"Young activists in Yemen now contend revolt has been co-opted" February 29, 2012|By Sudarsan Raghavan
The US GOVT BEHIND DEAL AND NEW GOVT!
SANA, Yemen — The youth activists who spearheaded the uprising that ended President Ali Abdullah Saleh’s 33-year rule are grappling with internal divisions, as politics and competing visions weaken one of the Arab world’s most dynamic revolts of the past year.
In Change Square, the nexus of the revolution, protesters have splintered into politically aligned groups, each determined to hold sway over the sprawling tented encampment near Sana’a University. The demonstrations have grown smaller as opposition parties have taken control, and clashes have erupted over who controls the microphones and the stage.
Independent activist leaders say they were manipulated by the opposition parties, which agreed to a deal with the government last year and are now sharing power with Saleh’s ruling party. Although Saleh has formally stepped down, he appears determined to remain influential through his powerful relatives and allies.
The activists say they will not leave Change Square until the remnants of Saleh’s regime are gone, and they vow to press the new unity government to enact far-reaching reform. But a sense of frustration fills their discussions.
“This revolution has been stabbed in the back,’’ said Khaled al-Anesi, a lawyer and one of the core leaders of the revolt.
Across the Middle East and North Africa, young activists are struggling to find a role in postdictatorship societies as they continue pushing their vision for a better future. They face well- organized opposition movements or armed militias that now wield much greater influence.
In Yemen, many young protesters say they have been left out, their voices silenced. Instead, an older generation of opposition leaders, their credibility tainted by previous ties to Saleh’s government, will have the greatest say in shaping a new Yemen.
The revolution could regain momentum, especially if the new government fails to meet its promises or if Saleh meddles in the country’s affairs. But for now, youth leaders acknowledge that the current environment is partly their own doing. They have not been able to unify, allowing political parties to influence the uprising’s direction....
A year ago, Change Square was buzzing with unity. Protests that began with a small group of youth activists, including one of last year’s Nobel Peace Prize recipients, Tawakkol Karman, blossomed into a revolution. Political parties sent their supporters to the square, multiplying the size of the demonstrations and the pressure on Saleh.
Related: Women of Peace War Call
Yemeni Bra-Burning
By last summer, the square was a remarkable sight as rival tribesmen and political foes pitched tents side by side. They had one goal: Saleh’s removal.
Despite their different political affiliations, most of the youth activists held the same views. They were against a US-backed power-transfer deal, crafted by Yemen’s Persian Gulf neighbors, that gave Saleh and his family immunity from prosecution for allegedly killing protesters. And they opposed allowing Saleh to turn over power to his hand-picked successor, Vice President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi, who is also a former defense minister.
But after Saleh signed the deal in November, the traditional political opposition ordered its young supporters to stop demonstrating, which greatly reduced the impact of the protests.
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Related: Nothing New in Yemen
And the Yemenis know it.
"Yemenis rally to demand army shake-up" March 03, 2012
SANA, Yemen - Massive crowds gathered across Yemen yesterday, demanding that officers loyal to ousted president Ali Abdullah Saleh be purged from the country’s armed forces.
The demonstrations were the first since Saleh officially handed over power to his successor, in a move that was intended to bring peace after more than a year of violent protests against Saleh’s longtime rule.
Were they?
But while Saleh is out of office, many Yemenis worry he will wield power through allies in the military and well-placed family members such as his son and nephew, who hold powerful security posts.
Demonstrators in 18 of the country’s 21 provinces chanted “Restructuring the army is our top demand!’’ The chants were a reference to commitments made by incoming President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi, who vowed during his inaugural speech last week to shake up the military.
Saleh’s son and nephew command the powerful Republican Guard and Central Security forces, which were used in trying to suppress the uprising against Saleh’s rule over the past year. Hadi took over from Saleh Feb. 25 as part of a US-backed power-transfer deal aimed at ending the political turmoil. Hadi, who was Saleh’s vice president, was the only candidate in the election.
He immediately moved to fulfill part of his inauguration pledge, and on Thursday removed the top commander of the southern region, General Mahdi Maqoula, a Saleh loyalist.
Military officers have been demanding Maqoula’s ouster, alleging that he has been hindering supplies to the armed forces in the south, which are battling Al Qaeda militants.
