My World Earth News: yemen

Showing posts with label yemen. Show all posts

Wednesday, November 23, 2011

UN Envoy: Yemen Leader to Sign Power-Transfer Deal

Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh plans to sign a deal Wednesday in the Saudi capital that could mean the end of his 33-year rule, the UN envoy to Yemen said.

Yemeni president in Saudi to sign power transfer deal

President Saleh during a visit to a Republican Guards brigade loyal to him, near Sanaa, November 19, 2011.

Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh arrived in Saudi Arabia today to sign a Gulf power transfer initiative made by the six-member Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), the country’s state TV said.

“The president of the republic arrives safely to the airport of Riyadh to visit the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, following an invitation from the Saudi leadership, to attend the signing of the Gulf initiative,” a ticker running on the bottom of Yemen TV said.

Fierce Fighting as Clashes in Southern Yemen Kill 19 - Yemen opposition vows to keep out injured Saleh

President Ali Abdullah Saleh of Yemen suffered injuries, far more extensive than previously known in an attack on his presidential palace last week, with burns over 40 percent of his body, Yemeni officials and ...

Clashes in Yemen's south have killed at least 19 people, as the violence and unrest that has engulfed the nation for months shows no signs of ending. Yemeni forces clashed with Islamist militants in the southern city of Zinjibar Tuesday, ...

Monday, March 28, 2011

Armed groups clash in south Yemen town - Yemen leader Saleh is negotiating his exit: aides

An explosion at a munitions factory in southern Yemen killed more than 100 people, mostly local residents, after a group of unknown gunman had seized control of the site from the Yemeni military, according to witnesses ...

Friday, March 18, 2011

Yemen forces open fire at protest, 30 dead

Mourners shout slogans during the funeral of anti-government protester Abdullah Hameed Ali, 28, who was killed by police in Sanaa on March 8 during his funeral in Sanaa March 11, 2011

Yemeni security forces and unidentified snipers opened fire at a protest in Sanaa after Muslim prayers today, killing at least 30 people and wounding 200 others, medical sources and witnesses told Reuters.

Security forces at first fired into the air to prevent anti-government protesters from marching after prayers from their headquarters at Sanaa University.

After the initial gunfire, the shooting continued and the toll mounted. It was not immediately clear who was responsible for the deaths, with witnesses saying firing appeared to come from different directions.

Tens of thousands of Yemenis had gathered in Sanaa for competing prayers and protests as businessmen floated a proposal to end a standoff between President Ali Abdullah Saleh and protesters demanding he step down immediately.

“The situation is tragic. There are dozens killed and hundreds wounded. We couldn’t send relief,” said Abdul-Qawi al-Shumeiri, secretary-general of the doctor’s syndicate.

Protesters accused plainclothes snipers of firing from rooftops, and said they had detained several of the gunmen.

“The youth stormed one of the buildings and arrested seven snipers who were firing on the demonstrators,” said activist Mohamed al-Sharaby.

Yemen, next door to top oil exporter Saudi Arabia, has been rocked by weeks of demonstrations that have undermined Saleh’s grip on power. Tens of thousands of protesters were also gathered in cities across Yemen, from the southern port city of Aden to Hodeida in the west.

The United States, which has long seen Saleh as a bulwark against a dynamic al Qaeda wing based in Yemen, has condemned the bloodshed and backed the right for peaceful protest, but has insisted only dialogue can end the political crisis.

Saleh has promised to step down in 2013 and offered a new constitution giving more powers to parliament, but he has refused his critics’ main demand to quit immediately.

A string of Saleh’s allies have recently defected to the protesters, who are frustrated by rampant corruption and soaring unemployment. Some 40 per cent of the population live on US$2 (RM6) a day or less in Yemen, and a third face chronic hunger.

Thursday, March 10, 2011

Yemen president vows reform as protests continue

New constitution to create a parliamentary system of government: President Ali Abdullah Saleh pledges at a gathering of supporters in Sanaa, March 10, 2011.

Yemen President Ali Abdullah Saleh, hoping to defuse increasingly violent protests against his 32-year rule, said yesterday that he would draw up a new constitution to create a parliamentary system of government.

An opposition spokesman swiftly rejected the proposal, and called for the continuation of anti-government rallies, which kicked off in January and have claimed almost 30 lives.

Impoverished Yemen, a neighbour of oil giant Saudi Arabia, is one of several Arab states that have had mass protests this year, with Saleh looking increasingly weakened by the unrest.

Speaking to thousands of cheering supporters gathered in a football stadium, the autocratic Saleh said he wanted to form a unity government to help put in place a new political system.

“Firstly we will form a new constitution based on the separation of powers,” he said, speaking beneath a large portrait of himself. “A referendum on this new constitution will be held before the end of this year.

“I’m already sure that this initiative won’t be accepted by the opposition, but in order to do the right thing, I am offering this to the people and they will decide,” he added.

Yemen is a presidential republic, where the head of state wields significant powers. But as water and oil resources dry up, it has become increasingly difficult to fuel the patronage system that kept his tribal and political backers loyal.

The rotating president of Yemen’s umbrella opposition coalition, Yassin Noman, said his plan was too little too late, and would not put an end to calls for Saleh’s resignation.

“These proposals have been overtaken by realities on the ground,” he said. “Had the ruling party offered this six months ago, it would have been different. It’s too late now.”

Lack of trust

Saleh has already made several concessions to protesters, but has refused to bow to their central demand that he relinquish power immediately, saying he wanted to see out his term, which expires in 2013.

“What President Saleh doesn’t realise is that in the past 32 years he’s really racked up a trust deficit and people just don’t believe him anymore,” said Gregory Johnsen, a Yemen scholar from Princeton University.

Tens of thousands of anti-Saleh protesters took to the streets of Sanaa, Taiz and Ibb as Saleh pitched his initiative to his own supporters. South of the capital in Dhamar, one of the 68-year old leader’s political strongholds, thousands yesterday rallied against the government.

