslims, Sufi Muslims and any who dare challenge the authority of the House of al-Saud or the doctrines of the officially-sanctioned Wahabi school of thought.

As I mentioned in my article, US flags are popping up at southern demonstrations “like a distress signal for rescue from tyranny.”

Aden News Agency:

Local sources in Aden – one the largest cities in the south of Yemen- have declared that the political prisoner ( Faris Zeid Abullkareem Tamah ) was killed by the police of Al-Malla’a city in Aden, after being kept there for days, while the circumstances of his death still unknown until this moment.

Relatives of (Tammah) declared that he was arrested in Abyan coast last week while he was listening to the singer ( Aboud Khawaga ) in a black Landcruiser.

The dead “Tammah” – 28 year old – has come from the K.S.A, where he used to work, to spend his vacation, while he lived in Al-Hbilein city, in the north of Aden .

And we have been informed that crowds of tribesmen from Masha’la in Yafie gather in Al-Hbilein city to think over the accident, while Masha’la –his hometown- live a in a state of emergency

A Yemeni provincial opposition politician thought to be active in a southern separatist movement was gunned down in south Yemen, his party and local residents said on Monday.

The Yemeni Socialist Party said Saeed Ahmed Abdullah bin Daoud was shot dead on Friday in the southern town of Zanjibar in Abyan province, adding on its website that the province was in “an unprecedented state of disorder”.

Zanjibar residents said bin Daoud, a member of the Socialist party’s leadership committee in the town, was also involved with southern separatists seeking independence from the central government.

There was no immediate word on the reasons for the killing.

Saudi Gazette Pakistani built bomb to kill Prince, says Yemeni official
By Abdullah Al-Oraifij
ABYAN, Yemen – Dramatic new claims have been made that a Pakistani explosives expert was responsible for manufacturing the bomb that was used by a suicide bomber in a failed attempt to assassinate Prince Muhammad Bin Naif Bin Abdul Aziz, Assistant Interior Minister for Security Affairs at his palace in Jeddah last August.
Talking to Okaz, Ahmad Al-Maseeri, Governor of Abyan in Yemen, said that the man who made the explosive capsule, used by Abdullah Hasan Al-Asiri in his attempt to kill the Prince, was a Pakistani.
The Pakistani expert was killed sometime last year, after being blown up by his own explosive device, said Al-Maseeri.
Al-Maseeri claimed that the man had trained many members of Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula on ways to build and detonate explosive devices. “The Pakistani expert was highly skilled in making explosive devices and had been teaching and training some individuals in Al-Qaeda on how to make and use explosives.”
Al-Maseeri said that Yemeni security forces had found Al-Qaeda hideouts which contained documents on ways to make and use explosive devices. He said Yemeni forces had found explosives and explosive belts similar to the substances found in the explosive capsule used by Al-Asiri in his attempt to kill Prince Muhammad. Death of the expert
Al-Maseeri also claimed that the Pakistani had died sometime last year. He said it was before an air raid carried out by the Yemeni Air Force, which targeted a training camp of Al-Qaeda in the Al-Ma’jalah area on Dec. 17, 2009, in which 24 men including two Saudis were killed.
He said Yemeni forces believe that the Pakistani expert was killed by an explosive charge he was making. It is also believed that Al-Qaeda had hidden the news of his death.
He said it was uncertain at this stage whether the Pakistani expert was killed in a house that exploded in the south of Saada which resulted in the death of three wanted Saudis – Muhammad Al-Rashed, Fahd Al-Jittaili and Sultan Al-Qahtani, who were reported dead on Sep. 14, 2009.
However, it was certain that the three of them were implicated in the failed assassination attempt against Prince Muhammad.