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"Yemen army hit by Al Qaeda surprise attack" March 06, 2012|By Ahmed al-Haj
SANA, Yemen — Al Qaeda militants launched a surprise attack against military bases in south Yemen over the weekend, killing 107 soldiers and capturing heavy weapons they later used to kill more troops, officials said Monday....
Al-CIA-Duh, huh?
Medical officials in the area confirmed the death toll figures. They said the poor services in local hospitals accounted for the deaths of many soldiers who suffered serious wounds but could have survived had they been given better medical care....
Maybe if the Saleh's hadn't stole so much loot the hospital would have been better.
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Also see: Attack on troops tests Yemen's new leader
Al Qaeda claims sneak attack in Yemen
"18 Al Qaeda-linked militants are killed
SANA - Airstrikes killed 18 Al Qaeda-linked militants in central Yemen on Saturday while separate strikes targeted militants in the south, officials said. The military offensive comes in response to an attack last week in which militants sneaked across the desert at dawn to the back lines of Yemeni forces and killed about 200 soldiers. Many of the troops were asleep in their tents when militants sprayed them with bullets. Their bodies, many of which were missing heads or mutilated, were later dumped in the desert (AP)."
Okay, first of ll, how did they get so close to the tent?
I mean, is this story even real? Forgive me for asking, readers; however, I simply no longer accept at face value anything my war-promoting piece of horse shit shovels at me.
"Gunmen kill US teacher in Yemen" by Ahmed al-Haj | Associated Press, March 19, 2012
SANA, Yemen - Two gunmen on a motorcycle shot and killed an American teacher working at a missionary language institute in a central Yemeni city early Sunday, the region’s provincial governor said.
Hamoud al-Sufi said the teacher was shot in his car in Taiz city while heading to work. He did not have details on who the killers might be, but said information so far pointed to a possible involvement by Al Qaeda’s branch in Yemen....
Excuse me. I have to use the crapper.
In a separate development Sunday, the Yemen’s Ministry of Human Rights disclosed that more than 2,000 people were killed in a year of political turmoil that led to the resignation of longtime leader Ali Abdullah Saleh. The figure is much higher than human rights groups estimated.
The government figure of at least 2,000 includes both unarmed protesters and military defectors, as well as more than 120 children. It said 22,000 people were wounded over the past year.
Yemenis protested across the country Sunday to mark the killing of more than 50 protesters last year by snipers loyal to the former regime.
Hundreds of thousands of protesters took to the streets in at least 18 provinces to demand that Saleh be tried....
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Related: Yemenis protests US teacher's slaying
They really are wonderful people, aren't they?
"Al Qaeda says it killed US teacher" March 23, 2012|By Ahmed al-Haj
SANA, Yemen - Al Qaeda’s Yemen branch said Thursday that it killed an American teacher because he was trying to spread Christianity in the mainly Muslim Arab nation.
Yeah, CIA-Duh did it. That I believe.
Joel Shrum, 29, of Mount Joy, Pa., was gunned down Sunday in Taiz, where he had been living with his wife and two sons. He was studying Arabic and teaching English....
Shrum worked at the International Training and Development Center. Established in the 1970s, it is one of the oldest foreign language institutes in Yemen....
Shrum’s parents said he went to Yemen in 2009 to learn Arabic, not to proselytize, and became passionate about teaching business skills to Yemenis.
A colleague at the language center, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said Shrum encouraged Yemenis to stay true to their faith and did not try to convert people to Christianity.
He said Shrum not only taught Yemenis English, but would often buy students books and assist them in learning computer skills.
Hundreds of youth activists and other protesters marched Tuesday through Taiz demanding justice for Shrum. They carried photos of him and chanted, “Yemen is not a place for terrorism. We love you Joel!’’
Wow.
Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula said it would not allow Christian proselytizing and threatened to attack other US citizens and interests if the United States does not stop aiding Israel.
Sorry, but I'm sick of the s*** propaganda.
“The United States, its infidel subjects and interests, are legitimate targets for our jihad until it ends its war against Islam and Muslims, starting with its aid for Jews in Palestine and recurring crimes in Iraq, Afghanistan, Somalia, and Yemen,’’ it said.
That's a standard operating technique for a psyop: mix some truth in to make it unacceptable to hold those ideas.
The statement’s authenticity could not be verified, but it was issued by the media arm of Al Qaeda and posted on a website that routinely carries militant statements.