“This initiative doesn’t satisfy our ambitions now,” said Bushra al-Maqtari, a youth activist in Taiz. “Our demand is clear, the regime must go.”

Saleh also offered to regroup Yemen’s 22 provinces into larger regional blocs. An official told Reuters this would allow wealthier provinces to support poorer ones, and said the plan would ensure there was an airport and a seaport in every region.

“Where exactly would Yemen be getting money to develop or build those?” said Princeton scholar Johnsen. “It seems like a speech that in many ways is divorced from the economic reality of the situation in Yemen.”

A string of allies have recently defected to the protesters, who are frustrated by rampant corruption and soaring unemployment in Yemen, where 40 per cent of the population live on US$2 (RM6) a day or less, and a third face chronic hunger.

“We want the regime to go, then we can solve our other problems,” said Samia al Aghbari, a leading Sanaa activist.

Monday, February 21, 2011

Clashes continue in Yemen - Yemeni students protest in renamed 'Tahrir square'-President calls for talks as thousands stage sit-ins...

AP Yemen's President Ali Abdullah Saleh is vowing to undertake political and constitutional reforms, in a bid to calm protests that have been shaking the country for more than ten days.

Monday, February 14, 2011

Protests grow in Yemen-Police and protestors clash again in Yemen

Yemeni police block protesters’ march on palace

Anti-government protesters march to the Presidential Palace in Sanaa today, February 13, 2011.

Anti-government protesters clashed with police blocking them from marching to Yemen’s presidential palace in Sanaa today, witnesses said.

The clashes occurred while President Ali Abdullah Saleh and the main opposition group were preparing for talks that the government hoped would help avert an Egyptian-style revolt in the Arabian Peninsula state, a vital US ally against al Qaeda.

Saleh decided to postpone a visit to the United States planned for later this month “due to the current circumstances in the region”, the state news agency Saba said without elaborating.

About 1,000 people attended the demonstration shouting “the Yemeni people want the fall of the regime” and “a Yemeni revolution after the Egyptian revolution”, before dozens broke off to march to the palace.

In the harshest response yet to a wave of protests in the capital, police prevented the smaller group from reaching the palace, hitting them with batons, while protesters threw rocks at the police, witnesses said. Four people were injured.

Anti-government protests have gained momentum in Yemen in recent weeks, inspired by protests in Tunisia and Egypt, and prompted Saleh to offer significant concessions to calm tensions, including a pledge to step down in 2013.

Many of the Sanaa protests, including a “Day of Rage” on February 3 attended by tens of thousands of opposition and pro-government demonstrators, ended peacefully.

Although pro- and anti-government protesters have clashed in recent days, police have generally stayed out of the fray in Sanaa. They have clamped down more firmly outside the capital.

Opposition officials said 10 protesters were briefly detained in Sanaa today and 120 more were taken into custody overnight in the city of Taiz after protests yesterday.

Instability in Yemen would present serious political and security risks for Gulf states. The United States relies heavily on Saleh to help combat al Qaeda’s Yemen-based arm, which also carries out attacks in neighbouring Saudi Arabia.

In the south, where the government faces al Qaeda and secessionist militants, a court sentenced six men to death for kidnappings and armed attacks on police, Saba said.

Rights criticism

US-based Human Rights Watch criticised Yemen for allowing government supporters to assault, intimidate and sometimes clash with protesters calling on Saleh to quit.

“The Yemeni authorities have a duty to permit and protect peaceful demonstrations,” said Sarah Leah Whitson, Middle East and North Africa director at Human Rights Watch. “Instead, the security forces and armed thugs appear to be working together.”

There was no immediate response from Yemeni officials.

Saleh, in power for more than three decades and concerned about unrest in some parts of the Arab world, said more than a week ago he would step down when his term ended in 2013, and pledged that his son would not take over the reins of government.

US President Barack Obama has urged Saleh to follow up his pledges of reform with concrete action.

The offer, which included an invitation to dialogue, was Saleh’s boldest gambit yet to avoid a showdown with protesters in the poverty-stricken country, where some 40 per cent live on less than US$2 (RM6) a day, while a third suffer from chronic hunger.

“The opposition does not reject what came in the invitation by the president and is ready to sign an agreement in no more than a week,” said former foreign minister Mohammed Basindwa, now an opposition politician.

Another opposition official said the talks should start within days. Yemen’s opposition, which wants the talks to take place under Western or Gulf auspices, has said it is seeking assurances reforms would be implemented.

Saleh, a shrewd political survivor, has backed out of previous promises to step aside. Analysts say his concessions could be a genuine way to exit gracefully but he may hope to wait out regional unrest and reassert his dominance another day.

Saturday, December 25, 2010

US urges Yemen to step up fight against al Qaeda

President Barack Obama rides in an SUV as he leaves Marine Corps Base Hawaii at Kaneohe Bay, Hawaii, following a Thursday morning workou

President Barack Obama’s top counterterrorism adviser has pressed Yemen to step up its efforts against al Qaeda, the White House said yesterday, as US agencies stayed alert around the first anniversary of a Christmas Day plot to down an American passenger jet.

John Brennan, an Obama aide at the center of US intelligence efforts to thwart attacks by militants, spoke with Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh on Thursday.

Brennan called to “emphasise the importance of taking forceful action against al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula in order to thwart its plans to carry out terrorist attacks in Yemen as well as in other countries, including in the US homeland,” the White House said.

The US government is taking extra precautions against an attack during this holiday season. Brennan convened a call yesterday between key officials to review the additional security measures being taken, the White House said.

Yemen is squarely on the radar.

Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, or AQAP, has emerged as a major international security concern since it claimed responsibility for last December’s botched attempt to bomb a Detroit-bound aircraft.

The Nigerian suspect, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, allegedly tried to bring down the plane on Christmas Day last year with explosives hidden in his underpants.

US officials say he told investigators he got the bomb and training from al Qaeda militants in Yemen.

