Monday, June 9, 2008
Death sentence for Yemen 'rebel'
A court in Yemen has sentenced one man to death and jailed 13 others for forming an armed group.
Defendants were convicted of having links with Shia rebels, who have been involved in fighting with the security forces in north Yemen.
The man sentenced to death has been named as Jafar al-Murhabi, but no reason has been given for the much tougher sentence he received.
The other defendants received jail terms of up to 10 years.
The defendants were convicted of charges relating to plots to attack Yemeni troop transporters and government buildings, and contaminate water supplies to military bases.
Some were also found guilty of killing two security officials who died chasing "criminals", court papers said.
One of those jailed was journalist Abdulkarim al-Khaywani.
Khaywani, who was jailed for six years, was editor of a weekly newspaper al-Shura.
Yemen's union of journalists condemned the sentence. (BBC)
Labels: Yemen
Saturday, June 7, 2008
In Yemen, a Mostly Concealed Sectarian Fight Endures
The boom of explosions swept across the high-walled compounds and minarets of this ancient Arab capital before dawn one day last week, as Shiite rebels battled for control of a mountain overlooking the city and its airport.
Government warplanes backed by artillery rebuffed the rebels, the latest skirmish in a largely hidden sectarian conflict that has drawn increasing attention from Sunni-ruled Saudi Arabia, Shiite Iran and Sunni extremists eager for a fight.
"I believe this war is a proxy war," Yemeni lawmaker Ahmed Saif Hashed said in Sanaa, where civilians of the same Shiite sect as the rebels say they are facing increasing detentions, beatings and surveillance.
The rebellion is being mounted by Yemen's Hashemite Shiites, who ruled the country for more than a 1,000 years until an alliance of Shiite and Sunni military officers deposed them in 1962. Yemen's president, Ali Abdullah Saleh, belongs to the country's larger Shiite community, known as the Zaidis.
Giving the conflict a sectarian cast, his forces have been joined by Sunni tribesmen and extremists in battling the Hashemite rebels, whom the government says are supported by Iran. The rebels say they want only their share of development, resources and power. (Washington Post)
Sunday, June 1, 2008
Qaeda claims failed attack on oil refinery in Yemen
An al Qaeda-linked group claimed responsibility on Saturday for a mortar attack on a refinery in Yemen, which officials said did not cause any damage, according to an Internet statement.
Three blasts were heard on Friday at the refinery in the southern port city of Aden, officials said.
"Al Qaeda Organisation in the Arabian Peninsula -- Yemen Soldiers Brigades -- carried out the blessed operation with three mortar shells ... on the refinery used by Yemen's despot to supply fuel to the Crusaders (Western states) in their war against Islam," the group said on an Islamist website.
The group, which has vowed to win the freedom of jailed comrades, has claimed responsibility for several such attacks in recent months, including a shelling in March near the U.S. embassy which injured 13 schoolgirls and five Yemeni soldiers. (Reuters)
Friday, May 30, 2008
Gunman attacks mosque in Yemen
At least eight people have been killed after a gunman opened fire on worshippers at a mosque in Yemen, officials have said.
Many others were reported to have been injured in the attack in Amran province, north of the capital, Sanaa.
Following the shooting, the gunman was arrested and taken for questioning, officials said.
Yemen has seen renewed fighting between government forces and Shia rebels in the north of the country.
A number of attacks targeting foreigners in Yemen have been linked to al-Qaeda.
Eighteen people were killed in a bombing at a mosque in the northern city of Saada earlier this month. (BBC)
Labels: Yemen
Wednesday, May 28, 2008
A Bin Laden Brother's Ambitious Bridge Project
Nobody has walked across the Red Sea since Moses parted the waters. But it could happen again under an audacious plan to build the world's longest suspension bridge between Africa and the Arabian Peninsula.
If built, the bridge would cross the Red Sea at an 18-mile-wide strait known as the Bab al-Mandeb, or Gate of Tears, connecting the southern tip of Yemen with the tiny East African country of Djibouti. Estimated price tag: $10 billion to $20 billion.
The proposal is turning heads in the Middle East, and not just because it would make engineering history. The developer of the project is a Dubai-based firm headed by Tarek bin Laden, an elder brother of the world's most famous terrorist.
The bin Laden family, from Saudi Arabia, has operated a construction empire for decades. In the mid-1990s, the clan cut its financial ties with Osama bin Laden, founder of al-Qaeda, around the time he declared war on the United States and called for the overthrow of the Saudi ruling family.
Since then, the rest of the bin Ladens -- Osama has 24 half brothers and 29 half sisters -- have quietly gone on with their business. The Bab al-Mandeb bridge would be their most ambitious project to date, overshadowing their renovations of Islamic holy sites in the Saudi cities of Mecca and Medina. (Washington Post)
Labels: Construction, Yemen
Tuesday, May 27, 2008
Yemen forces 'defeat' rebels
Yemeni security forces have defeated opposition fighters in a suburb of the capital, Sanaa, Yemeni authorities have said, after several days of heavy fighting.