Oh, well, then it must be true!
Maybe YOU NEED to USE the crapper, readers.
Yemen has suffered a breakdown of security during a yearlong uprising that led to the ouster of the president last month.
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"Yemeni Army kills 43 militants" April 04, 2012
SANA, Yemen — Yemeni forces regained control of a strategic gateway in the south Tuesday after three days of intense shelling of Al Qaeda hideouts that left 43 militants dead, military and medical officials said.
The feeling here is anyone that opposes the U.S. and its proxy puppet is labeled "Al Qaeda."
The military had stepped up attacks and airstrikes against Al Qaeda in the mountainous area of al-Rahha in the southern province of Lahj, a strategically important region linking the south with Yemen’s northern cities.
The offensive followed two surprise attacks by militants on Yemeni Army bases in the area.
Military officials said the government forces are trying to reclaim key cities in the Aden and Abyan provinces in the south, overrun by Al Qaeda.
Qaeda-linked militants have taken advantage of a year of internal political turmoil and a security vacuum to expand gains in Yemen’s south. The militants have seized several towns and cities and entire swaths of land, and the military’s campaign has not retaken those areas.
Related: "CIA-Duh" Takes Control of Yemen
Also see: "CIA-Duh" Consolidation in Yemen
Al Qaeda’s branch in Yemen, known as Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, is one of the movement’s most dangerous offshoots.
Yemen’s uprising, inspired by Arab Spring revolts elsewhere, forced longtime President Ali Abdullah Saleh out of office in February. His successor, Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi, was later rubber-stamped as president in a nationwide vote. Hadi has vowed to fight Al Qaeda while restructuring the armed forces.
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After a while I just get sick of the slop, sorry.
"Yemeni airport reopens after gunmen leave" Associated Press, April 09, 2012
SANA, Yemen - Yemen’s main airport reopened on Sunday, a day after gunmen loyal to the nation’s ousted president seized the facility in the capital, Sana, in a brazen challenge to the new government’s authority, officials said.
Supporters of former Yemeni leader Ali Abdullah Saleh attacked the airport on Saturday, shooting up a surveillance tower and sending tanks and armored vehicles to occupy the tarmac. Their action followed a shake-up in which key commanders loyal to Saleh were fired.
The attack highlighted the challenges facing the new president, Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi, who must balance a promise to purge elements of the former regime from the security forces with the risk that his predecessor’s loyalists will cause massive disruption rather than go quietly.
The security officials said the attackers pulled out from the airport on Sunday. The former president’s half brother, air force commander Mohammed Saleh al-Ahmar, had been holed up in his office at the military wing of the airport despite being fired in Hadi’s purge.
Aides earlier said he would not give up his post until Hadi also fired some of the former president’s opponents, but military officials said he left his office abruptly later Sunday.
They said it was not clear if he accepted Hadi’s decision to fire him or not. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the media.
At stake in this power struggle is the stability of the Arab world’s poorest country.
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"Yemen’s army and Al Qaeda clash in south; 64 are dead" April 10, 2012|By Ahmed al-Haj
SANA, Yemen — An Al Qaeda attack on an army post in the south set off clashes that left 64 people dead Monday and prompted local civilians to take up arms alongside the military to beat back the militants, army officials and residents said.
Yes, EVEN THE YEMENI PEOPLE have FIGURED OUT who is "CIA-Duh!!!!"
The dawn attack is the latest in a series of bloody battles in recent months that mark an escalation in Al Qaeda’s efforts to expand its control around a swath of land it seized last year. The group took advantage of the country’s political turmoil to overrun cities and towns in southern Yemen.
How far can 200-300 hired guns expand?
The militant movement appears to be on the offensive, assaulting and sometimes overrunning army positions, although it also is sometimes forced to retreat....
And thus justifying further AmeriKan intervention, cui bono?
Yemen’s military in the south, poorly equipped and low on morale after a series of defeats, has not been able to fight the group and its supporters alone.
How can they be poorly equipped when the U.S. has poured in millions?
In cities like Lawder, residents have become fed up with the government’s inability to protect them and, in a country where tribes possess weapons, have taken up arms to protect themselves.
The military said it used artillery to pound Al Qaeda from a distance, but local civilians appear to have done much of the close-in fighting....