The militants have since claimed credit for two US-bound parcel bombs that were intercepted in Britain and Dubai in October.

Brennan also “emphasised the need to strengthen the already close cooperation between Yemeni and US counter-terrorism and security services ... including the timely acquisition of all relevant information from individuals arrested by Yemeni security forces,” the White House said.

Obama, on a family holiday in Hawaii, is receiving daily briefings from security staff.

Brennan said last week that US-Yemen relations had been strained by Washington’s desire for a quicker pace of economic and political reforms, which it hopes would slow the recruitment of Yemenis by militants.

Relations have also been tested by WikiLeaks’ disclosure of State Department cables alleging President Saleh had offered to mask US strikes in Yemen on al Qaeda targets.

Brennan “expressed regret” in his call to Saleh for WikiLeaks’ actions and thanked him “for his explicit commitment to ensure the full cooperation of the Yemeni government and his pledge never to retreat in the face of al Qaeda,” the White House said.

Sunday, August 29, 2010

Inside Yemen, the most dangerous place on the planet

The common sense travel advice on Yemen is: don't even think of going there. On top of six wars in six years in the north of the country there is now also an insurgency in the south. The United Nations assesses the risk to its staff from these multiple conflicts as between medium and high.

Al Qaeda has a shadowy but ambitious organisation here: Al Qaeda In The Arabian Peninsular. Last April one of its suicide bombers tried to assassinate the British ambassador.

Not only for Westerners, but for Yemenis too, it is among the world's most dangerous places, and not for those of a nervous disposition.

A one-armed eight-year-old Nigerian boy is among 29 underage prisoners locked up with adults at Hodeidah Central Prison

Unicef Goodwill Ambassador Martin Bell talks to war victim eight year old Abbas, seen at the Al-Mazraq IDP camps in Al-Mazraq, Yemen

A one-armed eight-year-old Nigerian boy is among 29 underage prisoners locked up with adults at Hodeidah Central Prison

The men at the prison, who are mainly African illegal immigrants trying to reach Saudi Arabia

Internally displaced people bathe and wash clothes in a local river close to the Al-Mazraq IDP camps, Al-Mazraq, Yemen

The old city in the heart of Sana'a, the Yemeni capital

Female Unicef aid workers at the Al-Mazraq refugee camp

So where am I going? To Sana'a, the Yemeni capital, that's where - flown there on Emirates airlines' magic carpet, which is where the comfort zone ends and the journey to the sharp end begins. I may seem a bit on the elderly side to be approaching my 19th war zone in 43 years.

But I also believe that we live in an explosively dangerous and interconnected world. We have to understand what the connections are and where the dangers come from; and that other people's interests can also be ours. And so instead of retiring I accelerate.

For a while now I have worked as an ambassador for Unicef. They assign me to countries where they can't send their celebrities: and Yemen is high on that list. Besides, in the past under Unicef's banner I have been given the kind of access which, as a reporter, I could only have dreamed of; and I try to turn it to Unicef's advantage.

Just over half Yemen's population are its 12 million children caught in the crossfire of unreported wars: whoever's fault it is, it isn't theirs. And what the world doesn't know about it won't care about or do anything to remedy. Yemen - which is the size of France - is an unstable, volatile, anything-can-happen kind of country. Its Arab neighbours watch it with alarm.

The last of Yemen's wars - or maybe just the most recent - ended in a fragile ceasefire in February this year. It pitted forces and tribes loyal to the government against the Houthis - rebels who take their name from their leader Hussein al-Houthi, who was killed in a raid on his hideaway in 2004.

The heavy weapons of Saudi Arabia were also involved in the war, on the government side, making it the most destructive of all of them.

A Unicef survey indicated that one family in eight had a child killed, and one in ten a child severely injured, in the fighting in the border Governorate Of Sa'ada. Of the 324,000 people driven from their homes, 205,000 were children.

Most haven't dared to return, some because their homes have been destroyed, some in fear of the start of a seventh war, and some because the ground itself is sown with 'dragons' teeth' - landmines.

In a camp to the west of the conflict area, housing 9,000 refugees, I sat in a tent beside a six-year-old boy, Abbas, who had returned home with his family when his uncle stepped on a landmine and was killed. The boy survived, but was blinded in one eye and has severe shrapnel wounds to his body. The ceasefires that come and go in war zones are not observed by landmines or unexploded bombs

Outside the tent stood a nine-year-old girl, Elkum, who was traumatised and speechless. Her mother explained that she was trapped under the rubble of her house in the fighting and now has to be taken in hand all the time or she wanders round the camp, not knowing who she is or where she's going.

It is much the same on the other side. Unicef has been told that the greatest need in the rebel-held area is not food, water or medicine, but care for the bruised minds of traumatised children. That's what happens in protracted wars, or those that pause for a while and then restart.

The contrast between the majesty of Yemen's past and the misery of its present could hardly be more striking - although strangely enough you can walk around Sana'a and have little idea that it is the capital of a country in crisis. I met a group of academics from a British university, studying the effects of war, who said, 'War? What war? This looks all right to us.' (But they never left the city). The hotels are generally empty and the tourists absent. There is almost a peacetime bustle in the streets, as Yemeni men go about their business with their status symbols, ornate curved daggers, strapped proudly to silver belts.

The old city of Sana'a, with its tower houses, which were the world's first skyscrapers, is truly one of the wonders of the Middle East. Visit these red-brick marvels today and you can enjoy the pleasures of tourism without the tourists. Sunlit and serene, it looks the very reverse of a war-torn capital; but appearances can be deceptive.

Outside the capital, all is not as it used to be before the wars and great migrations of refugees. The look and feel of the place is being transformed, as is the Africanisation of much of the prison population, the markets and shanty towns. You see this in the road blocks, in the movement of the refugees themselves, and most of all in Aden, which has been changed in places from an Arab to an African city - like a relatively peaceful version of Mogadishu, in Somalia.

