Thursday, 11 November 2010
Saturday, 6 November 2010
Sunday, 10 October 2010
Yemen war begins
-
BBC
[ Yemen war starts when Shias begin protests ]
Friday 25 June 2004
Yemen forces kill 46 militants
Yemeni authorities say they have killed 46 supporters of a dissident Muslim cleric in the north of the country.
An interior ministry statement quoted by the Saba state news agency said the raid targeted anti-government preacher Hussein al-Houthi and his supporters.
Soldiers backed by helicopters laid siege to several guerrilla targets in Saada, 240km (150 miles) north of the capital, Sanaa, the agency reported.
Yemen has accused the Shia cleric of sedition and anti-American extremism.
At least 12 government soldiers are also reported to have died in the operation against the rebels, which the ministry said started four days ago when police attempted to arrest the cleric.
Since then, at least 35 rebels had been wounded and 43 had been arrested, according to the government.
Crackdown
Officials said a large cache of automatic rifles, grenade-launchers and land mines had been recovered from the homes of Mr Houthi's supporters.
Security sources quoted by the Reuters news agency say Mr Houthi, who belongs to the Zaidi sect of Yemen's Shia Muslim minority, heads a rebel group which has taken part in violent protests against the US and Israel.
Yemen's government recently launched a crackdown against suspected extremists linked to al-Qaeda.
It has not claimed Mr Houthi's rebels are linked to the group.
Yemen clashes leave 118 dead
Saturday 3 July 2004
More than 100 people have died in clashes between followers of a rebel cleric, Hussein al-Houthi, and Yemeni forces, the authorities said.
Interior Minister Rshad al-Alimi told parliament that 86 supporters of the cleric had been killed since mid-June, as well as 32 soldiers and policemen.
The government has accused the Shia cleric of setting up an armed group and unlicensed religious centres.
The minister said a siege in mountainous northern Yemen continued.
Sources close to Mr Houthi said the death toll was closer to 200, Reuters news agency reported.
The government also said 120 members of the security forces and 21 supporters of the cleric had been wounded during the clashes in Saada province.
Over 185 followers of the preacher had been arrested, the government said.
Hatred
Hussein al-Houthi is a member of the Zaidi community, a moderate Shia sect in the north of the mainly Sunni country.
The government accuses him of setting up an armed group called Believing Youth and of staging violent anti-American protests.
Anti-US sentiment in the region is high following the occupation of Iraq and some Yemeni clerics are known to preach hatred of the West.
Net closes around Yemen rebels
President Saleh has been a strong supporter of the US "war on terror"
Monday 5 July 2004
Government forces are closing in on an opposition cleric and his supporters in a mountainous region of northern Yemen, military sources say.
More than 150 troops and insurgents have been killed, including a rebel commander, in skirmishes.
The government accuses Sheikh Hussein al-Houthi, a leader of the Shia Zeidi sect, of forming an underground armed group and fomenting sectarian strife.
Battles were still raging in the Maran area, reports said.
Zeidis are a moderate Shia group living mainly in north-west Yemen.
President Ali Abdullah Saleh has called on Mr Houthi to turn himself in, promising him a fair trial.
"I call on you to surrender and I guarantee a fair process in the accusations against you," the president said in quotes carried by local media.
He said Mr Houthi's group had attacked mosques and urged Yemenis to arm themselves against possible attacks by the US.
The cleric had also said in his lectures that democracy would bring a Jewish leader to power in Yemen.
Anti-US feeling
Dozens of Mr Houthi's supporters were reported to have turned themselves in early after violent fighting at dawn on Sunday.
Correspondents say the cleric, who served as an MP in Yemen's parliament from 1993 to 1997, enjoys the support of up to 3,000 armed rebels.
Fighting broke out between rebel forces and government troops two weeks ago.
Since the 11 September 2001 attacks in the US, impoverished Yemen has launched a major crackdown against al-Qaeda sympathisers among the country's Sunni majority.
Mr Houthi has not been accused of links to al-Qaeda.
But anti-US and anti-Israeli sentiment is high all over Yemen because of the occupation of Iraq and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Yemen army crushes Shia rebellion
Friday 6 August 2004
Yemeni troops say they have seized rebel strongholds
The Yemeni government has ended an offensive that lasted more than a month against a rebel cleric in the north of the country, say officials.
Security officials said they had seized the last stronghold of Sheikh Hussein al-Houthi, head of the Shia Zeidi sect.
More than 200 troops and rebels have been killed in fighting over several weeks in the mountainous Maran area.
The army is now carrying out house-to-house searches to find the cleric and his followers.
Sheikh al-Houthi is accused of setting up unlicensed religious centres and of forming an armed group which staged violent protests against the US and Israel.
Fighting broke out between rebel forces and government troops in mid-June.
Correspondents said at the time that the cleric, who served as an MP in Yemen's parliament from 1993 to 1997, enjoyed the support of up to 3,000 armed rebels.
At least 40 people were killed in renewed fighting this week after a new mediation effort failed, officials said.
'Crushed'
Yemen's Army Chief of Staff Brig Gen Mohammad al-Qassimi said on Friday that the resistance had been all but overcome.
"I can assure you it will be crushed within 12 hours," he told reporters in the main north-western city of Saada.
"Army forces have entered all areas in the Maran mountains and there are now only a few pockets of limited resistance in some villages there."
Zeidis are a moderate Shia group living mainly in north-west Yemen.
President Ali Abdullah Saleh said in July Mr Houthi's group had attacked mosques and urged Yemenis to arm themselves against possible attacks by the US.
The cleric had also previously said in his lectures that democracy would bring a Jewish leader to power in Yemen.
President Saleh called on Mr Houthi to turn himself in, promising him a fair trial.
Since the 11 September 2001 attacks in the US, impoverished Yemen has launched a major crackdown against al-Qaeda sympathisers among the country's Sunni majority.
Mr Houthi has not been accused of links to al-Qaeda.
But anti-US and anti-Israeli sentiment is high all over Yemen because of the occupation of Iraq and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Monday 9 August 2004
Yemen continues campaign against Shia cleric
A $55,000 bounty is on offer for Hussein al-Houthi
Clashes between Yemeni troops and supporters of a dissident cleric are reported to be continuing, despite official claims that they had ended.
Soldiers are still fighting militants loyal to Hussein al-Houthi, three days after an army chief said the resistance was all but overcome.
Reports of the numbers of rebels and soldiers killed in seven weeks of raids vary from about 80 to more than 600.
Sheikh al-Houthi is accused of setting up unlicensed religious centres.
He is also accused of forming an armed group which staged violent protests against the US and Israel.
Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh has accused Mr Houthi and his supporters of being "foreign agents" seeking to foment sectarian strife.
'Crushed within hours'
Officials say the action is not aimed at Zaidis in general. Zaidis are members of a moderate Shia Muslim sect that is dominant in the region near the Saudi border in what is otherwise a mainly Sunni country.
Army chief of staff Brig Gen Mohammad al-Qassimi said on Friday that resistance to government forces in the mountainous region of Saada province, 240km (150 miles) north of the capital Sanaa was almost beaten.
"I can assure you it will be crushed within 12 hours," he told reporters.
Mr Houthi is believed to be hiding in the area.
A reward of about $55,000 has been offered for his capture, but President Saleh has promised a fair trial if he surrenders.
Friday 10 September 2004:
Yemeni forces kill rebel Shia cleric
A $55,000 bounty was on offer for Hussein al-Houthi
Yemen says its forces have killed rebel Shia cleric Hussein al-Houthi.
Hundreds of people have been killed since he launched a revolt against the authorities two months ago.
A statement from the Yemeni interior and defence ministries said Sheikh Houthi had been killed with a number of his aides.
Sheikh Houthi and his men had been hiding in caves in a mountainous area close to the border with Saudi Arabia.
"Today, all the military and security operations to quell the rebellion launched by the so-called Hussein al-Houthi and his supporters have finished with the killing of Houthi and a number of his aides," the statement said.
Bounty
Sheikh Houthi is accused of setting up unlicensed religious centres, creating an armed group called Believing Youth and of staging violent anti-American protests.
He had accused Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh of seeking to please the United States at the expense of his own people.
Anti-US sentiment in the region is high following the occupation of Iraq and some Yemeni clerics are known to preach hatred of the West.
In June, Yemen placed a $55,000 bounty on the head of Sheikh Houthi and launched an operation to capture him.
The battles have been ongoing in the mountainous province of Saada, some 150 miles (240km) north of the capital, Sanaa.
Sheikh Houthi is a member of the Zaidi community, a moderate Shia sect in the north of the mainly Sunni country.
-
BBC
[ Yemen war starts when Shias begin protests ]
Friday 25 June 2004
Yemen forces kill 46 militants
Yemeni authorities say they have killed 46 supporters of a dissident Muslim cleric in the north of the country.
An interior ministry statement quoted by the Saba state news agency said the raid targeted anti-government preacher Hussein al-Houthi and his supporters.
Soldiers backed by helicopters laid siege to several guerrilla targets in Saada, 240km (150 miles) north of the capital, Sanaa, the agency reported.
Yemen has accused the Shia cleric of sedition and anti-American extremism.
At least 12 government soldiers are also reported to have died in the operation against the rebels, which the ministry said started four days ago when police attempted to arrest the cleric.
Since then, at least 35 rebels had been wounded and 43 had been arrested, according to the government.
Crackdown
Officials said a large cache of automatic rifles, grenade-launchers and land mines had been recovered from the homes of Mr Houthi's supporters.
Security sources quoted by the Reuters news agency say Mr Houthi, who belongs to the Zaidi sect of Yemen's Shia Muslim minority, heads a rebel group which has taken part in violent protests against the US and Israel.
Yemen's government recently launched a crackdown against suspected extremists linked to al-Qaeda.
It has not claimed Mr Houthi's rebels are linked to the group.
Yemen clashes leave 118 dead
Saturday 3 July 2004
More than 100 people have died in clashes between followers of a rebel cleric, Hussein al-Houthi, and Yemeni forces, the authorities said.
Interior Minister Rshad al-Alimi told parliament that 86 supporters of the cleric had been killed since mid-June, as well as 32 soldiers and policemen.
The government has accused the Shia cleric of setting up an armed group and unlicensed religious centres.
The minister said a siege in mountainous northern Yemen continued.
Sources close to Mr Houthi said the death toll was closer to 200, Reuters news agency reported.
The government also said 120 members of the security forces and 21 supporters of the cleric had been wounded during the clashes in Saada province.
Over 185 followers of the preacher had been arrested, the government said.
Hatred
Hussein al-Houthi is a member of the Zaidi community, a moderate Shia sect in the north of the mainly Sunni country.
The government accuses him of setting up an armed group called Believing Youth and of staging violent anti-American protests.
Anti-US sentiment in the region is high following the occupation of Iraq and some Yemeni clerics are known to preach hatred of the West.
Net closes around Yemen rebels
President Saleh has been a strong supporter of the US "war on terror"
Monday 5 July 2004
Government forces are closing in on an opposition cleric and his supporters in a mountainous region of northern Yemen, military sources say.
More than 150 troops and insurgents have been killed, including a rebel commander, in skirmishes.
The government accuses Sheikh Hussein al-Houthi, a leader of the Shia Zeidi sect, of forming an underground armed group and fomenting sectarian strife.
Battles were still raging in the Maran area, reports said.
Zeidis are a moderate Shia group living mainly in north-west Yemen.
President Ali Abdullah Saleh has called on Mr Houthi to turn himself in, promising him a fair trial.
"I call on you to surrender and I guarantee a fair process in the accusations against you," the president said in quotes carried by local media.
He said Mr Houthi's group had attacked mosques and urged Yemenis to arm themselves against possible attacks by the US.
The cleric had also said in his lectures that democracy would bring a Jewish leader to power in Yemen.
Anti-US feeling
Dozens of Mr Houthi's supporters were reported to have turned themselves in early after violent fighting at dawn on Sunday.
Correspondents say the cleric, who served as an MP in Yemen's parliament from 1993 to 1997, enjoys the support of up to 3,000 armed rebels.
Fighting broke out between rebel forces and government troops two weeks ago.
Since the 11 September 2001 attacks in the US, impoverished Yemen has launched a major crackdown against al-Qaeda sympathisers among the country's Sunni majority.
Mr Houthi has not been accused of links to al-Qaeda.