Yemen’s uprising, inspired by Arab revolts elsewhere, forced longtime president Ali Abdullah Saleh out of office in February. His successor and former deputy, Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi, was later rubber-stamped as president in a nationwide vote.
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"127 killed in Yemen in 2 days of clashes in south" Associated Press, April 11, 2012
SANA, Yemen - Heavy clashes between militants linked to Al Qaeda and the Yemeni military in the country’s south have killed 63 people, bringing the two-day death toll in the fighting to 127, army officials said Tuesday.
The latest fighting points to escalating hostilities between the government and militants who have sought to take advantage of the turmoil roiling the country since a popular uprising began early last year against longtime authoritarian leader Ali Abdullah Saleh.
The militants seized control of towns in the lawless south and staged attacks against government troops there and elsewhere in the impoverished Arab nation.
The military officials said the fighting that broke out in the town of Lawder in Abyan Province early Monday spilled over into Tuesday, with the army shelling militant hideouts in an effort to prevent them from sending reinforcements.
They said 56 militants, four soldiers, and three tribal fighters were killed overnight Monday and early Tuesday.
Fighting also erupted Tuesday along the border of Shabwa and Marib provinces, where militants ambushed an army post. Eight soldiers and three militants were killed in that attack, the officials said on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to brief the media.
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Related: Yemen attacks militant stronghold
"FBI director, Yemeni president pledge wider fight against Al Qaeda" April 25, 2012|By Ahmed Al-Haj
SANA, Yemen - FBI Director Robert Mueller and Yemen’s new president pledged to step up the fight against Al Qaeda on Tuesday only hours after government forces fought their way to the heart of a southern Yemeni city that has been held by Islamic extremists for nearly a year.
Yemeni officials also said a senior Al Qaeda in Yemen commander, who had been convicted in a 2002 attack on a French oil tanker but later escaped from prison, was killed in an airstrike over the weekend in a remote area in northeast Yemen.
Mueller held a 45-minute meeting with Abed Rabo Mansour Hadi in the capital, Sana, during which they discussed the battle against Al Qaeda, particularly in the southern Abyan Province, and political support for the new leader, according to a presidential spokesman.
The spokesman, Yahya al-Arasi, said Hadi stressed to Mueller the importance of US support for the campaign against Al Qaeda. Although it is the US government’s main domestic law enforcement agency, the FBI has liaison offices in countries around the world....
Yeah, those vital shipping lanes off the coast and the proximity to the oil area of the world.
The new leadership has vowed to make the US fight against terror a priority again, and stepped up the offensive against the militants in the south after a military shake-up that replaced Saleh loyalists with new officials.
Yup, the revolution was co-opted!
The United States, which has provided millions of dollars for equipment and training to improve the capabilities of the Yemeni forces, says Al Qaeda’s Yemen branch is the terror network’s most dangerous.
But they are poorly equipped, blah, blah, blah.
Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, the formal name of the terror network’s branch in Yemen, has been linked to several attempted attacks on US targets, including the foiled Christmas Day 2009 bombing of an airliner over Detroit and explosives-laden parcels intercepted aboard cargo flights last year.
Unlike other Al Qaeda branches, the network’s militants in Yemen broke away from the concept of sleeper cells and actively sought to gain a territorial foothold in lawless areas in the south.
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"US expanding drone strikes in Yemen" April 27, 2012
WASHINGTON - The United States is widening the war on Al Qaeda in Yemen, expanding drone strikes against the terror network a year after the raid that killed Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden.
US counterterrorist forces will now be allowed to target individuals found to be plotting attacks on US territory, even if US intelligence cannot identify the person by name, two senior US officials said.
Translation: the US government will drop those mass-murdering missiles on anybody they damn well feel like!
The officials spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive strategic matters.
Prior practice required militants to be identified as part of a lengthy legal vetting process. Now, tracking an individual in the act of commanding Al Qaeda fighters or planning an attack on US territory or American individuals can land the person on the shoot-to-kill list.
And not even checking it twice.
“What this means in practice is there are times when counterterrorism professionals can assess with high confidence someone is an AQAP leader, even if they can’t tell us by name who that individual is,’’ one of the officials said, referring to Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula.
It's because it's his code name, isn't it?
The White House did not approve wider targeting of groups of Al Qaeda foot soldiers, a practice sometimes employed by the CIA in Pakistan, and strikes will be carried out only with Yemeni government approval, officials said.