The legends of Yemen include the Queen of Sheba, who ruled it, and Sinbad the Sailor, who was shipwrecked on one of its islands - no ordinary shipwreck either, for his ship was sunk by gigantic birds of prey. Yemen - once known as Happy Arabia - has always tended to the exotic. Its exports used to be myrrh and frankincense and coffee. In the Middle Ages, it had a worldwide monopoly on the coffee bean.

Today its best known export is terrorism. As recently as ten years ago Western warships included Aden as one of their ports of call. That ended abruptly on October 12, 2000 when the USS Cole, an American guided missile destroyer, was attacked by suicide bombers in a rubber boat. Seventeen American sailors were killed and 39 wounded. Al Qaeda claimed responsibility. From that point on, Yemen was in the sights of the intelligence agencies - and of the Pentagon seeking revenge and targets of opportunity.
The focus tightened last Christmas when a Nigerian student, radicalised and equipped in Yemen, tried to blow up an American airliner over Detroit by setting fire to bomb materials sewn into his underwear. He was lucky to escape with burns - and the passengers with their lives. Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab exposed Yemen, not for the first time, to the sort of attention that it did not want.

Extremist Yemenis see themselves as the special forces of Jihad. They are well recruited and highly motivated. They were prominent in the ground campaigns against regular armies in Afghanistan, Bosnia and Chechnya. They are still in Afghanistan today, in Helmand and Kandahar, in action against the British among others. They don't regard themselves as foreign forces, but rather as brothers in Islam. That is how the rhetoric works. And our intelligence services are well aware of the threat.

One effect is that the foreign aid that Yemen receives - £45 million this year from the British Government alone - tends to be linked to progress on the security front, especially against Al Qaeda. The Yemeni government too, challenged by rebellions on two fronts and by the home-grown branch of Al Qaeda, gives priority to security. That leaves little to be spent on the welfare of the people. The aid agencies fill the gap.

We have no troops in Yemen or Somalia. Yet we are threatened from those countries just as much as from Afghanistan. And there is further reason why we should pay attention to this poorest of Arab states, out of human sympathy as well as national self-interest. Both the heart and the head require us to be attuned to it.

For it is in the grip of a great and unreported humanitarian crisis, of which the young are the principal victims. Imagine a country in which more than half the children are malnourished, which is a uniquely dangerous place to give birth in, and in which there are two entirely separate but simultaneous refugee crises running in parallel. There is such a country - Yemen.

Great tides of desperate people are flowing both within it and to it. For besides the refugees internally displaced by the war, it draws in hundreds of thousands who seek sanctuary from the wars of Africa, especially Somalia, whose coastline faces Yemen. Last year 77,000 Somalis were registered and countless others slipped in unobserved, hoping for new lives in the Gulf states.

Many others were lost at sea - no one knows how many, but 485 bodies were washed up on the Somali coast. Sometimes when the small and overloaded craft run into high seas, the people smugglers throw some of them into the water so it doesn't capsize. The number drowned in a year is reckoned by the aid agencies to be at least 3,000.
One of the survivors is Omar Kumin, a 42-year-old Somali who paid $100 for the fare on the world's most dangerous water taxi. That was five years ago. Since then he has been saving up so that his three sons can join him in Yemen. The eldest is 17 and of an age to be recruited into one of the militias. They won't face much of a future in Yemen but just about anywhere is safer than Somalia. The Yemenis have been remarkably hospitable to the Somalis but can hardly absorb any more.

The Saudis are less welcoming. They have not only closed their border with Yemen but also established a security zone - a no man's land - along it. Its purpose is to keep out not only the Africans but unwanted Yemenis, too.

The refugees' ambition, against all odds, is to take the coast road north to the border and somehow walk across it. There too the people smugglers are waiting to exploit them. The route passes through the coastal city of Hodeidah. Many of those who did not register their arrival in Yemen are picked up and thrown into the central prison there as illegal immigrants. They are not Somalis, for the Yemenis regard the Somalis as their brothers, but other Africans - Nigerians, Kenyans, Eritreans and Sudanese.

Our delegation was granted unprecedented access to this home for lost souls, its 30ft walls set around with watchtowers, because of Unicef's concern about the 29 underage prisoners - 16 and 17-year-olds - being held there. In the great central courtyard we found more than 1,000 prisoners paraded before us, nearly all young men, squatting in ranks and sections under the eyes of their guards. They included 483 Africans.

Some of the Nigerians, spotting the cameras, surged towards us. Most had been held for more than a year. They complained about the conditions - not enough medicine or food or clean water. They had given up on going to Saudi Arabia. All they wanted was to return to Nigeria.

They included a one-armed eight-year-old boy who had been arrested with his father - or elder brother, the story changed - and was staying with him in the prison. They were crouched in a dark corner, and the boy may well have been a victim of child traffi cking. There could be no more vivid illustration than the scene before us of the refugees' plight and of the hopes that ended in tears in 'hapless Arabia'.

Further south in Aden, Yemen's second city, is the main administrative centre for the refugees - the port was also a British colony for 200 years until 1967. I remembered having been assigned there shortly after independence, as a young and rather naive reporter, to see how the new South Yemen (as it was then called) was doing - not so badly as it happened, until it became for a while the only Marxist state in the Arab world.
On returning I was pleased to see that over the years the British had left more of a legacy than the Marxists, but at a cost - and the cost was engraved on the stones in the military cemetery under the mountain. We didn't fly our dead home in those days, or salute their repatriations at Wootton Bassett, but buried them close to where they fell.

Many of them were soldiers of the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders, who died at the end of Empire. Some were no more than 18 and 19 years old, the same age as so many of today's young men killed in Afghanistan by the Taliban's foreign fighters, Yemenis among them.