Security forces "dealt with the rebellion in Bani Hushaish, which was a pocket of rebels led by Abd al-Malik al-Huthi," an official said on Tuesday.
Al-Huthi is the commander of fighters who have led a four-year-old uprising against the government in the far north of Yemen.
Tribal sources and witnesses have said that dozens of al-Huthi's fighters and security forces have been killed or wounded in three days of heavy fighting in Bani Hushaish.
The sources say the clashes were triggered by an ambush of a senior security chief by al-Huthi loyalists on May 16.
Thousands of people have been killed since the rebellion first broke out in 2004, with most of the fighting occurring in the mountains of the border province of Saada.
Tarq Al Shami, head of media for Yemen's ruling party, said al-Huthi supporters were risking the collapse of a recent peace deal agreed in Qatar.
"All mediation efforts were foiled by al-Huthi supporters prompting the government to take decisive steps," he said. (Al Jazeera)
Labels: Yemen
Monday, May 19, 2008
Al-Qaeda Operative Loses Freedom in Yemen
Jaber Elbaneh, the al-Qaeda operative who had roamed free in Yemen despite a $5 million reward offered by the U.S. government for his capture, was jailed Sunday by a Yemeni judge.
Elbaneh's detention was ordered one day after a Washington Post article on how he was living under the personal protection of Yemen's president, Ali Abdullah Saleh. The Yemeni government has repeatedly refused U.S. requests to extradite Elbaneh to stand trial on terrorism charges, straining diplomatic relations between the two countries.
According to Yemen's official news agency, a judge ordered Elbaneh's arrest after prosecutors filed a request to lock him up. Elbaneh is one of three dozen Yemeni defendants being tried on charges of conspiring to blow up oil installations in 2006.
Until Sunday, prosecutors had allowed Elbaneh to remain free while the trial proceeded in Sanaa, the capital, in spite of recent demands from FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III and other U.S. officials that he be imprisoned. (Washington Post)
Monday, May 12, 2008
Yemen court sentences four Shi'ite rebels to death
Four Shi'ite rebels were sentenced to death on Monday after a Yemeni court convicted them of killing two soldiers, a court source said.
Three of the rebels were sentenced in their absence, the source told Reuters.
The rebels killed the soldiers when they ambushed an army patrol in 2007.
Fighting in the northern province of Saada between rebels led by Abdul Malik al-Houthi and the army has flared intermittently since 2004. Hundreds of people have been killed and thousands have fled their homes.
Yemeni officials say the rebels, who belong to the Zaydi sect of Shi'ite Islam, want to return to a form of clerical rule prevalent until the 1960s.
The rebels, who want Zaydi schools and oppose the government's alliance with the United States, say they are defending their villages against what they call government aggression. (Reuters)
Labels: Yemen
Sunday, May 11, 2008
Arab countries discuss nuclear cooperation
Representatives of seven Arab states are currently meeting to discuss how to enhance nuclear cooperation in order to set up peaceful atomic programs, according to news reports.
Experts from Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, Syria, the United Arab Emirates and Yemen are participating in the meeting.
The delegates are discussing mechanisms for cooperation among various Arab countries for peaceful nuclear projects.
Several Arab countries have expressed their desire to set up nuclear programs with the stated aim of using nuclear energy for generating electricity, desalinating water and using the facilities for research.
However, there are concerns that these programs will be used for manufacturing nuclear weapons.
The specter of a nuclear Iran is a notion that does not sit well with Arab countries in the Middle East and it is most likely that fears of a nuclear-armed Iran are behind recent moves in these countries towards setting up nuclear programs of their own. (Media Line)
Labels: Iraq, Jordan, Nuclear Power, Saudi Arabia, Syria, U.A.E., Yemen
Friday, May 9, 2008
Japanese women abducted in Yemen released same day
Yemeni tribesmen have released two Japanese tourists who were kidnapped Wednesday while on their way to a tourist site in the region of Marib, a tribal chief said.
"The two hostages have been released," Sheikh Mohammed Hassan bin Muaili, head of the kidnappers' Muaili tribe, said late Wednesday.
The two women were kidnapped as they were driven to the site of the ancient Marib Dam, a major tourism draw, a local official told AFP.
The Defense Ministry website September.net confirmed the release of the two women.
The tribal leader told AFP that the two hostages were handed over to Sheikh Hamad bin Ali bin Jalal, who "who will in turn deliver them to the security authorities."