The new policy will widen the war against Yemen’s Al Qaeda branch, which has gained territory in fighting against the Yemeni government.
That's not what I wanted from this president.
That branch has become a top draw for foreign fighters, who used to travel to Afghanistan or Pakistan to fight.
Translation: it's where the CIA is sending their agents and assets now.
Special operations raids in Afghanistan and CIA drone strikes in Pakistan’s tribal regions - including last year’s US Navy SEAL raid that killed bin Laden there - have made them less desirable destinations, whereas Al Qaeda’s Yemen branch is seen as gaining ground against a government allied with the Americans.
Yemeni officials reached Thursday said they have not yet been briefed on the change but said Yemen’s new president, Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi, has requested increased US counterterrorist cooperation.
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"Airstrike kills 15 Al Qaeda militants in Yemen" Associated Press, May 03, 2012
SANA, Yemen - An airstrike Wednesday killed 15 Al
Qaeda-linked militants in their training camp in the country’s south,
Yemeni military officials said.
The airstrike resembled earlier US drone attacks, but American officials did not comment....
Well, they are expanding.
Well, they are expanding.
For several weeks, the Yemeni military has been on the attack against Al Qaeda, after a year during which the militants were largely unopposed in their takeover of cities and towns in the south. That came while Yemen was preoccupied with an internal power struggle, set off by huge demonstrations against longtime ruler Ali Abdullah Saleh that eventually led to his resignation in February.
Yeah, it's the protesters fault "Al-CIA-Duh" has taken over territory.
I can only say I am SO SICK of this SLOP being passed off as news.
The new government of President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi has made fighting Al Qaeda a top priority, but his drive has been hindered by resistance from cronies of Saleh, who are hanging onto key military posts and refusing to step down.
Saleh was long considered a US ally in the battle against Al Qaeda, but eventually Washington joined the chorus of opponents demanding that Saleh hand over power.
So Washington could get rid of an albatross and install another of their men.
Diplomats said Wednesday that a search has been renewed for a country that would accept Saleh in exile, to prevent him from further meddling. Gulf Arab states were one possibility.
Some war criminals get the Hague, others exile on a sandy beach.
US officials usually do not comment on airstrikes like Wednesday’s, but White House counterterrorism official John Brennan acknowledged on Monday that the United States carries out attacks using unmanned drone aircraft against specific Al Qaeda terrorists, with the cooperation of a local government.
Meaning we did this one, 'murkn!
Al Qaeda’s branch in Yemen is considered one of its most dangerous and has been linked to several attempted attacks on US targets.
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Hey, as long as that natural gas(?) keeps coming.
Related: Terrorists' Port-of-Call
Sure are taking long to get here, huh?
"Al Qaeda attack kills 22 Yemeni troops" May 08, 2012
SANAA, Yemen — Al Qaeda militants staged a surprise attack Monday on a Yemeni army base in the south, killing 22 soldiers and capturing 25 others just hours after a US drone strike killed a senior terrorist figure linked to the bombing of the USS Cole in Yemen in 2000.
Yeah, about the Cole.... CUI BONO?
It was not immediately clear if the predawn attack on the military base in the southern Abyan province was in retaliation for the death of Fahd al-Quso, an Al Qaeda leader on the FBI’s most wanted list.
The militants managed to reach the base both from the sea and by land, gunning down troops and making away with weapons and other military hardware after the blitz attack, Yemeni military officials said.
Government forces later shelled militant positions elsewhere in Abyan, killing 16 militants, said the officials, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the media.
On Sunday, Quso, the Al Qaeda leader, was hit by a missile as he stepped out of his vehicle, Yemeni military officials said. A telephone text message claiming to be from Al Qaeda’s media arm confirmed Quso was killed.
PFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFTTT!!!
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I'm sorry, folks, but I think they are just throwing names and numbers at us. That guy will be in-and-out of the grave like all the other "Al-CIA-Duh" leaders we've killed, etc, etc, etc.
"17 Al Qaeda militants killed in Yemen" May 11, 2012
SANA, Yemen - Two airstrikes in south Yemen killed seven Al Qaeda militants Thursday, including two top operatives, officials said. Yemeni soldiers, meanwhile, shelled a gathering of Al Qaeda fighters elsewhere in the south, killing 10 militants.