I stood for a while in respect; then, when the guard had woken up, I signed his faded visitors' book and reflected: why do we go on doing this, and in what cause? Are our soldiers in far-flung places, now as then, too few to fight and too many to die? It may be that one of the lessons of history is that we don't learn the lessons of history. We shall surely do again what we always do, which is to declare victory and leave the field.

Older people in Aden tend to look back on the British time with a certain nostalgia. A statue of Queen Victoria, which was removed from its plinth and threatened with being melted down, has now been restored to its rightful place in the park which bears her name. The British departure from Aden in 1967 was controversial.

The exploits of Lieutenant Colonel Colin Mitchell of the Argylls - 'Mad Mitch' to his friends and enemies - are well remembered to this day: leading his regiment into battle with bagpipes playing, Mitchell reoccupied a district of Aden in what is now known as 'the Last Battle of the British Empire'. But the present crisis engulfing the whole country was unimaginable then.

It is a mix of war, malnutrition, overpopulation and terrorism; the exploitation of desperate people and the mass migration of tens and thousands driven from their homes both in Yemen and outside it. The two Yemens, north and south, were united in 1990. To many southerners it was not a happy union, and to add to all the other problems the secessionist movement in the south is growing in strength.

There is modest cause for hope but you have to look hard to find it. One point to emphasise: Yemen itself is not in thrall to Al Qaeda in any way. Al Qaeda In The Arabian Peninsular is more of a threat to the West than it is to its host country. Yemen is threatened by war and anarchy. It is as if one of the failed states of Africa had migrated to Arabia.

In other emergencies I have been shocked by how many babies and infants, malnourished or starved, were being brought to the therapeutic feeding centres and health clinics. At the al-Wahda hospital in Aden I was shocked by how few there were.

In Yemen the very young suff er from higher levels of malnutrition than anywhere in Africa; 32 per cent are born underweight. But it is Ramadan, a time for prayer, fasting and family togetherness - and a time when many people will not take their infants to the hospital, or, if they are in the hospital, will take them out. At this one we found Abrar, a three-year-old girl, who had been admitted ten days earlier and had just left intensive care. She was emaciated and clearly still very ill. But her mother, with three other children to look after, was determined to take Abrar home against all medical advice. I asked the paediatrician whether the girl would survive if she went home. The doctor paused and said, 'No'.

Or how about this - a story from the closed border between Yemen and Saudi Arabia where smugglers deal in two commodities, children and drugs, and sometimes both together. At a child protection centre in the northern town of Haradh we were told of a case where a child was thrown over a fence nine feet high and his fall was broken on the other side by the leaves that were strapped to his body. The leaves were of qat, which is a widely chewed by Yemenis but banned in Saudi Arabia as a narcotic.Besides this, experts predict that within 15 years Sana'a will be the world's first capital city to run out of water. Ask what problems Yemen doesn't have, and I would have said earthquakes and volcanoes, except that there actually was an earthquake in 1981. In September the United Nations will be assessing the progress made in the developing world since the Millennium - and in Yemen, except in education, the scores will be low to zero on almost every count.

And yet... there is among the young, and the agencies like Unicef serving them, a determination to shape a future for the country more like its fabled history than its recent past. You can see this not in the big projects but the small ones. One of these is to transform Yemen's record on maternal mortality - 370 deaths for each 100,000 live births - the highest in the Arab world. Two years ago, for a modest $300, Unicef started a project in the northern town of Zaidia for volunteer midwives to work in the community and identify mothers-to-be at risk. It now funds itself and lives are being saved which would otherwise be lost. The health workers are out among the people.

In one of the poorest districts of Aden I watched a puppet show, which was actually a performance of street theatre with the sort of emotional supercharge that I had not experienced for years. It was staged by teenage volunteers for other teenagers and for younger children too. It was about the hardships of their everyday lives in a dirt-poor and troubled country.

Through puppetry, song and dance it told the story of a young girl, Leila, who was forced like so many others to beg in the streets, and who while she was there saved another beggar from a life of prostitution. One of the themes, even for so young an audience, was the danger of HIV/ Aids. The story ended happily for all. And the message that brought the kids to their feet was that, since they were all in this together, the way to a brighter future was for them to help each other.

That's what so many Yemenis are trying to do in the most adverse circumstances imaginable. And the aid agencies - including Unicef, Oxfam and Islamic Relief - are working modest miracles alongside them. But modest miracles may not be enough. The present crisis is so acute that the nightmare outcome, of Yemen becoming another Somalia, is not unthinkable; it would have far reaching consequences, even beyond the dimension of the permanent threat from Al Qaeda In The Arabian Peninsular. If there's another war in this far-away country and we blithely suppose we're not interested in it, we may well find that it's interested in us.

So in helping Yemen we are not only doing what is right. We are also helping ourselves.

Wednesday, April 28, 2010

British ambassador escapes with his life after Al Qaeda suicide bomber attacks his armoured car

Tim Torlot, the British ambassador to Yemen, was targeted by a suicide bomber as he went to work

Yemeni forces secure the scene in the country's capital shortly after the suicide bombing

Yemeni officials carry out their examination of the blast scene

The British ambassador to Yemen narrowly escaped death yesterday after an Al Qaeda suicide bomber targeted his car.

Tim Torlot was travelling in a convoy through a suburb of the capital Sanaa when a man, dressed as a schoolboy and wearing an explosive vest, blew himself up.

The 52-year-old diplomat, pictured, was in an armoured car and despite the blast being triggered alongside, it suffered little damage and was able to speed away.

Officials said the bomber died and a bystander suffered shrapnel wounds. Two security officials travelling in the motorcade were also injured.

The British embassy, which has been targeted before, was immediately closed indefinitely and security surrounding UK diplomats was under review last night. UK

citizens in Yemen were advised to keep a low profile amid concerns about how Al Qaeda had known the route Mr Torlot would be taking after an early morning meeting.

Yemen’s interior ministry said the attack ‘bore the hallmarks of Al Qaeda’ and the bomber had been dressed in the sports uniform of a schoolboy as part of his disguise.

