Source: AFP
07\07\2010
Yemeni police on Wednesday opened fire at protesters in the southern city of Aden killing two civilians and wounding another two, on a "day of rage" called by separatists, medics said.
Police fired bullets and tear gas to disperse hundreds of Southern Movement supporters, witnesses said. Medics at a city hospital initially said a civilian was killed and three were wounded, but one of whom later died of his injuries.
The separatist Southern Movement called for southerners to mark a "day of rage" in tightly-patrolled Aden on the 16th anniversary of the port city being overrun by northern forces after a brief civil war.
The group also called on supporters to attend the funeral of an Aden resident, Ahmed Mohammed Darwish, who died last Friday in prison in the capital of former South Yemen.
Demonstrators were marching from a tent where the victim's family was receiving condolences to a state hospital to recover Darwish's corpse when the clashes erupted with police, witnesses said.
The crowds, estimated to number 300, were carrying portraits of Darwish and chanting "revolution, revolution south."
"The security forces detained six of the protesters after opening fire on us and dispersing our demonstration," a source from the Southern Movement told AFP.
Darwish died one day after he was detained along with dozens of others following a suspected Al-Qaeda attack on the city's intelligence headquarters on June 19.
Eleven people including seven military personnel were killed in the attack, officials said.
On Wednesday, armoured vehicles were deployed amid tight security measures in Aden, as the army sealed off the Khor Maksar district where the demonstration was held.
Yemen's interior ministry had urged "security services in several southern and eastern provinces to prevent outlaw elements from targeting security and stability through ... illegal demonstrations."
The Southern Movement is a coalition of groups with a range of demands from economic and social improvements to full independence for the regions of former South Yemen.
The impoverished country's south was independent from 1967 until 1990 when it united with the north. The south seceded in 1994, sparking a short-lived conflict that ended when the south was overrun by northern troops.
Wednesday, 7 July 2010
Tuesday, 6 July 2010
Yemeni lawmaker on hunger strike
By Nasser Arrabyee/07/07/2010
A Yemeni member of parliament said Tuesday he would go on hunger strike until he dies if his demands are not met.
The independent MP, Ahmed Saif Hashed started his hunger strike inside the Yemeni Parliament on Sunday July 4th , 2010, for not allowing him to visit the prisons of intelligence and immigration and other prisons.
Hashed, who is a member of the rights and liberties committees in the House of Representatives, previously tried many times to visit the prisoners in the intelligence and immigration prisons, but he was not allowed, and sometimes ,he said, he was attacked by the soldiers at the gate of those prisons.
Now Hashed said that he wants the House of Representatives to summon the deputy prime minister for defense and security affairs, Rashad Al Alimi for pressing the authorities in charge to allow him get inside the prisons and meet the prisoners.
When he allowed to speak why he is on strike, he said he would go on strike until he dies if he is not allowed to get inside those prisoner as an MP and member of committee of rights and liberties.
The speaker of Parliament Yahya Al Rai, said wants only to be famous and he wants the journalists to focus on him.
Many members from the ruling party and independents supported Hashed and criticized the speaker Al Rai saying it is a constitutional right to question any official in the government.
The 55-year old Hashed asked on Tuesday for a doctor to come to the Parliament hall where he sits in for treating his diabetes.
Gunman killed in east Yemen shootout
Source: AFP
06\07\2010
Yemeni security forces killed a gunman after coming under fire from a car in the eastern province of Shabwa, a stronghold of Al-Qaeda, the interior ministry said on Tuesday.
Four unknown gunmen "opened fire at a security post" in the city of Ataq, wounding a policeman, the ministry said on its website.
Security forces "responded in self defence," killing one of the passengers in the car "from which the attack was carried out," it said, adding that the three other assailants fled.
The identity card of a Saudi national was found in the car along with his driving licence, issued by United Arab Emirates authorities, according to the ministry.
In Marib province, another Al-Qaeda stronghold, "eight subversive elements" opened fire on an army post and fled without causing casualties, the ministry reported.
Shabwa and Marib are scenes of frequent unrest as Al-Qaeda militants are believed to be using regions of eastern Yemen as hideout and regrouping posts.
Yemen is the ancestral homeland of Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden and has been the target of several attacks claimed by the group on foreign missions, tourist sites and oil installations.
FEATURE-Yemen faces Qaeda, pirate threats in vital strait
Source:Reuters
By: Raissa Kasolowsky
06\07\2010
ADEN, Yemen, July 6 (Reuters) - On a rocky volcanic outcrop set in the deep and treacherous waters of a vital strait linking Europe to Asia, Yemen's coastguard is building a base to help secure one of the world's busiest waterways.