The attacks could be another setback for Al Qaeda, coming days after details emerged about a Saudi mole within the network who reportedly provided information allowing the CIA to target a key leader of Yemen’s terror branch.
Oh, yes, another CIA-Duh crapper!
Thursday’s airstrikes hit in the town of Jaar and northeast of Zinjibar, the provincial capital of Abyan, Yemeni security officials said.
The United States has usually used drones to strike Al Qaeda in Yemen.
Yemeni officials said one of the raids was carried out by a drone but provided no details on the other.
There was no immediate word from Washington on whether it was behind the airstrikes.
The two areas hit are part of large swaths of territory in the south that have been held by Al Qaeda for a year.
The United States and Yemen have resumed cooperation in the fight against Al Qaeda, which has taken advantage of Yemen’s political turmoil to capture territory and plot attacks against American targets.
Cooperation was suspended nearly a year ago during the popular uprising against the authoritarian regime of former leader Ali Abdullah Saleh.
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"Yemen battles kill 16 Al Qaeda militants, 7 troops" Associated Press, May 15, 2012
SANA, Yemen - Yemeni warplanes pounded Al Qaeda fighters on Monday, killing at least 16, while seven soldiers died in clashes with militants in the country’s troubled south, military officials said.
The fighting came a day after government bombings of Al Qaeda positions killed at least 30 militants.
The strikes are part of the military’s broader campaign against the
militants who seized towns and territory across southern Yemen over the
past year. The militants had taken advantage of a security vacuum
linked to the country’s political turmoil that ousted longtime
authoritarian leader Ali Abdullah Saleh....
I'm getting tired of the narrative.
I'm getting tired of the narrative.
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"US helps Yemen in offensive on Al Qaeda; Offensive in south is first to be guided by Americans" by Ahmed Al-Haj | Associated Press, May 16, 2012
SANA, Yemen - Yemeni war planes and troops backed by heavy artillery waged a four-front assault Tuesday against the strongholds of Al Qaeda militants in the south, with US troops for the first time helping direct the offensive from a nearby desert air base-turned-command center.
Just GETTING IN DEEPER and DEEPER, Americans.
Yemeni military officials said dozens of US troops were operating from al-Annad air base, about 45 miles from the main battle zones, coordinating assaults and airstrikes and providing information to Yemeni forces.
The officials said it was the most direct American involvement yet in the country’s expanding campaign against Al Qaeda’s branch in Yemen, which has been blamed for directing a string of unsuccessful bomb plots on US soil from its hideouts in the impoverished country at the tip of the Arabian Peninsula.
Most recently, this month it emerged that the CIA thwarted a plot to down a US-bound airliner using a new, sophisticated explosive to be hidden in the bomber’s underwear. But the planned bomber was actually a double agent who turned the device over to the US government.
AmeriKan must have diarrhea.
The offensive is the most concerted yet aiming to uproot Al Qaeda militants who since last year have held a swath of territory, including the provincial capital Zinjibar and several other towns, in the south of the country. One Yemeni military official said the country’s defense minister and an American general, whom he did not identify, were jointly overseeing the assault.
The Yemeni military officials, who are familiar with the workings of the army in the south, spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the highly sensitive cooperation. The US Embassy in Sana could not be reached for comment.
In the assault on Zinjibar, Yemeni troops pushed into the center of the city, though they did not outright control it, one official said. Military helicopters flew over the city for the first time in an indication militants had lost their heavy weaponry capable of shooting down the helicopters, the official said....
For the past three months, the Al Qaeda militants have carried out bloody attacks on Yemeni forces and raided weapons depots, capturing thousands of weapons, including assault rifles, machine-guns, and even tanks, armored vehicles, and rockets.
Yemen’s military has been largely ineffectual in uprooting the militants. The force is ill-equipped, poorly trained, with weak intelligence capabilities, and is riven with conflicted loyalties, since some commanders remain close to ex-President Ali Abdullah Saleh.
Saleh’s successor, Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi, however, has vowed to make the fight against Al Qaeda a priority. He moved commanders of army units, removed Saleh’s relatives in key security positions and tried to reach out to tribal leaders in the troubled south to form a strong front in the face of the militant group.
On Tuesday, the international leader of Al Qaeda, Ayman al-Zawahri, released an audio recording online aimed at swaying public opinion against Hadi, calling him a US agent and a traitor for having served as vice president during the “corrupt rule’’ of Saleh.