Sheikh Hamad is a higher-ranking tribal chief in the area. His intervention secured the release of the two women, Sheikh Mohammed said. (AFP)
Monday, May 5, 2008
Qatar called upon to mediate in Lebanon and Yemen
Maronite Patriarch Nasrallah Butros Sfeir said on Monday that Qatar could play a positive role in bridging the gap between feuding Lebanese political groups. (AFP)
New peace talks are under way between the Yemeni authorities and Zaidi rebels to try to contain renewed clashes that have left at least 52 people dead since Friday, the rebels said on Monday. "We met in Saada on Sunday in the presence of the Qatari mediators," the rebels' chief negotiator Saleh Habra told AFP. (Daily Star)
Scores killed in Yemen clashes
At least 20 Shia rebels have been killed and six soldiers wounded in clashes with the Yemeni army in northern Saada, according to officials.
The fighting in the Haydan district of Dafaa on Sunday followed an army offensive to recapture a military camp which has been under Shia rebels' control for the past three months, officials said.
Abdel Malak al-Hawthi, a rebel leader, told news agencies that tribal chiefs have stepped in to mediate a new ceasefire, but warned that his group would escalate fighting "if the government insists on the option of war".
The renewed violence comes despite efforts to implement a peace deal between the government and the fighters, brokered by Qatar.
Thousand of people have been killed since a 2004 uprising in Saada by members of the Zaidi community, a branch of Shia Islam.
The fighters, known as Huthis after Hussein Badr Eddin al-Huthi, their former commander who was killed by the Yemeni army in September 2004, have been battling to restore the Zaidi imamate which was overthrown in a coup in 1962.
Tribal leaders in the northern region of Yemen, a predominantly Sunni country, say more than 30,000 residents have been displaced by the fighting. (Al Jazeera)
Labels: Yemen
Yemeni court overturns closure of daily
A Yemeni court Saturday overturned a government decision to shut down an independent weekly newspaper, the official Saba news agency said. The court in Sanaa said Al-Wassat newspaper could resume publication, reversing the closure order handed down by the Information Ministry. Publication of Al-Wassat had been suspended for the past month. The court also ordered the ministry to pay the newspaper's legal costs and banned it from withdrawing operating licenses for other Yemeni publications, Saba reported. The ministry said it had based its decision to close the newspaper over its failure to adhere to administrative procedures, including the listing of its editorial staff and failure to provide notice of the relocation of its offices. (AFP)
Labels: Free Media, Free Speech, Judiciary, Yemen
Sunday, May 4, 2008
Bid to salvage Shia-Yemen truce
Mediators from the Gulf state of Qatar are in northern Yemen to try to save a ceasefire agreement between the Yemeni government and Shia rebels.
There has been increasing violence in the northern Yemeni province of Saada over the past few weeks. A bomb blast at a mosque on Friday killed 18 people.
The mediators face an uphill struggle as there is a deep lack of trust.
Key issues include the handover of heavy weapons by the rebels and an exchange of prisoners.
The Shia militants, led by Abdulmalik al-Houthi, began their latest rebellion some four years ago.
A ceasefire was agreed last year, but it fell apart in January, and further attempts to keep the peace have since faltered.
The bombing of a mosque used by members of the security forces on Friday has been blamed on the rebels, though they deny any involvement.
That attack followed the killing of a prominent Yemeni member of parliament, Saleh al-Hindi, two weeks ago.
Since then a number of rebels and members of the security forces have died in sporadic clashes. (BBC)
Probe of USS Cole Bombing Unravels
Almost eight years after al-Qaeda nearly sank the USS Cole with an explosives-stuffed motorboat, killing 17 sailors, all the defendants convicted in the attack have escaped from prison or been freed by Yemeni officials.
Jamal al-Badawi, a Yemeni who helped organize the plot to bomb the Cole as it refueled in this Yemeni port on Oct. 12, 2000, has broken out of prison twice. He was recaptured both times, but then secretly released by the government last fall. Yemeni authorities jailed him again after receiving complaints from Washington. But U.S. officials have so little faith that he's still in his cell that they have demanded the right to perform random inspections.
Two suspects, described as the key organizers, were captured outside Yemen and are being held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, beyond the jurisdiction of U.S. courts. Many details of their alleged involvement remain classified. It is unclear when -- or if -- they will be tried by the military.
The collapse of the Cole investigation offers a revealing case study of the U.S. government's failure to bring al-Qaeda operatives and their leaders to justice for some of the most devastating attacks on American targets over the past decade. (Washington Post)
Saturday, May 3, 2008
Clashes break out in northern Yemen as truce falters
Clashes erupted between Yemeni forces and rebels led by Abdul-Malik al-Houthi on Saturday, dealing a new blow to a faltering ceasefire a day after a mosque bombing killed 15 people in the northern city of Saada.
Government forces killed five rebels, members of the Zaydi sect of Shi'ite Islam, in Saada, while rebels surrounded a government compound in nearby Manbah, local sources said.