Somali pirates trawl the sea south of the Bab al-Mandab strait off Yemen's coast, and in recent months have stepped up attacks on tankers, cargo ships and fishing vessels in defiance of a major crackdown by navies from at least a dozen countries.
But Yemen has deeper worries about security off its coast after a resurgent al Qaeda arm called for a blockade of the strait between the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden, through which 25,000 ships -- 7 percent of world shipping -- pass each year. "The geographical nature of Bab al-Mandab, of the coast and the land, its beaches and islands, makes it very sensitive security-wise," Mohamed Mubarak bin Aefan, head of Aden port management, told Reuters.
Militants would struggle to block the strategic strait, experts say, but the shipping industry is still worried about possible attacks off Yemen's southwest coast. A Yemeni official said France was helping it build the base with the hope it would have a dual use in combating both piracy and al Qaeda.
Yemen has seen its ports and waters targeted before
The U.S. government warned ships sailing off Yemen's coast in March of a risk of al Qaeda attacks similar to a suicide bombing of the U.S. warship Cole in 2000 that killed 17 U.S. sailors in Aden's port. Two years later, al Qaeda hit a French supertanker in the Gulf of Aden, south of Bab al-Mandab.
Worries over the strait, through which around 3 million barrels of oil bound for Europe and the United States are shipped daily, were further stirred when Yemen boosted security on its coast against possible militant attacks.
Yemen became a top Western security concern after a resurgent Yemeni al Qaeda arm claimed a failed bomb attack on a U.S.-bound plane in December, so alarming Washington that it has cranked up security assistance to the impoverished country.
In another bold attack in June that Yemen blamed on al Qaeda, gunmen killed 11 people at the southern regional headquarters of a Yemeni intelligence agency in Aden, the deadliest attack in Yemen since the Cole bombing.
But the group's call earlier this year for a blockade of Bab al-Mandab to cut off U.S. shipments to Israel does not mean al Qaeda is capable of such an operation, said Jim Cameron, senior analyst at Stirling Assynt.
"It's certainly a real threat although I think it's probably more an aspiration rather than a capability at the moment."
In addition, it would not be easy to completely close off the 22-km (14-mile) strait, experts say.
"The strait is wide and the currents are strong and complex, so it would be difficult to actually block it in a physical sense," said Roy Facey, port adviser to the Port of Aden.
"A Yemen coastguard base to support maritime interventions, and the ability of Yemeni forces to control any high land overlooking the strait gives me a lot of confidence that the threats we hear of would be very difficult to implement.
BUSINESS WORRIES
But calls to close Bab al-Mandab still impact sentiment in the region's shipping industry, reeling from pirate attacks, said Hisham al-Saqaf, general manager of shipping and marine services firm Gulf Agency Company (GAC) Yemen.
"I don't know how they would do it but of course this is a threat and ship owners take these things seriously," he said.
While Yemen's Western allies and neighbouring oil exporter Saudi Arabia fear al Qaeda is exploiting instability on several fronts in Yemen for attacks in the region and beyond, piracy is the most burning concern for the shipping industry.
Somali pirates are making millions of dollars in ransoms by seizing ships, including tankers and dry bulkers, in the Gulf of Aden and the Indian Ocean. More than 15 ships and hundreds of sailors are being held off Somalia.
So far, Somalia's al Qaeda-linked al Shabaab rebels have not been directly involved in piracy, which has flourished in the absence of a strong government and lawlessness in the Horn of Africa nation.
Business in the region's ports has been badly hit and shipping lines are having to fork out millions of dollars in higher insurance rates, extra security costs and elevated crews' wages, all this despite the strong international naval presence.
The United States estimates that every day some 30 to 40 warships are involved in counter-piracy efforts from the EU, NATO and the United States as well as China, Russia, India, Malaysia, South Korea and Japan.
Serious security threats to ships at the Bab al-Mandab waterway would have global implications for the industry and could prompt an even stronger international military intervention, industry experts say.
The GAC's Saqaf, whose tanker business is 50 percent down compared to 2008, said the naval intervention had improved security, but more needed to be done.
"At the end of the day I want a peaceful passage, a peaceful waterway for ships to sail and to come to our ports. We need the business," he said.
The number of ships calling in Aden Port has fallen around 11 percent this year from 2008, bin Aefan said.
Dubai-based port operator DP World, which runs a container port in Aden, says there was no major impact on container lines but that piracy was a business worry.