The suicide bomber is believed to have been the only person who died in the blast. Three others were injured

Experts from a Yemeni explosives unit arrive at the scene of the attack

The attack comes at a time of mounting fears that Yemen is becoming a haven for Al Qaeda, with hardened fighters transferring there from Pakistan and Afghanistan.

Chilling video that shows failed Christmas Day bomber training with Al Qaeda in Yemen .Seen failed airline underwear bomber

Learning to kill with Al Qaeda: The man believed to be Umar Farouk Abdulmultallab shoulders a gun with other members of his training class in Yemen in the new video footage

Another unidentified militant braces his gun on his feet as he practices shooting up in to the air at aircraft

Christmas Day airline bomb suspect Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab has been shown on a video training with Al Qaeda in Yemen.

The video, obtained and broadcast yesterday by ABC World News, shows the 23-year-old Nigerian firing weapons and speaking in Arabic about the impending attack in Detroit, Michigan.

He is shown reading from the Koran and saying: 'God said those who punish you must be punished.'
A U.S. intelligence official said last night that the preliminary judgement was that it was Abdulmutallab in the video and the footage was consistent with the understanding that he was in training.

The militants are shown practising in a foot gun battle

CIA target: Radical American cleric Anwar al Awlaki, who is believed to have inspired Abdulmutallab

Abdulmutallab's training class practice using anti-aircraft guns in the video

The militants are shown practising in a foot gun battle

It is not clear where and when the video was made.

According to ABC News, the video was produced by Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, or AQAP.

It was first aired yesterday on television networks al-Jazeera and al-Jazeera English.

Former London student Abdulmutallab and others are shows firing at targets, including the Jewish star of David and one labelled 'UN'.
Abdulmutallab is accused of trying to use a bomb hidden in his underwear to bring down a Detroit-bound airliner on Christmas Day.

The explosives failed, but burned Abdulmutallab, who was arrested.

He has been co-operating with investigators, discussing his contacts in Yemen and providing intelligence on multiple terrorism investigations, according to U.S. officials.

The IntelCenter, an Alexandria, Virginia-based company that studies terrorist groups, reported that video appears to show the first official communication from a terrorist organization by Anwar al-Awlaki, a Muslim cleric born in New Mexico to Yemeni parents.
He has been linked to Abdulmutallab and Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, the U.S. Army psychiatrist accused of killing 13 people in November at Fort Hood, Texas.

'While he had been supportive of groups in the past, he has until now never been publicly connected to a group through its official messages,' IntelCenter director Ben N. Venzke said in an e-mail.

'Today's release firmly ties al-Awlaki to AQAP.'

Abdulmutallab, the son of a wealthy Nigerian banker, is thought to have been radicalised while studying at University College in London and then 'tutored in terrorism' in Yemen by Al Qaeda operatives under the control of Awlaki.

Awlaki became popular among Islamic radicals for his firebrand preaching when he was an imam in San Diego, California.

His sermons were attended by of the 9/11 hijackers, while a third heard him preach in Virginia.

Earlier this month he was put in a CIA hit list by Barack Obama. It was the first time that Washington had authorised putting the name of an American citizen on such a list.

Jane Harman, chairwoman of the House of Representatives Homeland Security Subcommittee on Intelligence, described him as 'probably terrorist No. 1 in terms of threat against us.

'He is very much in the sights of the Yemenis, with us helping them.'

The U.S. has warned that the Yemen is becoming a safe haven for Al Qaeda. A number of former Guantanamo detainees are thought to have joined Awlaki there and to be 'planning and inspiring' attacks against the U.S. and Britain.
Yemeni security officials said Awlaki, part of a prominent Yemeni family, had been jailed for his terror links but freed in December 2007 because he said he had repented. He was later charged again on similar counts and went into hiding.

U.S. officials say he was the main force behind the transformation of Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula into the terror group's most active affiliate outside Pakistan and Afghanistan.

Tuesday, January 12, 2010

Saudi troops retake village from Yemen Houthi rebels -Clashes in Yemen kill 17 rebels, eight soldiers

Prince Khaled bin Sultan addressed state TV near the front line

Yemen has launched a major offensive against the rebels

Saudi troops have regained control of a border village occupied by Yemeni Shia rebels since November, the kingdom's deputy defence minister has said.

Prince Khaled bin Sultan told state TV that four Saudi soldiers and "hundreds" of rebels were killed in the clashes.

He said the overall death toll of Saudi soldiers in the border conflict with Yemen's Houthi rebels now stood at 82.

Riyadh began operations against the rebels in November after a Saudi soldier was killed along the border.

Regional threat

Prince Khaled bin Sultan said Yemeni rebels had "inflicted upon themselves hundreds of deaths" in the border village of al-Jabiri after ignoring a 48-hour deadline to quit their positions, the Reuters news agency reports.

"The infiltrators have been eliminated from al-Jabiri and the whole district has been taken under control," he told state-owned al-Ekhbariya television, adding that 21 Saudi soldiers were missing.

The rebels have repeatedly accused Saudi forces of targeting their villages and killing civilians, but Riyadh says its military operations have been confined to Saudi territory.

While the conflict between Saudi Arabia and the Houthis began recently, fighting between the rebels from the minority Shia Zaidi sect and the Yemeni government has occurred sporadically since 2004.

The rebels accuse the government of social, economic and religious marginalisation.

Also on Tuesday, Yemen's interior ministry said Yemeni forces killed at least 19 rebels in the northern city of Saada and arrested another 20.

According to the latest UN figures, an estimated 200,000 people have been displaced by the conflict.

Alongside the fighting in the north and a secessionist movement in the south, Western policymakers believe al-Qaeda is gaining a foothold in Yemen.

Last week, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said instability in Yemen was a global as well as regional threat.

Clashes in Yemen kill 17 rebels, eight soldiers

Fierce fighting in the mountains of northern Yemen has killed 17 Shiite rebels and eight soldiers, a military source told AFP on Monday.