But anti-US and anti-Israeli sentiment is high all over Yemen because of the occupation of Iraq and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Yemen army crushes Shia rebellion
Friday 6 August 2004
Yemeni troops say they have seized rebel strongholds
The Yemeni government has ended an offensive that lasted more than a month against a rebel cleric in the north of the country, say officials.
Security officials said they had seized the last stronghold of Sheikh Hussein al-Houthi, head of the Shia Zeidi sect.
More than 200 troops and rebels have been killed in fighting over several weeks in the mountainous Maran area.
The army is now carrying out house-to-house searches to find the cleric and his followers.
Sheikh al-Houthi is accused of setting up unlicensed religious centres and of forming an armed group which staged violent protests against the US and Israel.
Fighting broke out between rebel forces and government troops in mid-June.
Correspondents said at the time that the cleric, who served as an MP in Yemen's parliament from 1993 to 1997, enjoyed the support of up to 3,000 armed rebels.
At least 40 people were killed in renewed fighting this week after a new mediation effort failed, officials said.
'Crushed'
Yemen's Army Chief of Staff Brig Gen Mohammad al-Qassimi said on Friday that the resistance had been all but overcome.
"I can assure you it will be crushed within 12 hours," he told reporters in the main north-western city of Saada.
"Army forces have entered all areas in the Maran mountains and there are now only a few pockets of limited resistance in some villages there."
Zeidis are a moderate Shia group living mainly in north-west Yemen.
President Ali Abdullah Saleh said in July Mr Houthi's group had attacked mosques and urged Yemenis to arm themselves against possible attacks by the US.
The cleric had also previously said in his lectures that democracy would bring a Jewish leader to power in Yemen.
President Saleh called on Mr Houthi to turn himself in, promising him a fair trial.
Since the 11 September 2001 attacks in the US, impoverished Yemen has launched a major crackdown against al-Qaeda sympathisers among the country's Sunni majority.
Mr Houthi has not been accused of links to al-Qaeda.
But anti-US and anti-Israeli sentiment is high all over Yemen because of the occupation of Iraq and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Monday 9 August 2004
Yemen continues campaign against Shia cleric
A $55,000 bounty is on offer for Hussein al-Houthi
Clashes between Yemeni troops and supporters of a dissident cleric are reported to be continuing, despite official claims that they had ended.
Soldiers are still fighting militants loyal to Hussein al-Houthi, three days after an army chief said the resistance was all but overcome.
Reports of the numbers of rebels and soldiers killed in seven weeks of raids vary from about 80 to more than 600.
Sheikh al-Houthi is accused of setting up unlicensed religious centres.
He is also accused of forming an armed group which staged violent protests against the US and Israel.
Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh has accused Mr Houthi and his supporters of being "foreign agents" seeking to foment sectarian strife.
'Crushed within hours'
Officials say the action is not aimed at Zaidis in general. Zaidis are members of a moderate Shia Muslim sect that is dominant in the region near the Saudi border in what is otherwise a mainly Sunni country.
Army chief of staff Brig Gen Mohammad al-Qassimi said on Friday that resistance to government forces in the mountainous region of Saada province, 240km (150 miles) north of the capital Sanaa was almost beaten.
"I can assure you it will be crushed within 12 hours," he told reporters.
Mr Houthi is believed to be hiding in the area.
A reward of about $55,000 has been offered for his capture, but President Saleh has promised a fair trial if he surrenders.
Friday 10 September 2004:
Yemeni forces kill rebel Shia cleric
A $55,000 bounty was on offer for Hussein al-Houthi
Yemen says its forces have killed rebel Shia cleric Hussein al-Houthi.
Hundreds of people have been killed since he launched a revolt against the authorities two months ago.
A statement from the Yemeni interior and defence ministries said Sheikh Houthi had been killed with a number of his aides.
Sheikh Houthi and his men had been hiding in caves in a mountainous area close to the border with Saudi Arabia.
"Today, all the military and security operations to quell the rebellion launched by the so-called Hussein al-Houthi and his supporters have finished with the killing of Houthi and a number of his aides," the statement said.
Bounty
Sheikh Houthi is accused of setting up unlicensed religious centres, creating an armed group called Believing Youth and of staging violent anti-American protests.
He had accused Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh of seeking to please the United States at the expense of his own people.
Anti-US sentiment in the region is high following the occupation of Iraq and some Yemeni clerics are known to preach hatred of the West.
In June, Yemen placed a $55,000 bounty on the head of Sheikh Houthi and launched an operation to capture him.
The battles have been ongoing in the mountainous province of Saada, some 150 miles (240km) north of the capital, Sanaa.
Sheikh Houthi is a member of the Zaidi community, a moderate Shia sect in the north of the mainly Sunni country.
-
Yemen chaos
-
Thursday 22 October 2009
Yemen rebels fight Saudi forces
Rebels in northern Yemen say they have clashed with Saudi forces at the site of building work for a fence along the border between the two countries.
A statement on the rebels' website said there were a number of deaths and injuries on both sides.
There was no immediate response from Saudi authorities.
The rebels, known as Houthis, say they are fighting discrimination in Yemen and accuse Saudi Arabia of supporting the Yemeni government.
The group accused Saudi forces of firing on them in the same area on Monday in support of a Yemeni government offensive.
A Yemeni government official told AP news agency that the claim of Saudi involvement in the ongoing conflict was a lie.
The rebels condemned the building of the barrier on the Saudi border: "Residents of the area reject any fence which would have a negative economic impact on them and cut them off from their brethren on the other side," the statement said.
New wave
Yemeni officials accuse the rebels in the north of the country of wanting to re-establish Shia clerical rule, and of receiving support from Iran.
Houthi rebels say they want greater autonomy and a greater role for their version of Shia Islam. They complain that their community is discriminated against.
Earlier in the week, 10 rebels captured in 2008 were sentenced to death.
The Zaidi Shia community are a minority in Yemen but make up the majority in the north of the country.
The insurgents first took up arms against the government in 2004.
The government launched a fresh offensive in August 2009 which has precipitated a new wave of intense fighting.
Aid agencies say tens of thousands of people have been displaced.
-
Wednesday 4 November 2009
Yemen rebels seize Saudi area
Rebels from Yemen have fought their way across the border into Saudi Arabia, where they are now holding out against the military.
The rebels have killed a Saudi officer and injured 11 others, the Saudi authorities confirmed on Wednesday.
The rebels said they had taken "full control" of a mountainous section of the border region of Jabal al-Dukhan.
The Yemen government has been waging a campaign against the Zaidi Shia rebels, also known as Houthis, since 2004.
The Houthis have long accused Riyadh of supporting the Yemeni government in attacks against them.
In October there were clashes between Houthis and Saudi security forces near the border.
Yemen is one of the world's poorest countries and analysts question the ability of the government to assert control over the country.
-
Friday 13 November 2009
Saudis renew bombing Yemen
An estimated 150,000 people have been displaced by the conflict since 2004
Saudi troops are enforcing a buffer zone in north Yemen
Shia rebels in northern Yemen say Saudi Arabia has carried out more bombing raids, targeting several villages along the border.
The rebels say Saudi planes also struck a mountainous area more than 10km inside Yemeni territory.
There's been no word on any casualties from the recent raids.
Earlier this week, the Saudi authorities said they would keep bombing northern Yemen until the rebels had pulled back from the border.
The rebels, known as the Houthis, say their grievance is with the Yemeni government, and that Saudi Arabia should stay out of the conflict.
Saudi Arabia has evacuated 240 villages because of the fighting according to a statement by UN children's fund, Unicef.
The UN body also said more than 50 schools had been closed because of the fighting and that there was a "deep concern about the escalation of the conflict".
'Fresh offensive'
A Saudi government official said on Thursday that Saudi forces were using air power and artillery to enforce a 10km-deep buffer zone inside northern Yemen to keep the rebels away from the border.
Riyadh had previously claimed troops were only attacking the rebels inside Saudi territory.
The Houthi rebels are drawn from the Zaidi Shia community, who are a minority in Yemen but make up the majority in the north of the country.
They first took up arms against the government in 2004, saying they wanted greater autonomy and a greater role for their version of Shia Islam. They complain that their community is discriminated against.
The Yemeni government launched a fresh offensive against the Houthis in August 2009, which has precipitated a new wave of intense fighting.
-
Sunday 29 November 2009
Saudi Forces clear key area of Yemeni rebels
Saudi forces have been carrying out air and artillery strikes on Yemen
Saudi Arabia says it has captured a strategic mountain area near its border with Yemen from Yemeni Shia rebels.
Saudi forces detained about 150 Ethiopians and Somalis as prisoners of war as they cleared the area, Saudi Arabia's deputy defence minister said.
The Houthi rebels denied that the area, which is known as Jabal al-Dood or Jabal Mudood, had been taken.
They also said they had no connection with the Somalis and Ethiopians who had been taken prisoner.
Saudi forces have been carrying out air and artillery strikes on Yemen for several weeks, after the rebels killed a border guard in a raid.
"The armed forces completely control al-Dood mountain, one of the most strategic regions," deputy defence minister Prince Khaled bin Sultan was quoted as saying as he inspected troops just within Saudi territory.
He also said Saudi forces had "cleaned up every inch of Saudi territory," adding that "any person who infiltrates or sniping will end up either surrendering or dead".
The rebels said Saudi Arabia had carried out further air attacks - but they said there had been no clashes on the ground, and that Saudi troops were not in control of the area.
They said it was the Saudis who relied on foreigners to protect themselves.
Difficult terrain
The Saudi minister's comments come days after rebels said this week that they had captured nine Saudi soldiers.
They have also published video clips suggesting that they have seized large quantities of weapons from Saudi troops.
All this leaves Saudi Arabia facing questions about the effectiveness of its expensively-armed forces, says BBC Arab affairs analyst Bob Trevelyan.
The rebels, seeking autonomy in northern Yemen, appear to be well-motivated and have the advantage of better local knowledge of the difficult terrain, he says.
The rebels accuse Riyadh of supporting the Yemeni armed forces by letting them launch attacks from its territory.
The Houthi rebels, named after the family of their leader, say they are trying to reverse the political, economic and religious marginalisation of the Zaydi Shia community.
The Zaydi community are a minority in Yemen, but make up the majority in the north of the country.
The insurgents have been fighting the government since 2004.
The government launched a fresh offensive in August 2009, which precipitated a new wave of intense fighting.
It accuses the Houthis of wanting to re-establish Zaydi clerical rule, which ended in 1962.
Aid agencies say tens of thousands of people have been displaced.
-
Tuesday 16 December 2003
Yemen's new anti-terror strategy
Yemen says its troops have recently killed dozens of militants
Yemeni special forces have recently carried a number of raids across the country
Yemen is tight-lipped about its military co-operation with America
Yemen's controversial new strategy for defeating al-Qaeda cells.
In the mountains of Yemen we were taken to a secret training base, where US special forces train Yemen's counter-terrorist troops to hunt down al-Qaeda.
Even most of the Yemeni Government does not know where it is.
This military co-operation with America is highly sensitive here.
They told us no journalist has seen it before.
Yemen has a problem with Al-Qaeda terror cells, but it is dealing with it.
The Yemeni special forces have already carried out surveillance, dawn raids and arrests.
They now have the skills to catch al-Qaeda suspects.
Controversial strategy
But the authorities here have recently developed a new and much more subtle approach.
They invited me to the justice ministry to see their new methods in action.
Inside, I found a devout Muslim judge sitting with alleged former al-Qaeda supporters.
They have just been released from prison on bail, after apparently renouncing violence.
I was hoping they would tell me about how al-Qaeda is recruiting here, but they were nervous - as policemen were listening.
'Message of peace'
I talked to Rashaad, who fought in Afghanistan.
Imprisoned for two years without trial, he said he did nothing wrong.
But the government insists he was an influential extremist who called for attacks on non-Muslims.
Yet his message was one of peace.
"The duty of a Muslim in general is not killing or bloodshed. Islam is a religion that promotes peace and tolerance, and it is against killing," Rashaad said.
His friends agreed. They said dialogue was the way forward.
"We deal with people with reason and dialogue. Weapons and machine-guns are the last resort in defending my country," said one of them.
Death threats
But when I asked who was using those weapons, the judge intervened.
"That's not what we're here to discuss," Judge Humoud Hattar said.
He has been called a government stooge, and received death threats.