"The business that we are in -- the transhipment trade -- is very, very competitive. Everyone wants a piece of it, from Aden to Muscat, Dubai and Jeddah, so any disadvantage we have against other ports is a concern to us," said Arthur Flynn, deputy general manager of the Aden Container Terminal.
Aden Port's bin Aefan said the problem of piracy could only be resolved if stability returned to the pirates' countries of origin and that the international community should be more aware of the possible dangers facing Bab al-Mandab.
"International and political efforts need to be aimed at the root causes and need to include an understanding of the dangerous situation this global waterway is in."
Yemen's Southern Movement calls for demonstrations in Aden
Source: AFP
06\07\2010
Yemen's separatist Southern Movement called for "a day of rage" on Wednesday in the tightly patrolled city of Aden to mark the 16th anniversary of the invasion of the south by northern forces.
The Supreme Council for the Peaceful Movement to Liberate the South issued a statement on Monday calling on all southerners to "make Wednesday a day of rage" to express "our people's determination to continue their peaceful struggle until liberation and independence."
The group also appealed to southerners to participate in the funeral of a fellow townsman, Ahmed Mohammed Darwish, who died last Friday in a prison in Aden, the capital of formerly independent South Yemen.
Darwish was "killed by Sanaa's occupying regime inside a prison cell," the statement said.
He had died a day after he was detained along with dozens of others, following a suspected Al-Qaeda attack in the city's intelligence headquarters on June 19.
Eleven people including seven military personnel were killed in the attack, officials had said.
Two other groups from the Southern Movement, the National Council for the Liberation of the South and the Union of Youth of the South, also called for a general strike in seven southern provinces on Wednesday, but did not mention Aden.
The Yemeni army has been present in large numbers in Aden, to prevent the kind of protests and unrest seen in other southern cities.
The Southern Movement is a coalition of groups with a range of demands from economic and social improvements to full independence for the regions of former South Yemen.
The impoverished country's south was independent from 1967 until 1990 when it united with the north. The south seceded in 1994, sparking a short-lived conflict that ended when the south was overrun by northern troops.
06\07\2010
Yemen's separatist Southern Movement called for "a day of rage" on Wednesday in the tightly patrolled city of Aden to mark the 16th anniversary of the invasion of the south by northern forces.
The Supreme Council for the Peaceful Movement to Liberate the South issued a statement on Monday calling on all southerners to "make Wednesday a day of rage" to express "our people's determination to continue their peaceful struggle until liberation and independence."
The group also appealed to southerners to participate in the funeral of a fellow townsman, Ahmed Mohammed Darwish, who died last Friday in a prison in Aden, the capital of formerly independent South Yemen.
Darwish was "killed by Sanaa's occupying regime inside a prison cell," the statement said.
He had died a day after he was detained along with dozens of others, following a suspected Al-Qaeda attack in the city's intelligence headquarters on June 19.
Eleven people including seven military personnel were killed in the attack, officials had said.
Two other groups from the Southern Movement, the National Council for the Liberation of the South and the Union of Youth of the South, also called for a general strike in seven southern provinces on Wednesday, but did not mention Aden.
The Yemeni army has been present in large numbers in Aden, to prevent the kind of protests and unrest seen in other southern cities.
The Southern Movement is a coalition of groups with a range of demands from economic and social improvements to full independence for the regions of former South Yemen.
The impoverished country's south was independent from 1967 until 1990 when it united with the north. The south seceded in 1994, sparking a short-lived conflict that ended when the south was overrun by northern troops.
Monday, 5 July 2010
Soldiers die in eastern Yemen clash with al Qaeda
Source: Reuters
By :Erika Solomon and Tamara
05\07\2010
Two soldiers were killed and three wounded in clashes with al Qaeda militants in eastern Yemen on Monday, a day after Shi'ite rebels killed a man in the north, officials said.
A group of militants accused of belonging to al Qaeda attacked the soldiers with a bomb while escaping a siege in eastern Hadramout province, a local official said.
In the north, a man was killed on Sunday for opposing the Houthi rebels, the interior ministry said on its website. A rebel spokesman told Reuters a 70-year-old man was killed in a family dispute that was not political.
Yemen agreed a truce with the northern rebels in February to halt a war that had begun in 2004, displaced 350,000 people, and briefly drew in Riyadh when rebels seized Saudi border areas.
The ceasefire has largely held, but outbreaks of violence threaten to further destabilize the government at a time when it is also trying to subdue southern separatism and fight a resurgent arm of al Qaeda.
Sanaa accused the rebels on Sunday of being slow to implement the truce, saying they had delayed handing over weapons and withdrawing from some positions.
The rebels, who complain of religious and economic discrimination, replied in a statement on their website that they were committed to peace and stability in the region.