"There was fierce fighting in the (northern) city of Saada on Sunday. Seventeen Huthis (rebels) and eight Yemeni soldiers were killed," the source said.

The rebels said in a statement posted on their website that clashes were still underway in Saada, where they charged the army was using bulldozers to "destroy" property.

"The army is undertaking to destroy the city," the statement said. "It is using bulldozers to destroy houses, mosques and historical buildings."

A report on the www.26sep.net website of the defence ministry's newspaper, said government forces had seized control of rebel hideouts in Saada's Old City.

"Men of the armed forces were able to gain control of a number of hideouts in which partisans of terrorism and sabotage were barricaded," the report said.

It described the fighting as part of "the final stage of the operation of clearing the remaining terrorist sleeper cells from the city."

On Sunday, President Ali Abdullah Saleh said in an interview that he was open to dialogue with the rebels as long as they gave up the armed struggle.

"We are prepared to deal with anyone who renounces violence and terrorism," Saleh said.

A rebel spokesman responded to the statement on Monday, saying: "How do you call for dialogue when you are bombing? Stop firing, then talk about dialogue."

The rebellion among the Zaidi Shiite community, a minority in the mainly Sunni Muslim country but the majority in the north, first erupted in 2004.

Last August, the government launched a major offensive in a bid to end the uprising.

Neighbouring Saudi Arabia joined the fray in November, after accusing the rebels of occupying two villages inside the kingdom's territory and of killing a Saudi border guard.

Aid organisations say more than 150,000 people have been displaced by the fighting.

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Friday, January 8, 2010

Airline plot suspect to appear at Detroit court

The courthouse in Detroit, Michigan, where Nigerian suspect Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab will be arraigned today

Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab faces life imprisonment if convicted of trying to use a weapon of mass destruction

The Nigerian terror suspect accused of trying to blow up a Detroit-bound flight on Christmas Day will make his first court appearance in Detroit Friday.

The arraignment comes a day after US president Barack Obama vowed sweeping and costly new measures to fix the intelligence flaws exposed by the Al-Qaeda attack.

Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, 23, was indicted Wednesday by a grand jury on six counts arising from the botched plot to blow up an airliner packed with 290 passengers and crew flying from Amsterdam to Detroit.

The charges included attempted murder and trying to use a weapon of mass destruction aboard a US plane.

Obama blamed US spy agencies for failing to properly connect and analyze signs that an Al-Qaeda affiliate in Yemen was planning the attack.

Abdulmutallab was badly burned when the explosive he hid in his underwear caught fire but failed to blow up as Northwest Airlines Flight 253 began its descent into Detroit.

Fellow passengers subdued him and the crew was able to put the fire out before much damage had been done.

He spent several days in hospital before being transferred to a federal detention facility in Milan, Michigan.

Abdulmutallab is set to be arraigned at 2:00 pm (1900 GMT) at a federal courthouse in downtown Detroit.

A group of Muslim faith leaders is planning to rally outside the courthouse with signs declaring "not in our name."

"The collective goal of all of us, as our president has spoken about, is to defeat the extremists and Al-Qaeda," said organizer Victor Ghalib Begg, chair of the Council of Islamic Organizations of Michigan.

"Their actions really harm all of us," Begg told AFP, referring to Islamic extremists.

"It gives a bad name to Muslims and it's important for religious leaders to speak out. The things these people do -- that's a ticket to hell, not to paradise."

Michigan district court documents accused Abdulmutallab of "carrying a concealed bomb" of high explosives inside his clothing onto Flight 253.

If convicted of trying to use a weapon of mass destruction, he faces life imprisonment, the Department of Justice said. Attempted murder charges carry a maximum sentence of 20 years, while two charges of possession and use of a firearm or destructive device carry a mandatory 30 years prison term.

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Facts: Christmas Day bombing plot: Who knew what, when?-Lawmakers Want More Security Changes Out of Terror Plot Review

AbdulMutalab son of a Nigeria banker.Went to Yemen to study language and later trained by AL Qeada to use PETN bom.Dad already inform and warn authorities in Nigeria about his son radical views before the sucidal attempt.

AbdulMutalab went to Yemen to study but make contact with Al Qeada believe train him to use PETN.

AbdullahMutalib failed to ignite the PETN bom strapped in his underwear.Injected a syringe into the underwear but no explosion but badly burn leg.Later jump by a passenger.

Pieces of underwear containing the PETN.

PETN package inside the terrorist underwear that fail to explode instead badly burn AbdulMutalib leg.

The U.S. government had enough information about a Nigerian man and an al Qaeda's cell in Yemen to potentially disrupt their alleged plot to blow up a passenger jet on Christmas Day, a White House review found.

Here's what U.S. spy agencies and the State Department knew about the accused bomber, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, and the growing threat posed by al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, in the months before the attempted December 25 bombing:

NATIONAL SECURITY AGENCY

About four months before the attempted bombing on December 25, the NSA intercepted telephone conversations in which the leaders of al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula talked about the possibility of using an unidentified "Nigerian" bomber in an attack, according to intelligence officials. John Brennan, President Barack Obama's top White House adviser on counterterrorism, said the intercepts were shared with the National Counterterrorism Center.

WHITE HOUSE

The flow of intelligence picked up between mid-October and late December, but U.S. counterterrorism officials learned as early as August how effective al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula had become at concealing the explosive PETN, known as pentaerythritol, in the undergarments of would-be suicide bombers.

The intelligence stemmed from al Qaeda's attempted assassination on August 27 of Prince Mohammed bin Nayef, who heads Saudi Arabia's anti-terrorism campaign.

Brennan, who visited Saudi Arabia less than a week after the attack, said the United States worked with the Saudis to gather intelligence about al Qaeda's use of PETN but added: "There was nothing in that assassination attempt against Prince Mohammed bin Nayef that indicated aviation was a target."