But he has been so successful at converting extremists that the British Foreign Office has invited him to lecture in London.
"The results depend on convincing people through the Koran and Islamic texts. Young people should accept those texts and comply with them," the judge said.
New footage
Out on the streets of the capital, Sana'a, the Yemenis have recently put their dialogue programme to work.
A former al-Qaeda member turned informer led the authorities to Mohammed al-Ahdal - an alleged al-Qaeda financier and the most wanted man in Yemen.
In a covert operation last month, the Yemeni counter-terrorist troops surrounded him at his own wedding.
They are now interrogating him, passing selected intelligence to the Americans.
And they have been busy elsewhere too.
Yemen has recently released a footage showing the government troops storming a remote al-Qaeda stronghold this summer.
The government says it killed or captured dozens of militants.
But Yemen knows it cannot defeat al-Qaeda with bullets alone.
That's why its so keen on dialogue, to cut the pipeline that feeds extremism.
-
Thursday 17 September 2009
Cold War roots of Yemen conflict
The roots of Yemen's current civil conflict, in which the government is trying to put down a localised but potent rebellion, lie in the Cold War regional politics of the 1960s.
Then, Egyptian-backed army officers brought an end to Yemen's 1,000-year Shia Imamate and established the modern Yemeni republic.
Republican troops seized control of Yemen's capital, Sanaa, in 1962, while the imam fled to the northern mountains, where he mounted a spirited counter-offensive from the same territory where the fighting is happening today.
Then, as now, a well-equipped army in Sanaa deployed air power and superior military hardware against the rebels in the Saada region but for five years republican forces failed to defeat the mountain guerrillas.
Thursday's reported aerial bombardments of civilians, reports that the Saada rebels are holding Yemeni soldiers as prisoners of war and preparations by aid agencies to deliver humanitarian relief across the border from Saudi Arabia echo familiar patterns of conflict from the 1960s.
Then, as now, regional dynamics inflamed local tensions inside Yemen, with Saudi Arabia and Jordan backing Yemen's imam against thousands of Egyptian troops barracked in Sanaa.
War 'over'
The 21st Century geopolitical context has undeniably changed, but regional tensions continue to stoke the conflict in Yemen.
Sunni-dominated Saudi Arabia is nervous about a Shia uprising on its southern borders.
Shia Iran stands accused of supporting the Saada rebels, despite the fact that Yemen's Zaydi Shias - who take their name from the fifth imam, Zayd Ibn Ali - are doctrinally distinct from Iran's Twelver Shias.
At times, the insurgents in Saada have also been accused of accepting support from Libya, Hezbollah and al-Qaeda, as well as Yemen's local Jewish minority.
Such inconsistent allegations are certainly exploited for shifting and expedient political reasons.
Perceptions of external interference in Yemen serve to distract attention from multiple internal factors driving this brutal stop-start war, which began in 2004 when the rebels condemned Yemen's government for allying with the West on counter-terrorism and called for freedom to worship according to their own traditions.
Yemen's government has since brokered several failed ceasefire agreements with the rebels, and in July 2008 President Ali Abdullah Saleh abruptly declared the Saada war "over" during celebrations for his 30th anniversary in power.
Religious balance
However, the underlying grievances have not been resolved and resentments keep escalating during each cycle of conflict, drawing local tribes into the fight.
Yemen is a Sunni majority country, but President Saleh has Zaydi Shia heritage. Crucially, he is not a sayyid - a descendant of the Muslim Prophet Muhammad through his grandsons, Hussein and Hassan.
Yemen's ruling imams historically derived their legitimacy partly from their sayyid status and the charismatic Houthi family who now lead the Saada rebellion are also sayyid - although, the Houthis deny allegations that they intend to reinstate the imam's rule.
While there is a sectarian element to this war, it lies in the delicate local religious balance between Zaydi Shia and Sunni Salafi teaching institutes in the Saada region.
The rebels accuse President Saleh of playing divide-and-rule politics by promoting Sunni Salafi institutes while restricting the activities of a Zaydi Shia revivalist movement, known as the Believing Youth.
However, many contributing factors to the Saada war are much more profane.
A recent report from the International Crisis Group (ICG) noted that the "conflict has become self-perpetuating, giving rise to a war economy".
Looting, drug smuggling, gunrunning, people trafficking, tribal feuds and an unresolved hostage crisis, involving a kidnapped Briton, have also contributed to the lawless reputation of the Saada region.
Resources strained
The United Nations' Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (Ocha) claims Yemen's "humanitarian emergency" has been "largely neglected" by the international community and a $23m (£14m) flash appeal to help 150,000 internally displaced people fleeing the fighting in Saada has not yet received any funds.
At a national level, Yemen is oil dependent but oil production is declining and the weak central government has less and less money at its disposal.
In addition to the war in Saada, the government confronts a southern separatist movement and resurgent terrorist networks.
Increasing numbers of Somali refugees and a rapidly growing domestic population place escalating strain on Yemen's fragile resources.
The fear that Yemen could eventually fragment now preoccupies Yemen's neighbours and its Western allies.
The scenario of state collapse in Yemen would create even greater potential for external interference in this strategic Arabian Peninsula state.
-
Tuesday 10 November 2009
Iran warning over Yemen conflict
"Those people should be assured that the smoke and the fire they have ignited will entangle them themselves", Manouchehr Mottaki, Iranian Foreign Minister
The Yemeni government launched a fresh offensive in August 2009
Saudi Arabia says its troops are ready to defend the border areas
Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki has warned against foreign intervention in the conflict between the Yemeni government and rebels.
Unidentified parties were adding fuel to the crisis, and attempts to help or to take military action would have negative consequences, Mr Mottaki said.
Correspondents say his comments appear to have been intended for Saudi Arabia.
Shortly afterwards, Riyadh promised it would continue air strikes until the rebels moved back from its border.
"We are not going to stop the bombing until [they] retreat tens of kilometres inside [the Yemeni] border," Deputy Defence Minister Prince Khaled Bin Sultan said, according to the AFP news agency.
Saudi forces launched a ground and air offensive on the rebels, known as the Houthis, after a security officer was killed in a cross-border raid by the group in its south-western Jizan region.
The Houthis meanwhile said on their website that Saudi fighter jets had bombed villages on the Yemeni side of the frontier on Tuesday, killing two women and wounding a child.
Strikes also targeted a government building in the village of Shida, they said.
'Be careful'
In Tehran on Tuesday, Mr Mottaki was asked about Yemeni allegations that Iranian religious and media organisations were backing the rebels, who want more autonomy and a greater role for their version of Shia Islam, Zaydism.
Last month, officials in Sanaa said security forces had seized a ship carrying weapons destined for the Houthis at a port in Haja province, and detained its crew. Iranian officials dismissed the story as a fabrication.
"A country which seeks a role to establish peace and stability in all countries in the region... cannot have a role in creating tensions," Mr Mottaki said.
"We strongly warn the regional countries to be careful, to be vigilant," he added.
"Monetary aid, providing arms to extremist and terrorist groups or actually taking action against them and crushing those groups or the people and embarking on military operations - these all will have negative consequences."
In an apparent reference to Saudi Arabia, with whom Tehran has had hostile relations since the 1979 Islamic Revolution, Mr Mottaki said there were "certain people who add fuel to some crises".
"Those people should be assured that the smoke and the fire they have ignited will entangle them themselves," he added.
The minister said regional powers should instead try to restore stability in Yemen.
"Any kind of instability in Yemen, any kind of instability in Iraq, in Afghanistan or in Pakistan, they will have their own impact on the whole region," he warned.
Later, a commander of the militant group, al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, purportedly urged Sunnis to confront the Houthis.
In an audio recording posted on the internet, Mohammed Bin Abdul Rahman al-Rashid, denounced what he called the Yemeni rebels' aspirations and incursions against Sunnis.
He said the Shia community and Iran were trying to take over Muslim countries, and that "their threat to Islam and its people is much bigger than that from Jews and Christians".
The Houthis, named after the family of their leader, say they are trying to reverse political, economic and religious marginalisation of their community.
They also accuse Saudi Arabia of supporting the Yemeni armed forces by allowing them to launch attacks from its territory, a charge both countries deny.
The Yemeni government accuses the rebels of wanting to re-establish Zaydi clerical rule, which ended in 1962, and of receiving support from abroad.
The Zaydi community are a minority in Yemen, but make up the majority in the north of the country.
The insurgents first took up arms against the government in 2004, after which government forces killed or captured much of the Houthi leadership.
The government launched a fresh offensive in August 2009, which has precipitated a new wave of intense fighting.
Aid agencies say tens of thousands of people have been displaced.
-
Thursday 5 November 2009
Saudi jets attack Yemen rebels
"After what happened yesterday, it is clear they have lost track of reality and it has got to a point where there is no other way. They have got to be finished", Saudi government adviser
Saudi Arabia has deployed troops along the border with Yemen
The Saudi air force has attacked rebels in northern Yemen following Wednesday's killing of a Saudi security officer in a border area, reports have said.
Saudi F-15 and Tornado jets targeted strongholds of the Houthi rebels on the Yemeni side of border, spokesmen for the group and Arab media said.
The attacks came after a Saudi officer was killed and 11 were wounded in a raid by the rebels on the Jizan region.
The Houthis said on Wednesday that they had taken "full control" of a mountainous section of the border region of Jabal al-Dukhan.
'Successive air strikes'
In a statement on its website on Wednesday, the group said Saudi warplanes and helicopters had dropped phosphorus bombs on its fighters in the areas of al-Malahaid, Jabal al-Mamdud, al-Husama and al-Mujdaa.
On Thursday, a rebel spokesman based in Europe, Yehya Badr al-Din al-Houthi, told the BBC Arabic service that the attacks had continued.
"Yesterday, the Saudi aircraft attacked villages in the Ghamr district. They destroyed homes and killed and wounded 10 people, mainly women and children," he said.
"Today, the Saudi aircraft continued striking the village of Hasama and other villages near the Malaheez area."
Another spokesman for the group said civilians had been killed when bombs were dropped on a local market in Saada province, and that one rebel location had been hit by about 100 missiles in one hour.
A Saudi government adviser said the air force had targeted rebels who had seized Saudi parts of Jabal al-Dukhan, which they said had now been recaptured by troops.
The official said at least 40 rebels had been killed in the fighting.
"As of yesterday late afternoon, Saudi air strikes began on their positions in northern Yemen," the unnamed adviser told Reuters.
"There have been successive air strikes, very heavy bombardment of their positions, not just on the border, but on their main positions around Saada," he added.
A Yemeni defence ministry spokesman would only deny "the rebels' allegations of Saudi air raids against Yemeni villages", the AFP news agency said.
The London-based Arabic newspaper Elaph meanwhile reported that Saudi ground forces were also moving towards the Yemeni border.
The deployment was later confirmed by Arab diplomats, who told the Associated Press that army units and special forces were amassing in the area, and that several nearby Saudi towns and villages had been evacuated.
Saudi reconnaissance teams believed there were between 4,000 and 5,000 Houthis based in the mountainous border region, Elaph said.
The Saudi government adviser said no decision had yet been taken to send troops across the border, but made it clear that Riyadh was no longer prepared to tolerate the Yemeni rebels, Reuters reported.
"After what happened yesterday, it is clear they have lost track of reality and it has got to a point where there is no other way. They have got to be finished," he said.
Displaced people
The Houthis, named after the family of their leader, say they want greater autonomy and a greater role for their version of Shia Islam. They complain that their community is discriminated against.
They also accuse Saudi Arabia of supporting the Yemeni armed forces by allowing them to launch attacks from its territory, a charge which both countries deny.
The Yemeni government accuses the rebels of wanting to re-establish Zaydi Shia clerical rule, and of receiving support from Iran.
Earlier in the week, 10 rebels captured in 2008 were sentenced to death.
The Zaidi Shia community are a minority in Yemen, but make up the majority in the north of the country.
The insurgents first took up arms against the government in 2004, after which government forces killed or captured much of the Houthi leadership.
The government launched a fresh offensive in August 2009 which has precipitated a new wave of intense fighting.
Aid agencies say tens of thousands of people have been displaced.
-
Friday, 6 November 2009
Saudi planes 'not bombing Yemen'
Saudi Arabia has insisted its forces only attacked Yemeni rebel positions on Saudi territory, according to the state news agency.
This directly contradicts a number of separate reports on Thursday that air strikes had taken place on on rebel strongholds in northern Yemen.