Hundreds of Yemenis demonstrated in Saada earlier in the day in show of anger against the attack that appeared to target army officers but killed a woman, two children and other civilians.
Yemen has witnessed attacks by different groups targeting everything from tourists to government offices in recent years, but attacks on mosques were virtually unheard of until Friday.
A security source said several suspects had been detained at a checkpoint in Saada and investigations suggested that Houthi's followers were behind the attack. (Reuters)
Labels: Yemen
Friday, May 2, 2008
18 killed in mosque blast in Yemen rebel stronghold
Eighteen people, mostly soldiers, were killed in Yemen on Friday when a blast blamed by authorities on Shiite insurgents exploded at the entrance to a mosque in the rebels' stronghold.
A booby-trapped motorcycle exploded as hundreds of Muslim faithful were leaving the Bin Salman mosque in the northwestern town of Saada after Friday prayers, according to military sources at the site.
Forty-five people were wounded.
The attack on the mosque, located near an army barracks, raised fears of an escalation in violence between the government and Shiite rebels whose insurgency in the mountainous province of Saada has claimed thousands of lives since 2004.
There was no immediate claim of responsibility, but a local official told AFP the attack bears the hallmarks of the "Huthis," as the rebels are known.
"Terrorist criminal followers of the terrorist Abdul Malak al-Huthi are behind this ugly crime," an interior ministry official told the Saba state news agency, referring to the rebels' field commander.
Military sources said the dead were mostly soldiers, but they also included women and child beggars who had been waiting for worshippers outside the mosque. Most of the injured were soldiers. (AFP)
Labels: Yemen
Wednesday, April 30, 2008
Mortars land in Yemeni capital
Unknown assailants have fired two mortar shells in Sanaa, the Yemeni capital, landing outside the customs authority and near the Italian embassy.
The attack early on Wednesday occurred in the central al-Safia district, an administrative and residential area, an interior ministry official said.
The finance ministry and the opposition Socialist party headquarters are in the area, but offices there had not yet opened.
Hashem Ahelbarra, Al Jazeera's correspondent in Yemen, said that no casualties had been reported.
Mario Boffo, the Italian ambassador, speaking on Sky Tg 24 television said that the embassy was not damaged.
"We heard two strong explosions one after the other from the offices of customs authorities, a complex that is more or less 500 meters from the embassy and the ambassador's residence.
"We are trying to ascertain whether there were victims among passersby."
Tuesday, April 29, 2008
Yemen rebels clash with tribe, 8 killed
Six Shi'ite rebels and two pro-government tribe members were killed in fighting in Yemen's northwest Saada province, a government official said on Tuesday.
Fighters loyal to rebel leader Abdul-Malik al-Houthi clashed with the tribe members and the Yemeni army, leaving four troops wounded, the source told Reuters.
Clashes that raged overnight were continuing, the source added.
Hundreds of people have been killed and thousands have fled their homes in Saada since the conflict between Houthi rebels and forces of the United States-allied government broke out in 2004.
Yemeni officials say the rebels want to return to a form of clerical rule prevalent in the country until the 1960s. But the rebels say they are defending their villages against what they call government aggression. (Reuters)
Labels: Yemen
Saturday, April 26, 2008
Yemen clashes claim one soldier
The soldier was reportedly killed and a second wounded in an ambush after Friday prayers at a mosque in the Safiya district of Hidan Directorate, western Saada province.
The conflicted Saada region has seen relative calm since the signing of a second agreement for reconciliation in Qatar's capital Doha last February.
However, a member of Yemen's parliament was killed in the area last week by armed men alongside his son and two bodyguards. (Al Jazeera)
Labels: Yemen
Tuesday, April 22, 2008
Rebel chief accuses Sanaa of wrecking Qatari-brokered peace pact
The commander of a Yemeni rebel movement said Monday that efforts by Qatar to implement a peace deal it brokered between the government and the insurgents have failed.
Abdul Malak al-Huthi blamed Sanaa for the failure which he said had resulted in the Qatari mediators leaving Yemen's northwestern Saada Province and heading back to Doha.
"The Qatari team left after reaching a dead-end due to the refusal of the [government] to pull out army troops from the areas in which they deployed during the clashes - namely villages, schools and mosques," Huthi said by telephone.
Saada, a mountainous province near the Saudi border, has been the scene of an on-off rebellion by members of the Zaidi community, an offshoot of Shiite Islam. Thousands have been killed in the clashes. (AFP)
Friday, April 18, 2008
Yemen lawmaker 'killed by gunmen'
A member of Yemen's governing party is reported to have been shot dead in the volatile north of the country.
Witnesses say gunmen opened fire on a car carrying the MP, Saleh Hendi, and several of his bodyguards.
The attack took place in the north-western province of Saada, a region where government troops have been battling a Zaidi Shia rebellion.