Again, you mix in a little truth with the psyop.
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Related: Yemeni army kills 29 Al Qaeda fighters
Battle to recapture Yemeni city slows
"Deadly bombing in Yemen linked to Al Qaeda; Defense minister was alleged target at parade practice" by Eric Schmitt and Robert F. Worth | New York Times, May 22, 2012
WASHINGTON - A huge suicide bombing in the heart of Yemen’s capital Monday morning left hundreds dead or wounded, stunning the country’s beleaguered government, and delivering a stark setback to the US counterterrorism campaign against Al Qaeda’s regional franchise, which has repeatedly tried to plant bombs on US-bound jetliners.
Then we will just have to redouble all our efforts, right?
Militants allied with Al Qaeda quickly claimed credit for the bombing, in which a man disguised as a soldier blew himself up in the midst of a military parade rehearsal near the presidential palace in Sana, the capital.
It was the deadliest terrorist attack in years in Yemen, the dirt-poor south Arabian country that is central to US concerns about terrorism.
The militant group, which goes by the name Ansar al-Shariah, said in a Facebook post that the attack was aimed at Yemen’s defense minister and was intended to retaliate for the government campaign against Al Qaeda’s southern sanctuaries that began this month.
The militants appear to be holding out and inflicting heavy losses on Yemen’s weak and divided army, despite a stepped-up US campaign of drone strikes and military assistance.
The suicide bombing brought scenes of horrific carnage to a central square in Yemen’s capital, which had been spared the worst of the insurgent violence.
“I saw arms and legs scattered on the ground,’’ said one young soldier named Jamal. “The wounded people were piled on top of each other, covered with blood. It was awful.’’
Officials said as many as 100 people were killed and 300 wounded.
The bombing came just a week after President Obama’s top counterterrorism adviser, John Brennan, visited Sana and soon after the discovery of the third attempt to smuggle a bomb aboard a US-bound jetliner by Al Qaeda militants based in Yemen.
The bombing took Yemen’s security forces by surprise and was expected to further weaken morale among troops who are angry about poor pay, ill treatment, and corruption in the top ranks. Hours afterward, Yemen’s new president, Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi, announced the ouster of four high-ranking commanders and delivered a televised address in which he pledged to continue the fight against Al Qaeda “until their eradication, no matter what sacrifices are required.’’
Okay, this is really starting to look like an inside job, cui bono?
Related: Saleh Seriously Wounded
Yeah, it wouldn't be the first inside job in Yemen.
Hadi took power in February from Ali Abdullah Saleh, the former president whose unwillingness to cede power had long been an underlying cause of increasing mayhem in the country.
Although Hadi appears to be cooperating more eagerly with the United States in the fight against Al Qaeda than his predecessor, he faces extraordinary challenges, including a secessionist movement in the south and a legacy of corruption that has severely weakened efforts to take on the militants.
“This changes everything - the soldiers will be so angry and upset,’’ said one midlevel officer, speaking by phone from Sana on the condition of anonymity. “The politicians are playing dirty political games, and we are the ones who die. In the south, they are sending soldiers who have fired five bullets in their whole life against Al Qaeda, who fight constantly.’’
Monday’s carnage followed an attack Sunday against three US civilian contractors helping to train Yemen’s coast guard in the port city of Hodeida.
The contractors escaped with light injuries, State Department officials said.
Witnesses said the attacker Monday walked from the western part of Saba’een Square, dressed in military clothes, and detonated a suicide belt just before Defense Minister Mohammed Nasser Ahmed and his immediate subordinates had been expected to greet the troops. Most of the casualties were members of the Central Security Organization, a paramilitary force commanded by Yahya Saleh, a nephew of the former president, according to several survivors.
In the past, Al Qaeda’s Yemen-based branch - eager to build its popularity with ordinary Yemenis - has tried to avoid deadly attacks on rank-and-file soldiers, and has used frequent online posts to urge them to defect.
This year, it kidnapped 75 soldiers in southern Yemen and later released them, saying it was doing so on the orders of the group’s commander, Nasser al Wihayshi.
The group appears to be less concerned about negative publicity now that it is engaged in an all-out battle to defend the territories it has controlled for more than a year in southern Yemen’s Abyan province.