The government said it would continue fighting to drive out all the rebels who had infiltrated across the border.
The rebels say that Saudi airplanes are bombing northern Yemeni villages.
A spokesman for the rebels, who are known as Houthis, alleged on Thursday that a Saudi air strike hit a market in Saada in north Yemen, killing a group of civilians.
The Saudi government has said that its conflict with the rebels began when a Saudi border official was killed and rebels later captured an area of mountainous territory in the Saudi province of Jizan.
The rebels had claimed there were minor clashes with Saudi forces along the border before then.
Intense fighting
The Houthis have been engaged in an intense wave of fighting with the Yemeni army since the government launched a major new offensive in August 2009.
They have long alleged that Saudi Arabia has been giving support to the Yemeni regime, a claim both governments denied, but in recent weeks Saudi forces have been overtly drawn into the fighting.
The Houthis, named after the family of their leader, say they want greater autonomy and a greater role for their version of Shia Islam. They complain that their community is discriminated against.
The Yemeni government accuses the rebels of wanting to re-establish Zaidi Shia clerical rule, and of receiving support from Iran.
The Zaidi Shia community are a minority in Yemen, but make up the majority in the north of the country.
The insurgents first took up arms against the government in 2004, after which government forces killed or captured much of the Houthi leadership.
Aid agencies say tens of thousands of people have been displaced in the latest round of fighting.
-
Thursday 19 November 2009
Yemen troops kill Houthi rebel leader
Yemeni government forces fighting Houthi rebels in the country's north have killed a leader and forced his supporters into retreat, officials say.
A government website quoted security sources as saying that Ali al-Qatwani was killed when troops took control of the al-Mahaleet area of Saada province.
Two other Houthi commanders were killed in fighting on Wednesday, it reported.
A Saudi soldier was shot dead the day before in clashes with the rebels on the border with Yemen, Saudi media say.
Issa Madkhali was killed in the mountainous Jabal al-Dukhan area, which straddles the frontier, al-Hayat reported.
Riyadh launched an offensive against the Houthis this month after they occupied villages inside Saudi territory and killed a border guard.
Strongholds
It has warned that air strikes and shelling inside Yemen will continue until the rebels withdraw tens of kilometres from the border.
Yemeni government forces have also intensified their assault on rebel strongholds, and commanders say they are getting close to regaining full control of several key strategic locations in Saada.
Abbas Aid, head of a rebel combat unit, and Abu Haidar, another senior figure, were killed on Wednesday, security sources said. Youssef al-Madani, the son-in-law of Hussein al-Houthi, founder of the rebel group, was allegedly wounded.
On Thursday, the armed forces and local authorities in Saada called on rebel fighters to hand themselves in.
"Give yourself up... and we will not do you harm," a statement said.
On their website, the rebels said their fighters had destroyed three Yemeni army vehicles and disabled two tanks near Harf Sufian.
They also accused the Saudi military of bombing homes, government buildings and a market in al-Mahalit and Amran provinces.
Clerical rule
The Houthis, named after the family of their leader, say they are trying to reverse the political, economic and religious marginalisation of the Zaydi Shia community.
They also accuse Saudi Arabia of supporting the Yemeni armed forces by allowing them to launch attacks from its territory, a charge both countries deny.
The Yemeni government accuses the Houthis of wanting to re-establish Zaydi clerical rule, which ended in 1962.
The Zaydi community are a minority in Yemen, but make up the majority in the north of the country.
The insurgents first took up arms against the government in 2004, after which government forces killed or captured much of the Houthi leadership.
The government launched a fresh offensive in August 2009, which has precipitated a new wave of intense fighting.
Aid agencies say tens of thousands of people have been displaced.
-
Thursday 22 October 2009
Yemen rebels fight Saudi forces
Rebels in northern Yemen say they have clashed with Saudi forces at the site of building work for a fence along the border between the two countries.
A statement on the rebels' website said there were a number of deaths and injuries on both sides.
There was no immediate response from Saudi authorities.
The rebels, known as Houthis, say they are fighting discrimination in Yemen and accuse Saudi Arabia of supporting the Yemeni government.
The group accused Saudi forces of firing on them in the same area on Monday in support of a Yemeni government offensive.
A Yemeni government official told AP news agency that the claim of Saudi involvement in the ongoing conflict was a lie.
The rebels condemned the building of the barrier on the Saudi border: "Residents of the area reject any fence which would have a negative economic impact on them and cut them off from their brethren on the other side," the statement said.
New wave
Yemeni officials accuse the rebels in the north of the country of wanting to re-establish Shia clerical rule, and of receiving support from Iran.
Houthi rebels say they want greater autonomy and a greater role for their version of Shia Islam. They complain that their community is discriminated against.
Earlier in the week, 10 rebels captured in 2008 were sentenced to death.
The Zaidi Shia community are a minority in Yemen but make up the majority in the north of the country.
The insurgents first took up arms against the government in 2004.
The government launched a fresh offensive in August 2009 which has precipitated a new wave of intense fighting.
Aid agencies say tens of thousands of people have been displaced.
-
Wednesday 4 November 2009
Yemen rebels seize Saudi area
Rebels from Yemen have fought their way across the border into Saudi Arabia, where they are now holding out against the military.
The rebels have killed a Saudi officer and injured 11 others, the Saudi authorities confirmed on Wednesday.
The rebels said they had taken "full control" of a mountainous section of the border region of Jabal al-Dukhan.
The Yemen government has been waging a campaign against the Zaidi Shia rebels, also known as Houthis, since 2004.
The Houthis have long accused Riyadh of supporting the Yemeni government in attacks against them.
In October there were clashes between Houthis and Saudi security forces near the border.
Yemen is one of the world's poorest countries and analysts question the ability of the government to assert control over the country.
-
Friday 13 November 2009
Saudis renew bombing Yemen
An estimated 150,000 people have been displaced by the conflict since 2004
Saudi troops are enforcing a buffer zone in north Yemen
Shia rebels in northern Yemen say Saudi Arabia has carried out more bombing raids, targeting several villages along the border.
The rebels say Saudi planes also struck a mountainous area more than 10km inside Yemeni territory.
There's been no word on any casualties from the recent raids.
Earlier this week, the Saudi authorities said they would keep bombing northern Yemen until the rebels had pulled back from the border.
The rebels, known as the Houthis, say their grievance is with the Yemeni government, and that Saudi Arabia should stay out of the conflict.
Saudi Arabia has evacuated 240 villages because of the fighting according to a statement by UN children's fund, Unicef.
The UN body also said more than 50 schools had been closed because of the fighting and that there was a "deep concern about the escalation of the conflict".
'Fresh offensive'
A Saudi government official said on Thursday that Saudi forces were using air power and artillery to enforce a 10km-deep buffer zone inside northern Yemen to keep the rebels away from the border.
Riyadh had previously claimed troops were only attacking the rebels inside Saudi territory.
The Houthi rebels are drawn from the Zaidi Shia community, who are a minority in Yemen but make up the majority in the north of the country.
They first took up arms against the government in 2004, saying they wanted greater autonomy and a greater role for their version of Shia Islam. They complain that their community is discriminated against.
The Yemeni government launched a fresh offensive against the Houthis in August 2009, which has precipitated a new wave of intense fighting.
-
Sunday 29 November 2009
Saudi Forces clear key area of Yemeni rebels
Saudi forces have been carrying out air and artillery strikes on Yemen
Saudi Arabia says it has captured a strategic mountain area near its border with Yemen from Yemeni Shia rebels.
Saudi forces detained about 150 Ethiopians and Somalis as prisoners of war as they cleared the area, Saudi Arabia's deputy defence minister said.
The Houthi rebels denied that the area, which is known as Jabal al-Dood or Jabal Mudood, had been taken.
They also said they had no connection with the Somalis and Ethiopians who had been taken prisoner.
Saudi forces have been carrying out air and artillery strikes on Yemen for several weeks, after the rebels killed a border guard in a raid.
"The armed forces completely control al-Dood mountain, one of the most strategic regions," deputy defence minister Prince Khaled bin Sultan was quoted as saying as he inspected troops just within Saudi territory.
He also said Saudi forces had "cleaned up every inch of Saudi territory," adding that "any person who infiltrates or sniping will end up either surrendering or dead".
The rebels said Saudi Arabia had carried out further air attacks - but they said there had been no clashes on the ground, and that Saudi troops were not in control of the area.
They said it was the Saudis who relied on foreigners to protect themselves.
Difficult terrain
The Saudi minister's comments come days after rebels said this week that they had captured nine Saudi soldiers.
They have also published video clips suggesting that they have seized large quantities of weapons from Saudi troops.
All this leaves Saudi Arabia facing questions about the effectiveness of its expensively-armed forces, says BBC Arab affairs analyst Bob Trevelyan.
The rebels, seeking autonomy in northern Yemen, appear to be well-motivated and have the advantage of better local knowledge of the difficult terrain, he says.
The rebels accuse Riyadh of supporting the Yemeni armed forces by letting them launch attacks from its territory.
The Houthi rebels, named after the family of their leader, say they are trying to reverse the political, economic and religious marginalisation of the Zaydi Shia community.
The Zaydi community are a minority in Yemen, but make up the majority in the north of the country.
The insurgents have been fighting the government since 2004.
The government launched a fresh offensive in August 2009, which precipitated a new wave of intense fighting.
It accuses the Houthis of wanting to re-establish Zaydi clerical rule, which ended in 1962.
Aid agencies say tens of thousands of people have been displaced.
-
Tuesday 16 December 2003
Yemen's new anti-terror strategy
Yemen says its troops have recently killed dozens of militants
Yemeni special forces have recently carried a number of raids across the country
Yemen is tight-lipped about its military co-operation with America
Yemen's controversial new strategy for defeating al-Qaeda cells.
In the mountains of Yemen we were taken to a secret training base, where US special forces train Yemen's counter-terrorist troops to hunt down al-Qaeda.
Even most of the Yemeni Government does not know where it is.
This military co-operation with America is highly sensitive here.
They told us no journalist has seen it before.
Yemen has a problem with Al-Qaeda terror cells, but it is dealing with it.
The Yemeni special forces have already carried out surveillance, dawn raids and arrests.
They now have the skills to catch al-Qaeda suspects.
Controversial strategy
But the authorities here have recently developed a new and much more subtle approach.
They invited me to the justice ministry to see their new methods in action.
Inside, I found a devout Muslim judge sitting with alleged former al-Qaeda supporters.
They have just been released from prison on bail, after apparently renouncing violence.
I was hoping they would tell me about how al-Qaeda is recruiting here, but they were nervous - as policemen were listening.
'Message of peace'
I talked to Rashaad, who fought in Afghanistan.
Imprisoned for two years without trial, he said he did nothing wrong.
But the government insists he was an influential extremist who called for attacks on non-Muslims.
Yet his message was one of peace.
"The duty of a Muslim in general is not killing or bloodshed. Islam is a religion that promotes peace and tolerance, and it is against killing," Rashaad said.
His friends agreed. They said dialogue was the way forward.
"We deal with people with reason and dialogue. Weapons and machine-guns are the last resort in defending my country," said one of them.
Death threats
But when I asked who was using those weapons, the judge intervened.
"That's not what we're here to discuss," Judge Humoud Hattar said.
He has been called a government stooge, and received death threats.
But he has been so successful at converting extremists that the British Foreign Office has invited him to lecture in London.
"The results depend on convincing people through the Koran and Islamic texts. Young people should accept those texts and comply with them," the judge said.
New footage
Out on the streets of the capital, Sana'a, the Yemenis have recently put their dialogue programme to work.
A former al-Qaeda member turned informer led the authorities to Mohammed al-Ahdal - an alleged al-Qaeda financier and the most wanted man in Yemen.
In a covert operation last month, the Yemeni counter-terrorist troops surrounded him at his own wedding.
They are now interrogating him, passing selected intelligence to the Americans.
And they have been busy elsewhere too.
Yemen has recently released a footage showing the government troops storming a remote al-Qaeda stronghold this summer.
The government says it killed or captured dozens of militants.
But Yemen knows it cannot defeat al-Qaeda with bullets alone.
That's why its so keen on dialogue, to cut the pipeline that feeds extremism.
-
Thursday 17 September 2009
Cold War roots of Yemen conflict
The roots of Yemen's current civil conflict, in which the government is trying to put down a localised but potent rebellion, lie in the Cold War regional politics of the 1960s.