Fighting resumed earlier this year, six months after the government and rebels had agreed a ceasefire.
Hundreds of people have been killed since the rebellion broke out in 2004. (BBC)
Labels: Yemen
Wednesday, April 16, 2008
8-year-old Yemeni girl wants to divorce her 30-year-old husband
Last week, 8-year-old Nasser went alone to the court of justice in Sanaa, Yemen's capital city, to find a judge who would agree to accept her claim against her father for compelling her to marry a 30-year-old man. She also insisted that the judge force her husband to divorce her.
Yemenite law states that 15 is the minimum legal age for marriage, but does permit girls younger than that to marry on condition that the couple "does not engage in intimate relations."
Nasser told journalists that every time she wanted to play outside, her husband demanded that she return home to sleep with him.
The court on Tuesday annulled the marriage and ordered the girl's family to pay compensation to the husband.
According to Yemenite journalists, this story reflects the massive gap between a seemingly reformed republic and the reality on the ground. (Haaretz)
Labels: Human Rights, Yemen
Monday, April 14, 2008
22 migrants drown off coast of Yemen
Twenty-two migrants drowned off the coast of Yemen while trying to cross from Somalia to the Arabian peninsula state, a Yemeni official said on Sunday. The crew of the ship carrying around 120 migrants forced them to jump into the sea off Yemen's coastline to swim to land, an official in the southern province of Abyan told AFP. The official, who declined to be identified, added that 12 migrants were still missing. The rest of the group survived and were being cared for in the port city of Aden. More than 1,400 clandestine immigrants died trying to cross the Gulf of Aden from Africa in 2007, while more than 28,300 people managed to reach the Yemeni coast, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees said in December. The crossing takes two days at best and is made especially dangerous by shark-infested waters, strong currents and inhumane conditions on poorly maintained vessels open to the elements. (AFP)
Labels: Yemen
Tuesday, April 8, 2008
US ups security after Yemen attack
The US embassy in Yemen says it has been ordered by the state department to remove non-essential personnel, following an attack on a residential complex housing Westerners working for the state-owned Safer oil company.
The Jund Al-Yemen Brigades, an arm of al-Qaeda, said it carried out the attack on Sunday in Sanaa, the capital.
Three rockets were fired into the compound, but no casualties were reported. (Al Jazeera)
Seven arrested after Yemen attack
Seven suspects have been arrested in connection with an attack on a residential complex housing Westerners in Yemen.
Some of those detained on Monday may be linked with al-Qaeda, a Yemeni security official told The Associated Press without elaborating.
The arrests in the capital, Sanaa, came just hours after the attack on the complex in which explosions shattered building windows but caused no injuries.
Earlier reports indicated that three rockets were fired at the complex situated in an upmarket area of the capital on Sunday.
Security forces in Yemen - the ancestral home of Osama bin Laden, the al-Qaeda leader - said they were looking for three other suspects.
A little-known group purportedly with al-Qaeda links claimed on Monday that it was behind the attack, launched allegedly in revenge for the slaying last year of Taliban military commander Mullah Dadullah in Afghanistan. (Yemen)
Labels: Yemen
Monday, April 7, 2008
Al Qaeda says behind Yemen attack: Yemeni official
A Yemeni security official said al Qaeda had claimed responsibility in a statement on Monday for an apparent mortar attack on a complex housing Americans and other Westerners in the Yemeni capital on Sunday.
Islamist Web sites that traditionally carry such statements did not have a claim from Yemen's al Qaeda wing.
"Al Qaeda has issued a statement claiming the attack," the official said without giving further details.
Three blasts broke windows but caused no injuries at the complex in southwest Sanaa.
Another security official said that security forces had arrested a key al Qaeda militant, Abdullah al-Raimi, on Saturday on suspicion of involvement in planning several operations. He did not give details. (Reuters)
Sunday, April 6, 2008
Yemen's Islamist rebels destroy empty Jewish homes
In the latest attack targeting Yemen's few remaining Jews, rebel Houthi militiamen destroyed several homes that had belonged to the now-absent Jewish community in the northwestern Saada province.
"The Houthis destroyed part of my house and looted it," Rabbi Yehia Youssuf told Reuters in the capital, San'a.
All 67 members of Saada's Jewish community fled following threats from the Houthis, the rabbi says. Some locals say the Jews were threatened because they had been selling wine to Muslims - an accusation the Jews deny, according to Reuters.
A local said the Shi'ite rebels attacked the houses of other Jews after looting the rabbi's. (JPost)
Labels: Freedom of Religion, Yemen
Blasts smash windows at Yemen complex, no one hurt
An apparent mortar attack smashed windows at a complex housing Americans and other Westerners in the Yemeni capital Sanaa on Sunday, but there were no casualties, a Yemeni security official said.