"The government since the beginning has not shown a desire for peace and security with any step to resolve the effects of these wars," the statement said, demanding the government release Houthi prisoners as it had promised.
Yemen's Western and Saudi allies want Sanaa to resolve its domestic conflicts and consolidate power so that it can focus on fighting al Qaeda, whose Yemeni arm claimed responsibility for a failed attack on a U.S.-bound plane in December.
Previous truces have not lasted and analysts doubt whether the current ceasefire will hold as long as Houthi complaints of discrimination remain unaddressed
By :Erika Solomon and Tamara
05\07\2010
Two soldiers were killed and three wounded in clashes with al Qaeda militants in eastern Yemen on Monday, a day after Shi'ite rebels killed a man in the north, officials said.
A group of militants accused of belonging to al Qaeda attacked the soldiers with a bomb while escaping a siege in eastern Hadramout province, a local official said.
In the north, a man was killed on Sunday for opposing the Houthi rebels, the interior ministry said on its website. A rebel spokesman told Reuters a 70-year-old man was killed in a family dispute that was not political.
Yemen agreed a truce with the northern rebels in February to halt a war that had begun in 2004, displaced 350,000 people, and briefly drew in Riyadh when rebels seized Saudi border areas.
The ceasefire has largely held, but outbreaks of violence threaten to further destabilize the government at a time when it is also trying to subdue southern separatism and fight a resurgent arm of al Qaeda.
Sanaa accused the rebels on Sunday of being slow to implement the truce, saying they had delayed handing over weapons and withdrawing from some positions.
The rebels, who complain of religious and economic discrimination, replied in a statement on their website that they were committed to peace and stability in the region.
"The government since the beginning has not shown a desire for peace and security with any step to resolve the effects of these wars," the statement said, demanding the government release Houthi prisoners as it had promised.
Yemen's Western and Saudi allies want Sanaa to resolve its domestic conflicts and consolidate power so that it can focus on fighting al Qaeda, whose Yemeni arm claimed responsibility for a failed attack on a U.S.-bound plane in December.
Previous truces have not lasted and analysts doubt whether the current ceasefire will hold as long as Houthi complaints of discrimination remain unaddressed
Sunday, 4 July 2010
Mutual accusations of preparing for new war in Sa’ada
By Nasser Arrabyee/04/07/2010
Al Houthi rebels and the Yemeni government exchanged accusations of preparing for a new round of war in the war-torn Sa’ada, north of the country.
The exchange of accusations came after dozens of rebels and tribesmen loyal to the government were killed and injured during the current fragile truce announced by both parties last February.
A spokesman for Al Houthi rebels said Sunday that the government is preparing for the seventh round of war against them.
“The government is escalating and purchasing the weapons to launch the seventh war against us,” said Abu Malik, the representative of Al Houthi rebels in Harf Sufyan.
‘’ The government did not implement any of our demands since the war stopped last February,” he said.
On February 12, 2010, the government announced a cease-fire after the rebels accepted six conditions to end 6-year old sporadic war. The conditions include the rebels going down from the mountains and handing over the weapons .
On Sunday, the field committees in charge of supervising the implementation of the six conditions accused the rebels of not wanting peace and of beating the drums of war .
“ It’s been more than four months now since the cease-fire, the rebels have been procrastinating in implementing the six conditions they accepted,” said a statement issued by the supervising committees.
The statement called the rebels to abide by the six conditions and mechanisms of their implementations.
Al Houthi rebels and the Yemeni government exchanged accusations of preparing for a new round of war in the war-torn Sa’ada, north of the country.
The exchange of accusations came after dozens of rebels and tribesmen loyal to the government were killed and injured during the current fragile truce announced by both parties last February.
A spokesman for Al Houthi rebels said Sunday that the government is preparing for the seventh round of war against them.
“The government is escalating and purchasing the weapons to launch the seventh war against us,” said Abu Malik, the representative of Al Houthi rebels in Harf Sufyan.
‘’ The government did not implement any of our demands since the war stopped last February,” he said.
On February 12, 2010, the government announced a cease-fire after the rebels accepted six conditions to end 6-year old sporadic war. The conditions include the rebels going down from the mountains and handing over the weapons .
On Sunday, the field committees in charge of supervising the implementation of the six conditions accused the rebels of not wanting peace and of beating the drums of war .
“ It’s been more than four months now since the cease-fire, the rebels have been procrastinating in implementing the six conditions they accepted,” said a statement issued by the supervising committees.
The statement called the rebels to abide by the six conditions and mechanisms of their implementations.
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