Then, Egyptian-backed army officers brought an end to Yemen's 1,000-year Shia Imamate and established the modern Yemeni republic.
Republican troops seized control of Yemen's capital, Sanaa, in 1962, while the imam fled to the northern mountains, where he mounted a spirited counter-offensive from the same territory where the fighting is happening today.
Then, as now, a well-equipped army in Sanaa deployed air power and superior military hardware against the rebels in the Saada region but for five years republican forces failed to defeat the mountain guerrillas.
Thursday's reported aerial bombardments of civilians, reports that the Saada rebels are holding Yemeni soldiers as prisoners of war and preparations by aid agencies to deliver humanitarian relief across the border from Saudi Arabia echo familiar patterns of conflict from the 1960s.
Then, as now, regional dynamics inflamed local tensions inside Yemen, with Saudi Arabia and Jordan backing Yemen's imam against thousands of Egyptian troops barracked in Sanaa.
War 'over'
The 21st Century geopolitical context has undeniably changed, but regional tensions continue to stoke the conflict in Yemen.
Sunni-dominated Saudi Arabia is nervous about a Shia uprising on its southern borders.
Shia Iran stands accused of supporting the Saada rebels, despite the fact that Yemen's Zaydi Shias - who take their name from the fifth imam, Zayd Ibn Ali - are doctrinally distinct from Iran's Twelver Shias.
At times, the insurgents in Saada have also been accused of accepting support from Libya, Hezbollah and al-Qaeda, as well as Yemen's local Jewish minority.
Such inconsistent allegations are certainly exploited for shifting and expedient political reasons.
Perceptions of external interference in Yemen serve to distract attention from multiple internal factors driving this brutal stop-start war, which began in 2004 when the rebels condemned Yemen's government for allying with the West on counter-terrorism and called for freedom to worship according to their own traditions.
Yemen's government has since brokered several failed ceasefire agreements with the rebels, and in July 2008 President Ali Abdullah Saleh abruptly declared the Saada war "over" during celebrations for his 30th anniversary in power.
Religious balance
However, the underlying grievances have not been resolved and resentments keep escalating during each cycle of conflict, drawing local tribes into the fight.
Yemen is a Sunni majority country, but President Saleh has Zaydi Shia heritage. Crucially, he is not a sayyid - a descendant of the Muslim Prophet Muhammad through his grandsons, Hussein and Hassan.
Yemen's ruling imams historically derived their legitimacy partly from their sayyid status and the charismatic Houthi family who now lead the Saada rebellion are also sayyid - although, the Houthis deny allegations that they intend to reinstate the imam's rule.
While there is a sectarian element to this war, it lies in the delicate local religious balance between Zaydi Shia and Sunni Salafi teaching institutes in the Saada region.
The rebels accuse President Saleh of playing divide-and-rule politics by promoting Sunni Salafi institutes while restricting the activities of a Zaydi Shia revivalist movement, known as the Believing Youth.
However, many contributing factors to the Saada war are much more profane.
A recent report from the International Crisis Group (ICG) noted that the "conflict has become self-perpetuating, giving rise to a war economy".
Looting, drug smuggling, gunrunning, people trafficking, tribal feuds and an unresolved hostage crisis, involving a kidnapped Briton, have also contributed to the lawless reputation of the Saada region.
Resources strained
The United Nations' Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (Ocha) claims Yemen's "humanitarian emergency" has been "largely neglected" by the international community and a $23m (£14m) flash appeal to help 150,000 internally displaced people fleeing the fighting in Saada has not yet received any funds.
At a national level, Yemen is oil dependent but oil production is declining and the weak central government has less and less money at its disposal.
In addition to the war in Saada, the government confronts a southern separatist movement and resurgent terrorist networks.
Increasing numbers of Somali refugees and a rapidly growing domestic population place escalating strain on Yemen's fragile resources.
The fear that Yemen could eventually fragment now preoccupies Yemen's neighbours and its Western allies.
The scenario of state collapse in Yemen would create even greater potential for external interference in this strategic Arabian Peninsula state.
-
Tuesday 10 November 2009
Iran warning over Yemen conflict
"Those people should be assured that the smoke and the fire they have ignited will entangle them themselves", Manouchehr Mottaki, Iranian Foreign Minister
The Yemeni government launched a fresh offensive in August 2009
Saudi Arabia says its troops are ready to defend the border areas
Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki has warned against foreign intervention in the conflict between the Yemeni government and rebels.
Unidentified parties were adding fuel to the crisis, and attempts to help or to take military action would have negative consequences, Mr Mottaki said.
Correspondents say his comments appear to have been intended for Saudi Arabia.
Shortly afterwards, Riyadh promised it would continue air strikes until the rebels moved back from its border.
"We are not going to stop the bombing until [they] retreat tens of kilometres inside [the Yemeni] border," Deputy Defence Minister Prince Khaled Bin Sultan said, according to the AFP news agency.
Saudi forces launched a ground and air offensive on the rebels, known as the Houthis, after a security officer was killed in a cross-border raid by the group in its south-western Jizan region.
The Houthis meanwhile said on their website that Saudi fighter jets had bombed villages on the Yemeni side of the frontier on Tuesday, killing two women and wounding a child.
Strikes also targeted a government building in the village of Shida, they said.
'Be careful'
In Tehran on Tuesday, Mr Mottaki was asked about Yemeni allegations that Iranian religious and media organisations were backing the rebels, who want more autonomy and a greater role for their version of Shia Islam, Zaydism.
Last month, officials in Sanaa said security forces had seized a ship carrying weapons destined for the Houthis at a port in Haja province, and detained its crew. Iranian officials dismissed the story as a fabrication.
"A country which seeks a role to establish peace and stability in all countries in the region... cannot have a role in creating tensions," Mr Mottaki said.
"We strongly warn the regional countries to be careful, to be vigilant," he added.
"Monetary aid, providing arms to extremist and terrorist groups or actually taking action against them and crushing those groups or the people and embarking on military operations - these all will have negative consequences."
In an apparent reference to Saudi Arabia, with whom Tehran has had hostile relations since the 1979 Islamic Revolution, Mr Mottaki said there were "certain people who add fuel to some crises".
"Those people should be assured that the smoke and the fire they have ignited will entangle them themselves," he added.
The minister said regional powers should instead try to restore stability in Yemen.
"Any kind of instability in Yemen, any kind of instability in Iraq, in Afghanistan or in Pakistan, they will have their own impact on the whole region," he warned.
Later, a commander of the militant group, al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, purportedly urged Sunnis to confront the Houthis.
In an audio recording posted on the internet, Mohammed Bin Abdul Rahman al-Rashid, denounced what he called the Yemeni rebels' aspirations and incursions against Sunnis.
He said the Shia community and Iran were trying to take over Muslim countries, and that "their threat to Islam and its people is much bigger than that from Jews and Christians".
The Houthis, named after the family of their leader, say they are trying to reverse political, economic and religious marginalisation of their community.
They also accuse Saudi Arabia of supporting the Yemeni armed forces by allowing them to launch attacks from its territory, a charge both countries deny.
The Yemeni government accuses the rebels of wanting to re-establish Zaydi clerical rule, which ended in 1962, and of receiving support from abroad.
The Zaydi community are a minority in Yemen, but make up the majority in the north of the country.
The insurgents first took up arms against the government in 2004, after which government forces killed or captured much of the Houthi leadership.
The government launched a fresh offensive in August 2009, which has precipitated a new wave of intense fighting.
Aid agencies say tens of thousands of people have been displaced.
-
Thursday 5 November 2009
Saudi jets attack Yemen rebels
"After what happened yesterday, it is clear they have lost track of reality and it has got to a point where there is no other way. They have got to be finished", Saudi government adviser
Saudi Arabia has deployed troops along the border with Yemen
The Saudi air force has attacked rebels in northern Yemen following Wednesday's killing of a Saudi security officer in a border area, reports have said.
Saudi F-15 and Tornado jets targeted strongholds of the Houthi rebels on the Yemeni side of border, spokesmen for the group and Arab media said.
The attacks came after a Saudi officer was killed and 11 were wounded in a raid by the rebels on the Jizan region.
The Houthis said on Wednesday that they had taken "full control" of a mountainous section of the border region of Jabal al-Dukhan.
'Successive air strikes'
In a statement on its website on Wednesday, the group said Saudi warplanes and helicopters had dropped phosphorus bombs on its fighters in the areas of al-Malahaid, Jabal al-Mamdud, al-Husama and al-Mujdaa.
On Thursday, a rebel spokesman based in Europe, Yehya Badr al-Din al-Houthi, told the BBC Arabic service that the attacks had continued.
"Yesterday, the Saudi aircraft attacked villages in the Ghamr district. They destroyed homes and killed and wounded 10 people, mainly women and children," he said.
"Today, the Saudi aircraft continued striking the village of Hasama and other villages near the Malaheez area."
Another spokesman for the group said civilians had been killed when bombs were dropped on a local market in Saada province, and that one rebel location had been hit by about 100 missiles in one hour.
A Saudi government adviser said the air force had targeted rebels who had seized Saudi parts of Jabal al-Dukhan, which they said had now been recaptured by troops.
The official said at least 40 rebels had been killed in the fighting.
"As of yesterday late afternoon, Saudi air strikes began on their positions in northern Yemen," the unnamed adviser told Reuters.
"There have been successive air strikes, very heavy bombardment of their positions, not just on the border, but on their main positions around Saada," he added.
A Yemeni defence ministry spokesman would only deny "the rebels' allegations of Saudi air raids against Yemeni villages", the AFP news agency said.
The London-based Arabic newspaper Elaph meanwhile reported that Saudi ground forces were also moving towards the Yemeni border.
The deployment was later confirmed by Arab diplomats, who told the Associated Press that army units and special forces were amassing in the area, and that several nearby Saudi towns and villages had been evacuated.
Saudi reconnaissance teams believed there were between 4,000 and 5,000 Houthis based in the mountainous border region, Elaph said.
The Saudi government adviser said no decision had yet been taken to send troops across the border, but made it clear that Riyadh was no longer prepared to tolerate the Yemeni rebels, Reuters reported.
"After what happened yesterday, it is clear they have lost track of reality and it has got to a point where there is no other way. They have got to be finished," he said.
Displaced people
The Houthis, named after the family of their leader, say they want greater autonomy and a greater role for their version of Shia Islam. They complain that their community is discriminated against.
They also accuse Saudi Arabia of supporting the Yemeni armed forces by allowing them to launch attacks from its territory, a charge which both countries deny.
The Yemeni government accuses the rebels of wanting to re-establish Zaydi Shia clerical rule, and of receiving support from Iran.
Earlier in the week, 10 rebels captured in 2008 were sentenced to death.
The Zaidi Shia community are a minority in Yemen, but make up the majority in the north of the country.
The insurgents first took up arms against the government in 2004, after which government forces killed or captured much of the Houthi leadership.
The government launched a fresh offensive in August 2009 which has precipitated a new wave of intense fighting.
Aid agencies say tens of thousands of people have been displaced.
-
Friday, 6 November 2009
Saudi planes 'not bombing Yemen'
Saudi Arabia has insisted its forces only attacked Yemeni rebel positions on Saudi territory, according to the state news agency.
This directly contradicts a number of separate reports on Thursday that air strikes had taken place on on rebel strongholds in northern Yemen.
The government said it would continue fighting to drive out all the rebels who had infiltrated across the border.
The rebels say that Saudi airplanes are bombing northern Yemeni villages.
A spokesman for the rebels, who are known as Houthis, alleged on Thursday that a Saudi air strike hit a market in Saada in north Yemen, killing a group of civilians.
The Saudi government has said that its conflict with the rebels began when a Saudi border official was killed and rebels later captured an area of mountainous territory in the Saudi province of Jizan.
The rebels had claimed there were minor clashes with Saudi forces along the border before then.
Intense fighting
The Houthis have been engaged in an intense wave of fighting with the Yemeni army since the government launched a major new offensive in August 2009.
They have long alleged that Saudi Arabia has been giving support to the Yemeni regime, a claim both governments denied, but in recent weeks Saudi forces have been overtly drawn into the fighting.
The Houthis, named after the family of their leader, say they want greater autonomy and a greater role for their version of Shia Islam. They complain that their community is discriminated against.