"There were three blasts believed to have been caused by mortar shells. There is broken glass, but no casualties," the official told Reuters, adding that the unknown attackers escaped.
Residents said earlier they saw police arriving outside the high-security area in the southwest of the capital of the poor Arab state, which has been the scene of frequent attacks by Islamic militants, disgruntled tribesmen and Shi'ite rebels.
An al Qaeda-linked group claimed responsibility for a failed mortar attack on the U.S. embassy in Yemen last month that wounded girls at a nearby school and a group of soldiers.
The U.S. State Department offered free flights out of Yemen to non-essential diplomats and family members after the attack. (Reuters)
Labels: Yemen
Yemeni clashes claim lives
Witnesses say at least 15 people have been killed in fierce gun battles between Shia fighters and members of a tribe loyal to the government in the mountainous west of Yemen.
Thirteen people were also wounded in the clashes between the pro-government al Bukhtan tribe and the rebels, witnesses said on Sunday.
The clashes broke out on Saturday in the Saada province near the border with Saudi Arabia, two months after Zaidi fighters killed an al-Bukhtan member who they accused of supporting the government.
Government forces have since joined the battle by shelling Zaidi fighter positions.
The on-off uprising led by the Zaidi fighters against the Yemeni government has claimed thousands of lives since 2004. (Al Jazeera)
Labels: Yemen
Thursday, April 3, 2008
Yemen rioter 'dies from wounds'
One person has died from wounds received during clashes between Yemeni forces and protesters, residents said.
Hundreds of youths demanding state jobs have clashed with troops in several parts of southern Yemen.
The military has deployed armoured vehicles and reports say checkpoints have been set up between Aden in the south and the capital Sanaa.
Some people in south Yemen accuse the government of discriminating in favour of northerners in allocating jobs.
Positions in government and the army are among the main sources of employment in Yemen, the poorest country in the Arabian peninsula.
North and South Yemen were united in 1990, but the South attempted unsuccessfully to secede in a civil war in 1994.
The official Saba news agency said a security source denied the protester's death.
But reports from the south say five people have been wounded since the rioting started on Sunday, of whom one died on Wednesday. (BBC)
Labels: Yemen
Wednesday, April 2, 2008
Yemen's 'gun culture' hampers efforts to impose order
Lawlessness, corruption and an inadequate judiciary combined with age-old customs fuel Yemen's "gun culture" despite government efforts to curb the use of firearms, politicians say. Carrying weapons is so entrenched in the traditions of the Arabian Peninsula republic that one resident of the eastern tribal province of Marib was ostracized by his kinsfolk when he decided to ditch his machine gun.
"After graduating from university [in Iraq], I felt that my education, not the machine gun flaunted by tribesmen, was my real weapon," said the 36-year-old doctor, who asked to be identified only by his first name, Ahmad.
But Ahmad's decision did not sit well with either his family or his tribe, and he had to relocate to the city of Taiz, south of the capital Sanaa, to live "free from the gun culture," he told AFP.
Yemen is estimated to have up to 60 million firearms in private hands, roughly three for every citizen.
Armed tribesmen in the impoverished country at times abduct foreign tourists for use as bargaining chips in disputes with the central government, and firefights are commonplace. (AFP)
Labels: Yemen
Tuesday, April 1, 2008
Yemen sends tanks to crush riots
Yemeni authorities have ordered tanks and troops onto the streets in the south of the country to prevent further rioting by disaffected youths, retired military officers and their supporters, witnesses said.
Dozens of people were arrested on Tuesday, the fourth day of protests against the alleged refusal to admit them into the army.
Relatives said that three politicians from the Yemen Socialist Party (YSP), the ruling party in former south Yemen, were among those held in early morning raids on activists suspected of inciting protests in the provinces of Aden, Lahj and Dhaleh.
Demonstrators briefly blocked the road linking the capital Sanaa to the southern port of Aden with burning tyres on Tuesday, after riot police had dispersed a crowd by firing into the air.
The protesters complained that a number of youths from the region had not been admitted into the army after responding to a recruitment campaign. (Al Jazeera)
Labels: Free Speech, Yemen
Friday, March 28, 2008
Hamas urges Arab summit to back Yemeni bid for reconciliation with Fatah
Hamas wants this weekend's Arab summit in Damascus to back a Yemen-sponsored reconciliation agreement between the group and its Palestinian rival Fatah, a pro-Hamas Web site quoted the group's leader as saying on Friday.
Hamas leader Khaled Meshal, in exile in Syria, was also quoted as urging Arab leaders to support its fight with Israel, although he reiterated the Islamist group was open to a conditional truce.
The Gaza-based Web site said Meshal wrote to Arab leaders requesting support for Hamas-Fatah dialogue, after a Yemen-brokered agreement to revive talks between the rival factions appeared to falter this week.