The PETN hidden in Abdulmutallab's underwear failed to detonate.

CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY

The CIA first learned of Abdulmutallab on November 18, when his father came to the U.S. Embassy in Abuja, Nigeria, to voice concerns that his son may have come under the influence of militants and had planned to travel to Yemen.

The CIA said it worked with the embassy to add Abdulmutallab and his possible Yemeni contacts to the U.S. terrorism database and forwarded biographical information about him to the National Counterterrorism Center.

Critics say the CIA should have done more to flag the intelligence.

The White House said: "Though this information alone could not predict Mr. Abdulmutallab's eventual involvement in the attempted 25 December attack, it provided an opportunity to link information on him with earlier intelligence reports that contained fragmentary information."

STATE DEPARTMENT

U.S. diplomats also took part in the November 18 meeting with Abdulmutallab's father in Abuja and forwarded the information by unclassified cable to the National Counterterrorism Center on November 20. But officials said the information was deemed insufficient to revoke Abdulmutallab's U.S. visa.

Department officials argue that they generally rely on an interagency screening system to advise if visas should be revoked on security-related grounds, and that no such recommendation was made in this case.

Critics also say the State Department should have been alert to the threat after Britain denied Abdulmutallab a student visa to attend a bogus institution. U.S. officials say British authorities never informed them that the visa was denied, although they describe cooperation between the two countries since the incident as "seamless."

OFFICE OF THE DIRECTOR OF NATIONAL INTELLIGENCE AND THE NATIONAL COUNTERTERRORISM CENTER

The Director of National Intelligence is ultimately responsible for integrating foreign, military and domestic intelligence. For months, DNI Dennis Blair and CIA Director Leon Panetta have waged a behind-the-scenes turf battle over Blair's role, but the White House and intelligence officials say the DNI, the CIA and other intelligence agencies shared information as they were supposed to.

Telephone intercepts and biographical information from the NSA and the CIA were shared with the National Counterterrorism Center, which was established in 2004 to serve as the main repository for counterterrorism intelligence gathered by more than 16 agencies. Critics say the center did not "connect the dots" as it was designed to do.

Lawmaker demand more security changes after failed attempt by suicidal person on US Flight.

President Obama's push to revamp the terror watch list, improve airport screening and hold the intelligence community more accountable for tracking suspects does not go far enough, some lawmakers say, arguing that more specific steps need to be taken to avoid a repeat of the attempted Christmas Day bombing.

President Obama's preliminary review of the attempted Christmas Day airline bombing would "shock" Americans, the most startling aspect of it may have been that the administration was pledging to do what seemed obvious to many -- at least in hindsight.

The president's push to revamp the terror watch list, improve airport screening and hold the intelligence community more accountable for tracking suspects had some lawmakers saying on Friday that the administration must offer more specific steps if it hopes to avoid a repeat of the alleged plot to blow up an international flight heading to Detroit.

"The president says we're going to have smart, sensible screening at airports. You know what? I hope so. It's about time," Rep. Eric Cantor, R-Va., told Fox News on Friday.

Lawmakers applauded the administration for the swift steps it has taken in response to the attempted bombing, but they are calling for additional, more specific changes in the months ahead.

Maine Sen. Susan Collins, ranking Republican on the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, said the State Department should suspend the visas of everybody in the terror database -- which contains more than a half-million people -- pending "further investigation." The Christmas Day suspect, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, had been in that database, but was not moved to any smaller list that would have required secondary airport screening or prohibited him from flying. His visa, meanwhile, was never revoked.

Collins also said the Department of Homeland Security should expand programs to verify that all foreigners flying to the United States have valid visas.

"If the State Department had cancelled Abdulmutallab's visa, he would never have been permitted to board his flight in Amsterdam," she said in a written statement.

Sens. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., and John McCain, R-Ariz., wrote a letter to Obama urging him not only to halt the transfer of Guantanamo detainees to Yemen, but to all "countries with a significant Al Qaeda presence."

They listed Afghanistan, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, Algeria and Sudan among them.

Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., chairwoman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, already had warned the administration that the standards for watchlisting suspected terrorists are "too restrictive."

She urged the president in a recent letter to loosen the standards so that anyone "reasonably believed" to be connected with a terrorist group would be added to a watchlist and denied a visa.

It doesn't appear as if Obama's policy recommendations go that far -- at least not yet.

The administration, which has already started to expand the no-fly list, plans to conduct a "thorough review" of the terror database and review the visa status of those on it. It plans to review whether any "adjustments" are needed and also to review criteria for issuing visas.

The Obama administration has instituted a series of other changes since the failed attack two weeks ago. The Transportation Security Administration has called for extra screening for U.S.-bound flights at airports in 14 countries of interest; the State Department is changing the way it notifies other agencies about terror suspects; and the administration is halting the transfer of Guantanamo Bay detainees to Yemen, where Abdulmutallab visited before the attempted bombing.

The changes announced Thursday were a bit more vague. The administration pledged to pursue "enhanced screening," improve the "rigor and raise the standard of tradecraft of intelligence analysis," assign specific responsibility for certain terror suspect cases and establish a process for prioritizing cases, along with the review of the visa and watchlist system.

The recommendations came after a two-week review that found multiple shortcomings in the intelligence community. Obama said the information was available to prevent the suspect from boarding a U.S.-bound plane armed with explosives, but he said officials failed to connect the dots.

The CIA, which has taken some of the blame in the aftermath of the attempt, announced Thursday that it will make an effort to more quickly distribute information on suspected terrorists, expand name traces on suspects and increase the number of analysts in hot-spot countries like Yemen.

Going forward, the president said he's committed to an all-hands-on-deck approach to rooting out future threats.

"There is, of course, no foolproof solution. As we develop new screening technologies and procedures, our adversaries will seek new ways to evade them, as was shown by the Christmas attack," he said. "In the never-ending race to protect our country, we have to stay one step ahead of a nimble adversary. That's what these steps are designed to do."

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