The Yemeni government accuses the rebels of wanting to re-establish Zaidi Shia clerical rule, and of receiving support from Iran.
The Zaidi Shia community are a minority in Yemen, but make up the majority in the north of the country.
The insurgents first took up arms against the government in 2004, after which government forces killed or captured much of the Houthi leadership.
Aid agencies say tens of thousands of people have been displaced in the latest round of fighting.
-
Thursday 19 November 2009
Yemen troops kill Houthi rebel leader
Yemeni government forces fighting Houthi rebels in the country's north have killed a leader and forced his supporters into retreat, officials say.
A government website quoted security sources as saying that Ali al-Qatwani was killed when troops took control of the al-Mahaleet area of Saada province.
Two other Houthi commanders were killed in fighting on Wednesday, it reported.
A Saudi soldier was shot dead the day before in clashes with the rebels on the border with Yemen, Saudi media say.
Issa Madkhali was killed in the mountainous Jabal al-Dukhan area, which straddles the frontier, al-Hayat reported.
Riyadh launched an offensive against the Houthis this month after they occupied villages inside Saudi territory and killed a border guard.
Strongholds
It has warned that air strikes and shelling inside Yemen will continue until the rebels withdraw tens of kilometres from the border.
Yemeni government forces have also intensified their assault on rebel strongholds, and commanders say they are getting close to regaining full control of several key strategic locations in Saada.
Abbas Aid, head of a rebel combat unit, and Abu Haidar, another senior figure, were killed on Wednesday, security sources said. Youssef al-Madani, the son-in-law of Hussein al-Houthi, founder of the rebel group, was allegedly wounded.
On Thursday, the armed forces and local authorities in Saada called on rebel fighters to hand themselves in.
"Give yourself up... and we will not do you harm," a statement said.
On their website, the rebels said their fighters had destroyed three Yemeni army vehicles and disabled two tanks near Harf Sufian.
They also accused the Saudi military of bombing homes, government buildings and a market in al-Mahalit and Amran provinces.
Clerical rule
The Houthis, named after the family of their leader, say they are trying to reverse the political, economic and religious marginalisation of the Zaydi Shia community.
They also accuse Saudi Arabia of supporting the Yemeni armed forces by allowing them to launch attacks from its territory, a charge both countries deny.
The Yemeni government accuses the Houthis of wanting to re-establish Zaydi clerical rule, which ended in 1962.
The Zaydi community are a minority in Yemen, but make up the majority in the north of the country.
The insurgents first took up arms against the government in 2004, after which government forces killed or captured much of the Houthi leadership.
The government launched a fresh offensive in August 2009, which has precipitated a new wave of intense fighting.
Aid agencies say tens of thousands of people have been displaced.
-
Yemen Terrorists
--
Mystery of Al Awlaki
WHO IS Al-AWLAKI
American Muslim extremist Anwar al-Awlaki is a mystery to the CIA. Who is he. Where did he come from. Why had CIA not heard of him before. How come he managed to escape US and hide in Yemen. Why did it so long to put him on terror list... etc etc.
-----
BBC PROFILE: AL AWLAKI - Sunday, 3 January 2010
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/8438635.stm
Mr Awlaki returned to Yemen in early 2004 and became a lecturer in Sanaa
Profile: Anwar al-Awlaki
Anwar al-Awlaki, a radical American Muslim cleric of Yemeni descent, has been linked to a series of attacks and plots across the world - from 11 September 2001 to the shootings at Fort Hood in November 2009.
Since going on the run in Yemen in December 2007, Mr Awlaki's overt endorsement of violence as a religious duty in his sermons and on the internet is thought to have inspired new recruits to Islamist militancy.
Senior US officials now believe these may include Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab , the young Nigerian man accused of attempting to blow up a passenger jet as it flew into Detroit on Christmas Day.
Yemeni security officials said Mr Awlaki might have been killed in an airstrike on a suspected al-Qaeda base in the country's south that was directed by US intelligence.
However, friends and relatives say he was not harmed in the raid.
Hijackers
Mr Awlaki was born in 1971 in the southern US state of New Mexico, where his father, Nasser, a future Yemeni agriculture minister and university president, was studying agricultural economics.
After spending his teenage years in Yemen, where he studied Islam, Mr Awlaki returned to the US to gain a degree in civil engineering from Colorado State University and a master's in education at San Diego State.
Mr Awlaki became an imam at a mosque in Fort Collins, Colorado, before returning to San Diego in 1996, where he took charge of the city's Masjid Ar-Ribat al-Islami mosque.
During his four years there, his sermons were attended by two future 9/11 hijackers, Khalid al-Midhar and Nawaf al-Hazmi.
In early 2001, he moved to the Dar al-Hijrah mosque in Falls Church, Virginia, which was attended by Mr Hazmi and a third hijacker, Hani Hanjour.
The 9/11 Commission later found the connections to be suspicious, though law enforcement officials said they doubted he knew of the plot.
The following year, he left the US for the UK, where he spent several months giving a series of lectures to Muslim youths.
Prison
Mr Awlaki returned to Yemen in early 2004, and lived in his ancestral village in the southern province of Shabwa with his wife and children.
He soon became a lecturer at al-Iman University, a Sunni religious school in Sanaa headed by Abdul-Majid al-Zindani, a cleric who has been designated a terrorist by both the US and UN for his suspected links with al-Qaeda.
In 2004, Zindani was listed as a "specially designated global terrorist" by the US Treasury Department and the UN, but Yemen has taken no steps to freeze his assets.
Former students include John Walker Lindh , known as the "American Taliban", and several suspected militants.
Mr Awlaki may have met Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab at al-Iman University, while the latter was studying Arabic, sometime in November or December 2009 as the 23-year-old was receiving his final training and indoctrination from members of al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula , ahead of his alleged suicide mission.
"There are indications that he had contact, direct contact with Abdulmutallab," John Brennan, the US deputy national security adviser for homeland security and counter-terrorism, told CNN.
In August 2006, Mr Awlaki was detained by the Yemeni authorities, reportedly on charges relating to a plot to kidnap a US military attache.
He has said he was interviewed by FBI agents during his subsequent 18 months in prison, and believes the US asked the Yemeni authorities to prolong his detention.
Since his release, Mr Awlaki's message has been overtly supportive of violence.
He has published a number of inciteful texts via his website, his Facebook page and many booklets and CDs, including one called "44 Ways to Support Jihad".
Such materials have been found in the possession of several convicted English-speaking militants in Canada, the UK and US.
It also emerged after the Fort Hood incident that Mr Awlaki had given the US Army psychiatrist charged with killing 13 people, Maj Nidal Malik Hasan , religious advice by email. He had also seen Mr Awlaki preach in Virginia in 2001.
In July, the cleric posted a blog saying a Muslim soldier who fought other Muslims was a "heartless beast, bent on evil, who sells his religion for a few dollars". Following the shootings, Mr Awlaki called Maj Hasan a hero.
"My support to the operation was because the operation brother Nidal carried out was a courageous one," he told al-Jazeera in November.
"And I endeavoured to explain my position regarding what happened because many Islamic organisations and preachers in the West condemned the operation."
--
BBC PROFILE AQAP - Sunday, 3 January 2010
Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula has promised "total war on all crusaders"
Profile: Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula
AL-QAEDA OFFSHOOT
- Formed in January 2009 by a merger between al-Qaeda in Saudi Arabia and Yemen
Based in eastern Yemen
- Led by Nasser al-Wuhayshi, a Yemeni former aide to Osama Bin Laden. Deputy leader is Saudi ex-Guantanamo inmate Said al-Shihri
- Aims to topple Saudi monarchy and Yemeni government, and establish an Islamic caliphate
- Came to prominence with Riyadh bombings in 2003, and 2008 attack on US embassy in Sanaa
- Blamed for attempt to blow up US passenger jet in December 2009
Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) was formed in January 2009 by a merger between two regional offshoots of the international Islamist militant network in neighbouring Yemen and Saudi Arabia.
Led by a former aide to Osama Bin Laden , the group has vowed to attack oil facilities, foreigners and security forces as it seeks to topple the Saudi monarchy and Yemeni government, and establish an Islamic caliphate.
It has claimed responsibility for a number of attacks in the two countries over the past 12 months, and has been blamed by President Barack Obama for attempting to blow up a US passenger jet as it flew into Detroit on Christmas Day.
A Nigerian man charged in relation to the incident, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab , has allegedly told investigators that AQAP operatives trained him in Yemen, equipped him with a powerful explosive device and told him what to do.
He also warned there were others like him who would strike soon.
Beheading
Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula first came to prominence in Saudi Arabia in May 2003, when it claimed responsibility for simultaneous suicide bombing attacks on three Western housing compounds in Riyadh , which left 29 dead.
Despite a subsequent crackdown on Islamist militants and radicals by the Saudi security forces, the group was able to mount an attack on the Muhayyah residential compound in the capital that November, killing 17 people.
In 2004, it suffered a major blow when its leader, Khaled Ali Hajj - a Yemeni and former bodyguard of Bin Laden - was ambushed and killed by Saudi troops.
However, the group soon recovered under the guidance of a veteran Saudi militant, Abdul Aziz al-Muqrin , and launched a series of spectacular attacks.
On 1 May 2004, militants shot dead five Western workers at a petrochemical complex in the north-western Red Sea city of Yanbu. On 29 May, more than 20 foreign and Saudi nationals were killed in attacks on three sites in the city of al-Khobar, increasing fears of political instability and pushing up global oil prices.
The following month, members of AQAP abducted and beheaded a 49-year old American aerospace worker named Paul Johnson.
The triumph was short-lived, however, as when security forces stormed a hideout in Riyadh looking for Johnson's murderers Muqrin was shot dead.
Although militants killed at least nine people in a raid on the US consulate in Jeddah in December 2004, al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula enjoyed notably less success under Muqrin's successor, Salih al-Awfi .
The Saudi security services gradually gained the upper hand, and succeed in preventing any major attacks the following year, when Awfi was himself killed during a police raid in the holy city of Medina.
In spite of the large numbers of Saudis who then travelled to militant training camps and gained experience fighting in places such as Iraq, the group found it increasingly difficult to organise operational cells inside the kingdom. Its last attempt a significant attack was at the Abqaiq oil facility in February 2006 .
Prison escape
Meanwhile in Yemen - the ancestral home of Bin Laden - Sunni militants took advantage of the weak central government, whose authority does not extend far outside the capital Sanaa, and established strongholds in its largely autonomous tribal regions.
Although al-Qaeda cells were held responsible for several attacks inside Yemen since the suicide boat attack on the USS Cole near the port of Aden in 2000 that killed 17 US sailors, it was not until the second half of the decade that a fully-functioning affiliated group was formed.
According to Gregory Johnsen of Princeton University, between 2002 and 2003 the Yemeni government co-operated closely with the US to fight al-Qaeda. By the end of that period - which included one leader being killed in a controversial strike by a CIA drone aircraft - al-Qaeda appeared to be substantially weakened and so both countries shifted focus.
The policy appeared to have worked until February 2006, Mr Johnsen says, when 23 suspected al-Qaeda members managed to escape from a prison in Sanaa , including Jamal al-Badawi, the alleged mastermind of the USS Cole bombing.
Most were eventually either recaptured or killed, but two of the lesser-known escapees eluded the authorities, including Nasser Abdul Karim al-Wuhayshi, a former personal assistant to Bin Laden in Afghanistan, and Qasim al-Raymi.
A 33-year-old from the southern governorate of al-Baida, Wuhayshi spent time in religious institutions in Yemen before travelling to Afghanistan in the late 1990s. He fought at the battle of Tora Bora in December 2001, before escaping over the border into Iran, where he was eventually arrested. He was extradited to Yemen in 2003.
After escaping from prison, Wuhayshi and Raymi are said to have overseen the formation of al-Qaeda in Yemen, which took in both new recruits and experienced Arab fighters returning from Iraq and Afghanistan. Protected by tribes who were wary of government interference, the group established bases from which to launch fresh attacks.
The group claimed responsibility for two suicide bomb attacks that killed six Western tourists before being linked to the assault on the US embassy in Sanaa in September 2008 , in which militants detonated bombs and fired rocket-propelled grenades. Ten Yemeni guards and four civilians were killed, along with six assailants.
Four months later, Wuhayshi announced in a video the merger of the al-Qaeda offshoots in Yemen and Saudi Arabia to form "al-Qaeda of Jihad Organisation in the Arabian Peninsula".