Meshal called on Arab leaders to "shoulder your national and brotherly responsibility to foster a Palestinian-Palestinian dialogue", according to the report, which was also carried by London-based pan-Arab newspaper al-Hayat.
Hamas seized control of Gaza last June after routing Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah forces. Abbas then sacked a Hamas-led unity government and pursued U.S.-backed peace talks with Israel. (Haaretz)
Labels: Arab Leauge, Fatah, Hamas, Palestine, Yemen
Monday, March 24, 2008
Qureia: Fatah signed reconciliation draft with Hamas due to mixup
Top Palestinian negotiator Ahmed Qureia on Monday said Fatah signed a proposal outlining a path to reconciliation with Hamas because of a mixup.
Under the Yemeni plan, Fatah and Hamas agreed on the goal of uniting in a single Palestinian government. The proposal was signed Sunday by a representative from Hamas and by a senior Fatah official, former Palestinian Prime Minister Azzam al-Ahmed.
Qureia, who heads the Palestinian team in the negotiations between Israel and the Palestinian Authority, on Monday suggested that al-Ahmed was hasty. He said al-Ahmed called before the signing to get guidance from Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, but that Abbas was busy hosting U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney.
The senior Palestinian official added that there was a misunderstanding involved in the signing. Other Abbas aides say al-Ahmed should not have signed. (Haaretz)
Labels: Fatah, Hamas, Palestine, Yemen
Saturday, March 22, 2008
Yemen FM: Hamas-Fatah talks reach breakthrough (Haaretz)
Yemeni Foreign Minister Abubakr al-Qirbi said Saturday that there had been a breakthrough in reconciliation talks between Hamas and Fatah negotiators in Yemen's capital Sanaa.
Al-Qirbi told reporters following a meeting between the sides that a draft agreement on an agenda and a timetable for the proposed dialogue had been agreed on by the two factions, but had yet to be approved by Hamas top leaders.
"A final formula was reached and Fatah agreed to it ... Our brothers in the Hamas movement asked for an opportunity to consult their (leadership)," Al-Qirbi said.
Under the draft agreement from the Yemen-sponsored talks, Hamas and Fatah would agree to hold direct talks in early April about a Yemeni plan calling for the situation in the Gaza Strip to return to the way it was before Hamas took it over.
The issue has been a main point of contention, with Fatah demanding that Hamas Islamists give up control of the territory, which the group seized in June after routing Fatah forces.
The Yemeni proposal also envisages the creation of another unity government and rebuilding of Palestinian security forces along national rather than factional lines. (Link)
Labels: Fatah, Hamas, Palestine, Yemen
Fuel station fire in Yemen capital (Al Jazeera)
A fire in a fuel station has set a nearby hotel ablaze in the Yemeni capital without any casualties being reported, according to the interior ministry.
Residents near the hotel reported hearing a loud explosion on Saturday morning, but the ministry said that an aeroplane breaking the sound barrier had also caused the boom.
Ambulances and police vehicles were seen attending the site at the Sydney Hotel next to Sittin Street, but a police cordon prevented reporters from gathering further details.
Some witnesses told Al Jazeera that a second explosion took place inside the hotel, setting a furniture shop on the ground floor of the building on fire.
There are no reports of fatalities and the reason behind the explosion is still unknown. (Link)
Labels: Yemen
al-Qaida Blamed in Failed US Site Attack (AP)
An Al-Qaida terror cell was behind a mortar strike against the U.S. embassy in Yemen that missed its target but killed a security guard and wounded 13 students at a nearby school, an Interior Ministry official said Saturday.
The official, speaking on customary condition of anonymity, said al-Qaida militant Hamza al-Dayan launched three mortars at the embassy Tuesday before fleeing the scene in a vehicle with three accomplices. The mortar shells crashed into the school in the downtown Sawan district of San'a, killing the security guard and wounding 13 schoolgirls, three grievously. (Link)
Friday, March 21, 2008
Abbas says Palestinian reconciliation talks in Yemen extended through Saturday (AP)
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas says reconciliation talks in Yemen between his Fatah Party and the Gaza Strip's Islamic Hamas rulers have been extended through Saturday.
Each side has accused the other of causing the talks to fail. But Abbas said Friday that Fatah and Hamas have agreed to keep the talks going through Saturday, at the request of Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh.
"We don't want to say the talks have failed," Abbas said. "We hope for a positive outcome." (Link)
Labels: Israel, Palestine, Yemen
Thursday, March 20, 2008
Rival Palestinian delegations to stay in Yemen (Reuters)
Delegations from Hamas and Fatah will remain in Yemen an extra day for reconciliation talks despite disagreements between the rival factions, Palestinian officials said on Thursday.
Aides to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas of Fatah initially said the negotiations had failed but members of the delegation said later they would stay another day at the request of Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh.