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"Factional fights weaken Yemeni rulers; Many civilians forced into caves by artillery fire" by Sudarsan Raghavan | Washington Post, May 27, 2012
ARHAB, Yemen - In this rugged northern valley ringed by pink-hued mountains, an ongoing conflict between Yemeni factions is siphoning away resources from a more significant war against Al Qaeda-linked militants in Yemen’s restive south.
And Hakma Abdallah and her 10 children are among its numerous victims. Home is a dark cave in the craggy hillside above their village. They sleep on dusty blankets on the hard earth, sharing the meager space with two other families. The houses below have been shattered by artillery shells and mortar rounds, testament to the fierce battles that have erupted here.
“The children are too afraid to sleep in our house,’’ said Abdallah, whose home was badly damaged. “The shelling can start at any moment.’’
Even as the Obama administration steps up its efforts to weaken Al Qaeda’s Yemeni branch, this Middle Eastern nation’s new US-backed president is facing a struggle for his own future. The contest for influence is playing out between loyalists of former president Ali Abdullah Saleh and his longtime opponents, most prominently in the capital, Sana, and in Arhab, on its outskirts.
That is testing the authority of President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi, who was vice president under Saleh, and his ability to usher Yemen into a new era after 33 years of authoritarian rule. For now, Hadi’s biggest challenge is reforming Yemen’s fractured armed forces.
But while he has had some successes, the military remains divided, beholden more to commanders who are pro- or anti-Saleh than to Hadi, who assumed office in February.
What is unfolding in Arhab, about 15 miles north of the capital, is an extension of a yearlong military standoff, fueled by fissures in the armed forces that have divided Sana and paralyzed government.
The conflict is strictly about power, but its impact is being felt in the fight against Al Qaeda, said Yemeni officials, tribal leaders, and analysts. The bulk of the country’s veteran forces, including many US-trained counterterrorism troops, have been deployed in the capital and in Arhab to preserve the political clout of their leaders, rather than to the south, to battle the militants.
Al Qaeda’s Yemeni branch has repeatedly targeted the United States, the latest attempt last month when Saudi operatives foiled a plot to bomb a US-bound jet. In recent weeks, the Obama administration has escalated its campaign of drone strikes and sent small groups of military trainers and advisers to assist Yemen’s military, including some who entered Yemen earlier this month.
But so far the ground war, although it has intensified recently, has been unable to break the Islamists, who have gained territory and resolve over the past year.
“The tensions around Sana have taken resources from the war against the terrorists in the south,’’ said Abdul Ghani al-Iriyani, a well-known political analyst.
On one side of Arhab’s conflict are tribesmen linked to Islah, the country’s most powerful Islamist party, and Ali Muhsin al-Ahmar, a renegade general. On the other side are Republican Guard troops led by Saleh’s son, Ahmed Ali Saleh.
“They are pawns in the competition between the two factions of the regime,’’ Iriyani said.
Arhab is strategically important because it is near the capital’s international airport and because it houses the most significant Republican Guard bases in the region. It is also the ancestral home of Abdul Majid al-Zindani, Yemen’s most influential cleric, whom the United States has labeled a terrorist for his reputed links to Al Qaeda.
The conflict in Arhab began last summer, after Muhsin and his First Armored Brigade joined Yemen’s prodemocracy uprising, and after government troops killed dozens of protesters in Sana and in the south-central city of Taiz. Zindani, who like Muhsin is a senior Islah leader, also sided with the protesters.
The tribesmen of Arhab also backed the protesters, rising to prevent the Republican Guards from entering the capital and quashing the revolution. They launched attacks on their mountain bases, firing rockets and mortars. The Republican Guards responded by pounding the valley with shells and aerial strikes. Thousands fled their homes, many seeking shelter in the caves, with no water or electricity and very little food.
The fighting raged on, even after a power transfer deal brokered by Yemen’s Gulf neighbors and the United States paved the way for Saleh to step down in November.
Hadi, who was Saleh’s hand-picked successor, has surprised his critics by ousting Saleh’s half brother and a nephew from key positions in the military. However, he has not tried to dismiss Ahmed Ali Saleh or his other cousins, who command powerful sections of the military.
For the tribesmen in Arhab, the Republican Guards are the most visible symbol of the old order. People in the valley refer to the forces as “the Family Guards.’’
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“Jaar is a ghost town without electricity, water, and telephones, and not even one shop is open’’