Analysts say the move was designed to bring Saudi al-Qaeda members who had fled their country and Yemeni militants together under one umbrella as a first step towards launching attacks throughout the region.
Next to Wuhayshi and Raymi in the same video sat the new group's deputy leader, Said Ali al-Shihri, a Saudi national who was released from the US military detention centre at Guantanamo Bay in November 2007.
Another former detainee, Mohammed Atiq al-Harbi, also known as Mohammed al-Awfi, appeared alongside them and was described as a field commander.
Embarrassingly for both Riyadh and Washington, both men had been released from Guantanamo into the custody of the Saudi government's "deradicalisation" programme for militants, which includes art therapy. They both left the facility within weeks.
The group's first operation outside Yemen was carried out in Saudi Arabia in August 2009 against the kingdom's security chief, Prince Mohammed bin Nayef, though he survived. The bomber concealed a bomb containing the high-explosive PETN (pentaerythritol) inside his body.
After news of the failed attempt to destroy the Northwest Airlines Airbus A330 emerged, AQAP released a statement saying it had sought to avenge recent raids by Yemeni forces aided by US intelligence , in which dozens of militants are reported to have died.
"We tell the American people that since you support the leaders who kill our women and children... we have come to slaughter you [and] will strike you with no previous [warning], our vengeance is near," the group said.
"We call on all Muslims... to throw out all unbelievers from the Arabian Peninsula by killing crusaders who work in embassies or elsewhere... [in] a total war on all crusaders in the Peninsula of Muhammad."
Reports on Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula's membership vary wildly - some experts say there are fewer than 50 fighters, while others believe there may be 200 to 300 - but most agree that if it is left unmolested it will soon become a major threat.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/8437724.stm
--
BBC - Tuesday, 5 January 2010
"The country's going to hell. The crises are converging with each other"
Dr Abdullah al-Faqih, Professor of political science, Sanaa University
Al-Qaeda's influence in Yemen
By Jeremy Bowen, Middle East editor - BBC News, Yemen
To get an idea of the state of mind of the men here in Yemen who run al-Qaeda in the Arabia peninsula, just take a look at what they said about the failed attack on the US airliner on Christmas Day.
In a swaggering and ambitious statement, they claimed that they sent the Nigerian student onto the plane, and that he only failed because of a technical fault with the bomb.
For them, getting that close counts as the next best thing to a successful mission.
And take just one look at the terrain of this country to understand why al-Qaeda is feeling so comfortable here, relaxed enough for one of its leaders reportedly to have moved his wife and family down from Saudi Arabia.
Yemen's mountains are rugged, hard to reach, and best of all from a jihadi point of view, they are not controlled by the central government.
Al-Qaeda in the Arabian peninsula established itself in Yemen after it was forced out of Saudi Arabia, taking advantage of the fact that large swathes of Yemeni territory are controlled by powerful, well-armed tribes, not by a government that is getting closer to the US and its counter-terrorism advisers than ever.
Already there are claims and counter-claims of a kind that are familiar from Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iraq.
On 17 and 24 December al-Qaeda sites in Yemen were attacked. Reports based on American sources suggested that 60 "militants" had been killed.
Children killed?
It has been reported in the United States that American military forces carried out the attacks.
But local journalists here who say they have visited the sites in question tell a different story.
Abdulelah Hider Shaea, who has close connections with al-Qaeda, told me that people at the places that were attacked insist that dozens of women and children were among the dead.
It is the belief of at least one person there, he said, that the Yemeni government and US President Barack Obama were congratulating each other on killing their children.
Making deals with tribes that have lost large numbers of women and children in government attacks will be very difficult.
Mr Shaea said that al-Qaeda in Yemen believes that American actions will bring it recruits.
And he compared Yemen with Pakistan's tribal areas.
"The United States wants to fight al-Qaeda here. It won't work, they'll make this a new Waziristan, exporting fighters all over the world."
A diverse range of observers, in Yemen and abroad, agree that a heavy-handed counter-terrorism strategy will create more problems than it will solve.
But alternatives to military action move slowly and do not guarantee success either.
In Washington, President Obama is under pressure to take action. The Christmas Day attempted attack over Detroit may have failed, but it brought back instant memories of 9/11. Military action will continue.
Numerous problems
Al-Qaeda is not Yemen's only problem.
Saudi Arabia has intervened in the long-running tribal war in the north. A separatist movement in the south wants Yemen to be divided back into two countries.
The poor are getting poorer. Levels of illiteracy are high. The birth rate is the highest in the Middle East.
Its main export, oil, will run out within the next 10 years and new gas fields do not appear to be lucrative enough to replace it.
Yemen's water supply is also running dry, not least because of the amount that is used to irrigate the fields of khat.
Chewing khat leaves, which are a mild stimulant, is the national pastime.
Yemen's President Ali Abdallah Saleh surrounds himself with members of his own clan and adroitly juggles all the other forces in Yemen to stay in power.
It is a strategy that has worked for 30 years. But his government is accused of being not just ineffective, but also riddled with corruption.
So the US, Britain and Saudi Arabia, are looking even more nervous about Yemen and its list of challenges.
They will have a chance to talk about what to do next in a meeting in London at the end of the month.
When I asked Dr Abdullah al-Faqih, professor of political science at Sanaa University about Yemen's position, he was succinct.
"The country's going to hell. The crises are converging with each other."
The risk, he said, was that Yemen would go the same way as Somalia, its neighbour across the Gulf of Aden, which descended into violent and bloody confusion a generation ago and has never emerged.
Yemen is not Somalia, nor Afghanistan. At least not yet. It is not a failed state, but it is failing.
Holding back chaos
It will be very hard to stabilise matters here, but it is not impossible.
Many Yemenis are devout, but that does not make them jihadis. The tribes are powerful and traditionally are open to making deals.
One strategy for al-Qaeda's enemies could be to pay them to ban al-Qaeda from their territory.
The Saudis and the Americans have plenty of money for that. They don't necessarily have the necessary time, luck and judgement that has to go along with cash.
Action is needed, because all the indications suggest that if matters are left as they are, Yemen will slide steadily into chaos.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/8442212.stm
--
[ US puts Awlaki first on a hit list first and then on the terror list!!]
BBC - Wednesday, 7 April 2010 17:51 UK
US approves killing US-born cleric Anwar al-Awlaki
The US government has authorised the capture or killing of radical Muslim cleric Anwar al-Awlaki, currently based in Yemen, officials have confirmed.
The cleric, who is a US citizen, is being targeted for his involvement in planning attacks on the US.
Mr Awlaki was linked to the attempted bombing of an airliner bound for the US and a shooting on a US Army base.
US officials have warned that Yemen is becoming a safe haven for al-Qaeda militants.
The BBC's Steve Kingstone, in Washington, says it is highly unusual for the CIA to be given approval by the president's National Security Council to target a US citizen.
The order was made by the Obama administration earlier this year, but it has just been revealed after a review of national security policy.
'Serious attacks'
It was first reported in the New York Times and later confirmed to the BBC by US officials.
"Awlaki is a threat to the United States and our allies. He's plotted serious attacks against this country and others. Of course he's a US government target," one official said.
Mr Awlaki was born in New Mexico, and later served as an imam in Colorado, California and Virginia.
He became popular among Islamic radicals for his firebrand preaching in English which endorsed the use of violence as a religious duty.
It was while he was an imam in San Diego that his sermons were attended by two of the 9/11 hijackers.
He fled the US in 2007 and moved to Yemen.
US intelligence previously viewed him as a radical Islamist preacher, but officials say he is now an active recruiter for al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula.
Mr Awlaki has been linked to the suspects in the Fort Hood shootings last November in which 13 people died, and a failed attempt to blow up a transatlantic airliner on Christmas day.
Potentially, a US attack on him could be in the form of an air strike by an unmanned drone, our correspondent says.
The US military already has approval for such killings, based on a congressional authorisation for war with al-Qaeda after the 9/11 attacks on the US.
Failed state
"Awlaki knows what he's done, and he knows he won't be met with handshakes and flowers. None of this should surprise anyone," the New York Times quoted an official as saying.
The Yemeni government, with support from the US and Saudi Arabia, has bombed suspected al-Qaeda hideouts in the last few months.
But some analysts have warned that Yemen may become a failed state because of the fragile hold the Yemeni government has on its own country.
Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the Nigerian man accused of trying to blow up a plane on its way into Detroit airport on Christmas Day 2009, allegedly met Mr Awlaki in Yemen weeks before boarding a US-bound plane in Lagos.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/8606584.stm
--
BBC: 16 July 2010
US puts Muslim cleric on terror blacklist
Washington has added a US-born Muslim cleric linked to al-Qaeda to its terrorism blacklist and imposed financial sanctions on him.
The move would freeze any US assets of Anwar al-Awlaki, prevent him from travelling to the US and bar Americans from sending him money.
Mr al-Awlaki is suspected of helping plan the failed bombing of an airliner over Detroit last Christmas.
He is thought to be in Yemen with al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula.
US officials have warned Yemen is becoming a safe haven for al-Qaeda militants.
He is also thought to have exchanged e-mails with an army officer charged with killing 13 people last November at a military base in Texas.
In April the US government authorised his capture or killing and now the US treasury department has placed him on its list of Specially Designated Global Terrorists.
"Anwar al-Awlaki has proven that he is extraordinarily dangerous, committed to carrying out deadly attacks on Americans and others worldwide," said Stuart Levey, the treasury undersecretary for terrorism and financial intelligence.
"He has involved himself in every aspect of the supply chain of terrorism - fund-raising for terrorist groups, recruiting and training operatives, and planning and ordering attacks on innocents," Mr Levey said in a statement.
The Treasury also said that Mr al-Awlaki had pledged an oath of loyalty to al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) and "facilitated training at camps in Yemen in support of acts of terrorism and helped focus AQAP's attention on planning attacks on US interests".
Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab was arrested on Christmas Day last year after allegedly trying to blow up a plane he was on that was travelling to Detroit.
The treasury said he had met Mr al-Awlaki and received instructions from him weeks before the failed attack.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-10669422
--
BBC: Monday 8 November 2010
Yemen Muslim cleric al-Awlaki in US death threat video
A radical US-born Yemeni Islamist cleric has called for the killing of Americans in a new video message posted on radical web sites.
Anwar al-Awlaki said no permission was needed to kill Americans as they are from the "party of devils".
It comes shortly after authorities intercepted air cargo bombs sent from Yemen to the US in a plot linked to Mr Awlaki.
The US has named Mr Awlaki a "specially designated global terrorist".
Investigators have linked Mr Awlaki to the US army base killings in Fort Hood, Texas, last year's Christmas airline bomb attempt, and the failed Times Square bombing in New York.
US officials say he is a leader of al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, an offshoot of the militant network based in Saudi Arabia and Yemen.
'Leaders are corrupt'
In the 23-minute message posted on Monday, Mr Awlaki called all Arab and Yemeni leaders "corrupt".
"Kings, emirs, and presidents are not now qualified to lead the nation, or even a flock of sheep," he said.
"If the leaders are corrupt, the scholars have the responsibility to lead the nation."
He was shown seated at a desk, wearing traditional Yemeni clothes with a dagger in his belt.
Last week, YouTube removed hundreds of clips of Anwar al-Awlaki's calls to jihad saying they violated a ban on hate speech and incitement to violence.
Last month, investigators working for New York Congressman Anthony Weiner, a Democrat, reported finding more than 700 videos in which Mr Awlaki appeared. The clips had garnered more than 3.5m hits.
Mr Awlaki, an American-born cleric of Yemeni descent, is said to be on a CIA hit list authorised by President Barack Obama.
In July, the US treasury department put Mr Awlaki on its terrorism blacklist and imposed financial sanctions on him.
US officials say Mr Awlaki helped recruit Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the Nigerian accused of attempting to blow up an airliner as it flew into Detroit on 25 December 2009.
Maj Nidal Hasan, the US Army psychiatrist accused of killing 13 comrades in the Fort Hood shooting last year, sought religious advice from Mr Awlaki and saw him preach in the US state of Virginia in 2001, US officials say.
A student found guilty of attempting to murder MP Stephen Timms in east London was said to have been inspired by Mr Awlaki's online sermons.