"The Yemeni president has asked us to stay for one more day hoping to reach an agreement," said Saleh Rafat, a member of the Palestine Liberation Organization's executive committee.
When asked if he thought an agreement could be reached, Rafat said: "I don't think so." (Link)
5 arrested in attack near US Embassy (AP)
Yemeni police have arrested five suspects in a mortar attack that American officials say targeted the U.S. Embassy but instead struck a girl's high school next door, an Interior Ministry official said Thursday.
The three mortar rounds, which killed a Yemeni guard and wounded more than a dozen girls, appeared to have been fired Tuesday from the rooftop of a nearby building rented by the attackers, the ministry official said. He spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the press.
The official gave no further details about the attackers, their identities or their motivation for the attack.
The shells fired in the downtown San'a district of Sawan wounded five soldiers and 13 girls, three of them seriously. (Link)
Wednesday, March 19, 2008
Hamas, Fatah far apart as Yemen tries to mediate (Reuters)
Hamas voiced willingness on Wednesday to talk to Fatah as part of a Yemeni reconciliation initiative but said the secular faction must drop its demand the Islamist group first give up control of the Gaza Strip.
"We do not accept it as a condition to restore dialogue," Hamas spokesman Ayman Taha said. "(The Gaza Strip) is only an item that can be discussed within the agenda of the talks."
Fatah official Ziad Abu Ein said it was sticking to the "fundamental condition that legitimacy must be returned to the Palestinian Authority" -- a direct reference to regaining Gaza sovereignty -- for contacts with Hamas to resume. (Link)
Labels: Fatah, Hamas, Palestine, Yemen
Small bomb explodes in Yemen market (Reuters)
A small bomb exploded in a market in Yemen's southern port city of Aden on Wednesday but caused no casualties, witnesses said, a day after three mortars hit a school near the U.S. embassy in Sanaa.
It was not immediately clear who was behind the bomb, which went off near a bank, but residents said that the market was not busy at the time.
On Tuesday, 13 girls and five Yemeni soldiers were wounded when three mortars hit a school near the U.S. embassy in the Yemeni capital, Sanaa.
Washington said its mission was the target and Yemen said "terrorists" were behind the attack.
Five Yemeni soldiers were also wounded on Tuesday in a bomb attack on a government compound in the southern region of Abyan.
It was not clear if the spate of attacks were related. (Link)
Labels: Yemen
Tuesday, March 18, 2008
Hamas ready to accept Yemeni initiative for reconciliation with Fatah (Haaretz)
A top Hamas official said his group was ready to accept a Yemeni bid for reconciliation with Fatah, which voiced willingness to start national dialogue when its Islamist rival agrees to the terms of Yemen's initiative.
"The visit is to meet [Yemeni] President Ali Abdullah Saleh ... and inform him of the movement's acceptance of the Yemeni initiative," Hamas deputy politburo chief Moussa Abu Marzouk told Al Jazeera television upon arrival to the Yemeni capital Sanaa.
Abu Marzouk did not say whether the group was willing to accept a long standing Fatah demand that Hamas relinquish its control over the Gaza strip, but Hamas official Sami Abu Zuhri told Reuters in Gaza that the group will discuss the points of the Yemeni initiative.
The initiative calls for the situation in Gaza to return to the way it was before Hamas seized control of the territory and for early Palestinian elections to be held, conditions endorsed by Abbas and so far rejected by Hamas. (Link)
Labels: Hamas, Palestine, Yemen
Many injured in Yemen blasts (Al Jazeera)
At least one Yemeni guard has been killed and several other people injured, including about 15 schoolchildren, in two separate attacks in Yemen, according to officials.
The guard died in an explosion at a girls' school near the US embassy in the capital Sanaa on Tuesday.
Four other police officers were reportedly wounded in that blast.
Five Yemeni soldiers were wounded in the other explosion at a government compound in the southern province of Abyan, a local government source told the Reuters news agency.
He said that preliminary investigations suggested an armed Islamist group was behind the blast. (Link)
Labels: Yemen
Friday, March 14, 2008
Yemeni describes CIA secret jails (BBC)
A Yemeni man has described being held for nearly three years in secret CIA prisons, or "black sites", around the world and accused the US of torture.
Khaled al-Maqtari told Amnesty International he was held in isolation for more than 28 months without charge or access to any legal representation.
He said he first became a US "ghost detainee" at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq after being arrested there in 2004.
The US has not acknowledged detaining Mr Maqtari.
US President George W Bush did acknowledge the existence of black sites in 2006.
He said the prisons were a vital tool in the US "war on terror" and insisted that the CIA had treated detainees humanely and had not used torture.
In July 2007, Mr Bush issued an executive order which banned "cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment" of terrorist suspects by the CIA, but not its operation of secret facilities. The agency has since declined to say whether it still uses them. (Link)