Yemeni former Jihadist burns US flag and 'dinosaurs' pictures

(updated)
By Nasser Arrabyee/20/01/2011
A controversial Yemeni politician from the south set fire on Wednesday to the American and Yemeni flags and picture of President Saleh, and pictures of the exiled socialist leaders, accusing all those of conspiring against the south.

The feudal lord, and former Jihadist with Osama bin Laden, Sheikh Tarek Al Fadhli said he would lead a revolution to liberate the south from the communists who ruled before unity and also from the “occupiers” of the north as call them.

Al Fadhli burned the American flag, united Yemen flag, former south Yemen flag, green flag of the southern separatist movement, and also the pictures of the three exiled communist leaders, Ali Salem Al Baidh, Ali Nasser Mohammed, and Haidar Abu Bakr Al Attas. Al Fadhli raised the American flag on his house last year.

The burning process took place late Wednesday January 19th, 2011, in the courtyard of Al Fadhli’s huge palace in Zunjubar, the capital of the southern province of Abyan.
“Our tan arms will remain (to fight) and our foreheads will be our flags,” said Al Fadhli in a speech to his supporters after he burnt all those symbols.

He said he did that because America killed children and women of the south, in reference to previous air strikes, and Yemeni government fights the southerners, and the separatist movement leaders did not do anything in favor of the south, and the exiled communist leaders are only “thieves” of the revolution.

He said Ali Salem Al Baidh, Ali Nasser Mohammed, and Haidar Abu Bakr Al Attas are “Dinosaurs, and Idols”.

“The comrades are still living in the 70s of the last century, and they never changed after they placed the people in dark tunnel in 1967,” said Al Fadhli.

In his strongly worded-speech to his supporters in the ceremony of burning , Al Fadhli said, “ To America, and to the unjust (meaning President Saleh), and to the dinosaurs: Al Majalah was destroyed with a cruise missile worth 600,000 US dollars, if this money was spent to develop the area, we would have had a wonderful town where no even a terrorist housefly would dare to enter.”

Al Fadhli’s father, as feudal lord and many other bourgeoisies were forced to leave the country after the communists ruled the south in 1967 after the British colonialism left.

According to sources who attended the burning of flags on Wednesday, some of Sheikh Al Fadhli’s aides tried to convince him not to burn the American flag, but he insisted to do that, saying he put the American flag on his house only to help the exiled leaders to have support from US.

“ I raised the foreign flags only for the sake of the comrades so that they come up on tanks to liberate the south, but they didn’t,” he said “but now the people itself would be able to do that and remove injustice.”

Al Fadhli, along with hundreds of those who came back from Afghanistan early 1990s including some Arab, fought with President Saleh’s forces in 1994 civil war against socialists who tried to secede four years after they united with the north.

Al Fadhli received many privileges from President Saleh including being appointed as a member of Saleh’s advisory council. Early 2009, all of a sudden, Al Fadhli joined the southern separatist movement. Later he raised the American and British flags on his palace to tell the west he is no longer Jihadist or terrorist as he was accused by the Yemeni officials after he left them.

Al Fadhli in his speech on Wednesday after burning the flags and pictures in the courtyard of his palace, said the former top leaders of the south who try from abroad to support the separatist movement, are still in their past conflict. “ Ali Salem Al Baidh calls me from abroad and warns me from Ali Nasser Mohammed,” He said “The dinosaurs are still in their past conflict, and they want to drag the southerners to their useless and futile conflicts.”

The exiled Ali Nasser Mohammed and Ali Salem Al Baidh led a civil war in the south against each other in 1986 after they divided their socialist party into two factions.