Poisons expert
Al-Maseeri also claimed that another Pakistani, also a supporter of Al-Qaeda, had been involved in assassination operations using poisonous gases and other lethal substances.
He said Al-Qaeda was relying on these two Pakistani experts, to prepare and train elements from Al-Qaeda on how to carry out operations using explosives and poisonous substances.
He said Al-Qaeda started developing smaller explosive devices, instead of using other methods like rigged vehicles. This was to enable them to cross checkpoints relatively unnoticed. They were badly in need of experts to help them build bombs that could not be detected easily.
Al-Maseeri added that he did not have any documented information about the training of the Nigerian Omar Al-Farouk Abdul Muttalib, at the Al-Qaeda camp in Abyan, who tried to blow up an American passenger plane in December last year. However, he claimed that Al-Qaeda had been planning to carry out retaliatory attacks after suffering setbacks in Yemen.
The death of the Pakistani explosives expert is a reminder of another explosives expert, Medhat Mursi Al-Sayyed, also known as Abu Khabab Al-Misri, who was captured in an American raid on a Pakistani border tribal area in January 2006. There had been a $5 million award for his arrest.
Sources said that Al-Asiri, the man who tried to assassinate Prince Muhammad, had received training for months at an Al-Qaeda camp in Yemen on explosives and poisonous substances, along with other Saudis and other nationals from the Arabian Peninsula. This was confirmed by the Saudi Ministry of Interior when it published the name of Al-Asiri on its list of 85 wanted militants last February.
The ministry’s statement indicated that Al-Asiri was trained in Yemen to use various lethal weapons and poisonous and explosive substances. He had also joined a terrorist cell tasked with assassinations and targeting oil installations.

Al-Qaeda Saudis
The Governor of Abyan said there were 18 Saudis among more than 100 Al-Qaeda members included in the Saudi and Yemeni list of wanted terrorists. These men were hiding in mountainous areas in the triangle of Shabwa, Marib and Abyan.
He said these men were constantly on the move to avoid being caught. He pointed out that the presence of the security forces had forced them to stay in the mountainous areas.

Medicines and financing
Al-Maseeri said a number of Al-Qaeda elements were seen recently fetching medicine and other medical equipment for their injured colleagues, according to information provided by pharmacists.
The governor admitted that Al-Qaeda had been able to get aid with the help of non-Yemenis in the organization. The aid was brought in four months ago, it had been determined by their intelligence.

Internationally wanted
The governor emphasized that the Yemeni authorities were determined to root out all Al-Qaeda elements from their territory. The Yemeni Air Force was constantly watching suspicious locations.
He said the Abyan tribes have supported efforts of the security forces and have rejected the presence of the terrorists, labeling them as “evil”.
He said many of the Al-Qaeda men were wanted by both regional and international authorities.

Burial of its members
Al-Maseeri said that although Al-Qaeda bury their people immediately when they die, the security forces had recognized two Saudis killed in the strikes at Al-Maja’la where the Yemeni Abu Saleh Al-Kazami was killed on Dec. 17, 2009.
He also confirmed the killing of the military field commander of the organization, Qassim Al-Rimi, in the Al-Ajachir operation located between Saada and Jouf. – Okaz/SG

al Arabiya: Yemen on Sunday arrested the second biggest arms dealer in the country just days after the capture of another top dealer, whose weapons depot was stolen by rebels fighting the government in the north, Al Arabiya TV reported.

Hussein Hussein was arrested along with his son “without confrontation” in northern Saada province and were transported by helicopter to the capital Sanaa, a local security source said

The arrest came four days after authorities arrested Sheikh Fares Manaa, a brother of Saada’s governor, and the biggest arms dealer in the country.

The government had put Manaa’s name at the top of a blacklist of arms dealers published on the front page of the official Ath-Thawra newspaper last October.

Houthi rebels stole from several arms depots belonging to Manaa a month ago, but he failed to inform the authorities immediately, allowing time for the rebels to escape with 20 truckloads of arms, according to the source.

The incident angered Sanaa, which has been fighting the Shiite rebels in the north of the country sporadically since 2004.

Manaa formerly headed a committee mediating in the war between the government and the Houthis