--
THE INDEPENDENT - Sunday, 7 November 2010
West panics at American-born voice of jihad
But the cleric accused of radicalising Western Muslims is just a sideshow
By Patrick Cockburn
Anwar al-Awlaki, the militant Islamic cleric in hiding in Yemen, was being denounced in the US and Britain last week as an arch-conspirator against the West, leading to hundreds of videos of his speeches and interviews being hurriedly removed from YouTube.
Awlaki, an eloquent preacher, is alleged to have radicalised Roshonara Choudhry, the theology student who stabbed Stephen Timms MP for voting for the Iraq war. Awlaki was also in contact with militant Muslims who later attacked American targets, such as the Nigerian student with explosives sewn into his underpants and the US officer who shot dead 13 of his fellow soldiers at Fort Hood.
On the videos of Awlaki still available on YouTube, often excerpts from his speeches broadcast on US TV, his message remains chillingly clear. In a soft, measured voice he describes how he was born in America, lived there for 21 years and became an Islamic preacher, advocating non-violence until the invasion of Iraq in 2003. This turned him into a supporter of holy war against America: "I eventually came to the conclusion that jihad against the United States is binding for Muslims."
Awlaki has been denounced as "murderous thug" and as a leader of al-Qa'ida in the Arabian Peninsula, but the reason he has significant influence is that he is almost the only jihadi leader who can explain the ideology of holy war in rational and convincing words. Speeches by Osama bin Laden are at best cryptic, and those by al-Qa'ida leaders in Iraq and Pakistan are often sectarian rants.
In contrast Awlaki, who was born in New Mexico and is highly educated, seldom raises his voice, and his method of speaking is similar to that of a television preacher. He speaks humbly and directly to his audience, citing recent political events and incidents from day-to-day life to illuminate his theme. In one video, illustrated by photographs of Muslims at war, he seeks to raise the morale of Muslims by describing how dark the future for Islam appeared when he was a young man. Afghanistan and South Yemen were dominated by communists, and Iraq and the Palestinian movement by nationalists. His point is that all these enemies of Islam have been unexpectedly swept away.
Most alarming for the US and British governments, Awlaki's words are directed primarily at English-speaking Muslims. He asks how American Muslims can give their loyalty to a country that is at war with Islam. Also alarming for potential targets of jihadists is that those moved to militant action by Awlaki may have had no previous contact with militant movements, so any attack comes as a surprise. Choudhry, who was jailed for life last week after stabbing Mr Timms, was the daughter of Bangladeshi immigrants to Britain. She had held moderate opinions until she started browsing Islamic websites.
Awlaki is scarcely typical of the mainstream of al-Qa'ida, whose strongholds are in the tribal areas of north-west Pakistan and in Sunni Arab parts of Iraq. In sharp contrast to his sophisticated justification for holy war against the US and its allies, al-Qa'ida fighters in Iraq have largely focused on attacking the Shia majority whom they see as heretics. The Pakistan Taliban, heavily influenced by al-Qa'ida, shoot and bomb those not subscribing to their brand of Sunni Islam.
Saudi security sources say that foreign volunteers from the Muslim world, mostly from Saudi Arabia and Yemen, who imagine they are travelling to Iraq to fight US troops, end up as suicide bombers targeting Shia marketplaces and mosques. More than 100 people died in co-ordinated bomb attacks on Shia areas of Baghdad this week.
Al-Qa'ida has survived the onslaught of the US and its allies since 2003 in large part because it exists more as an ideology and set of attitudes than as an organised movement that can be disrupted or destroyed. The US policy of systematically eliminating its leaders has likewise had limited impact because the strongest elements in al-Qa'ida are local franchisees who do not give priority to holy war against the US. If they did so, attacks would be far more devastating because in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan there are many jihadi cadres skilled and experienced in making bombs and getting them to their targets.
The US government and media are now demonising Awlaki, and probably exaggerating his influence, as the inspiration for attacks by focusing on Yemen as the new bastion of al-Qa'ida. But, as in Iraq, al-Qa'ida has strength mainly because it associates itself with groups already in opposition to the central government. In Yemen there is increasing dissent in the south, formerly the People's Democratic Republic of Yemen, which united with the Yemen Arab Republic in the north in 1990. The government in the capital, Sanaa, has every incentive to persuade the US to label its many domestic enemies as al-Qa'ida so it can obtain financial aid and arms, along with military and political support.
--
UPDATE:
BBC - 3 November 2010
Anwar al-Awlaki advocates violent jihad against the United States
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-11658920
Profile: Anwar al-Awlaki
Anwar al-Awlaki, a radical American Muslim cleric of Yemeni descent, has been linked to a series of attacks and plots across the world - from 11 September 2001 to the shootings at Fort Hood in November 2009.
Since going on the run in Yemen in December 2007, Mr Awlaki's overt endorsement of violence as a religious duty in his sermons and on the internet is thought to have inspired new recruits to Islamist militancy.
US officials say he is also a leader of al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, an offshoot of the militant network in Saudi Arabia and Yemen, and helped recruit Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the Nigerian accused of attempting to blow up an airliner as it flew into Detroit on 25 December 2009.
Following the failed attack, President Barack Obama took the extraordinary step of authorising the Central Intelligence Agency to kill him. Soon afterwards, Mr Awlaki survived an airstrike on a suspected al-Qaeda base in southern Yemen.
His family say he not a terrorist and have launched a legal challenge to stop the US executing one of its citizens without any judicial process.
9/11 Hijackers
Mr Awlaki was born in 1971 in the southern US state of New Mexico, where his father, Nasser, a future Yemeni agriculture minister and university president, was studying agricultural economics.
He lived in the US until the age of seven, when his family returned to Yemen.
After studying Islam during his teenage years, Mr Awlaki returned to the US to gain a degree in civil engineering from Colorado State University and a master's in education at San Diego State.
In 1994, he married a cousin from Yemen and took a part-time job as imam at the Denver Islamic Society.
Mr Awlaki later became imam at a mosque in Fort Collins, Colorado, before returning to San Diego in 1996, where he took charge of the city's Masjid Ar-Ribat al-Islami mosque.
During his four years there, his sermons were attended by two future 9/11 hijackers, Khalid al-Midhar and Nawaf al-Hazmi. The two men were also seen attending long meetings with the cleric.
In early 2001, he moved to the Dar al-Hijrah mosque in Falls Church, Virginia, which was attended by Mr Hazmi and a third hijacker, Hani Hanjour.
The 9/11 Commission found the connections to be suspicious, though FBI agents who interviewed him said they doubted he knew of the plot.
It also emerged that in 1998 and 1999, while serving as vice-president of an Islamic charity that the FBI described as "a front organisation to funnel money to terrorists", Mr Awlaki was visited by Ziyad Khaleel, an al-Qaeda operative, and an associate of Sheikh Omar Abdel Rahman, who was serving a life sentence for plotting to blow up landmarks in New York.
Prison
In 2002, he left the US for the UK, where he spent several months giving a series of popular lectures to Muslim youths.
Unable to support himself, Mr Awlaki returned to Yemen in early 2004, and moved to his ancestral village in the southern province of Shabwa with his wife and children.
He soon became a lecturer at al-Iman University, a Sunni religious school in Sanaa headed by Abdul-Majid al-Zindani, a cleric who has been designated a terrorist by both the US and UN for his suspected links with al-Qaeda.
In 2004, Zindani was listed as a "specially designated global terrorist" by the US Treasury Department and the UN, but Yemen took no steps to freeze his assets.
Former students include John Walker Lindh, known as the "American Taliban", and several suspected militants.
In August 2006, Mr Awlaki was detained by the Yemeni authorities, reportedly on charges relating to a plot to kidnap a US military attache.
He has said he was interviewed by FBI agents during his subsequent 18 months in prison, and believes the US asked the Yemeni authorities to prolong his detention.
Incitement
Since his release, Mr Awlaki's message has been overtly supportive of violence, railing against the US-led invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, and the killing of Muslims in covert operations in Pakistan and Yemen.
He has incited violence in a number of texts via his website his Facebook page and many booklets and CDs, including one called "44 Ways to Support Jihad".
Such materials have been found in the possession of several convicted English-speaking militants in Canada, the UK and US.
It also emerged after the Fort Hood incident that Mr Awlaki had given the US Army psychiatrist charged with killing 13 people, Maj Nidal Malik Hasan, religious advice by email. He had also seen Mr Awlaki preach in Virginia in 2001.
In July 2009, the cleric posted a blog saying a Muslim soldier who fought other Muslims was a "heartless beast, bent on evil, who sells his religion for a few dollars". Following the shootings, Mr Awlaki called Maj Hasan a hero.
"My support to the operation was because the operation brother Nidal carried out was a courageous one," he told al-Jazeera.
"And I endeavoured to explain my position regarding what happened because many Islamic organisations and preachers in the West condemned the operation."
'Global terrorist'
Mr Awlaki again hit the headlines in January, when US officials said he might have met Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab at al-Iman University, while the latter was studying Arabic there in November or December 2009.
The 23-year-old was at the same time receiving his final training and indoctrination from members of al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, ahead of his alleged suicide mission, they said.
Mr Awlaki later acknowledged that he had "communications" with the Nigerian in late 2009, but denied any role in the alleged attack.
In May, Faisal Shahzad, the US citizen of Pakistani origin who has admitted attempting to bomb New York's Times Square, said he had been inspired by the violent rhetoric of Mr Awlaki, according to US officials.
Two months later, the US treasury department named Mr Awlaki a "specially designated global terrorist", blocked his assets and made it a crime for Americans to do business with him of for his benefit.
And in late October, he was the only man named by the head of the UK's Secret Intelligence Service (SIS) when he outlined major threats to the country in his first public speech.
Only days later, two suspect packages containing bombs and addressed to synagogues in the US city of Chicago were sent from Yemen. They were carried by plane and intercepted in the UK and Dubai.
US officials blamed al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula for the failed attack and again linked the plot to Mr Awlaki.
On 2 November, the Yemeni authorities surprised many by putting him on trial in absentia, charged with inciting violence against foreigners in connection with the killing the previous month of a French security guard at an oil company's compound.
According to prosecutors, Mr Awlaki and his cousin, Osman, were in contact with the alleged attacker, Hisham Assem. Yemeni officials had until then said they had no legal justification to detain Mr Awlaki.
He is currently thought to be hiding in the mountainous governorates of Shabwa and Marib, under the protection of the large and powerful Awalik tribe, to which he belongs.
--
Mystery of Al Awlaki
WHO IS Al-AWLAKI
American Muslim extremist Anwar al-Awlaki is a mystery to the CIA. Who is he. Where did he come from. Why had CIA not heard of him before. How come he managed to escape US and hide in Yemen. Why did it so long to put him on terror list... etc etc.
-----
BBC PROFILE: AL AWLAKI - Sunday, 3 January 2010
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/8438635.stm
Mr Awlaki returned to Yemen in early 2004 and became a lecturer in Sanaa
Profile: Anwar al-Awlaki
Anwar al-Awlaki, a radical American Muslim cleric of Yemeni descent, has been linked to a series of attacks and plots across the world - from 11 September 2001 to the shootings at Fort Hood in November 2009.
Since going on the run in Yemen in December 2007, Mr Awlaki's overt endorsement of violence as a religious duty in his sermons and on the internet is thought to have inspired new recruits to Islamist militancy.
Senior US officials now believe these may include Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab , the young Nigerian man accused of attempting to blow up a passenger jet as it flew into Detroit on Christmas Day.
Yemeni security officials said Mr Awlaki might have been killed in an airstrike on a suspected al-Qaeda base in the country's south that was directed by US intelligence.
However, friends and relatives say he was not harmed in the raid.
Hijackers
Mr Awlaki was born in 1971 in the southern US state of New Mexico, where his father, Nasser, a future Yemeni agriculture minister and university president, was studying agricultural economics.
After spending his teenage years in Yemen, where he studied Islam, Mr Awlaki returned to the US to gain a degree in civil engineering from Colorado State University and a master's in education at San Diego State.
Mr Awlaki became an imam at a mosque in Fort Collins, Colorado, before returning to San Diego in 1996, where he took charge of the city's Masjid Ar-Ribat al-Islami mosque.
During his four years there, his sermons were attended by two future 9/11 hijackers, Khalid al-Midhar and Nawaf al-Hazmi.
In early 2001, he moved to the Dar al-Hijrah mosque in Falls Church, Virginia, which was attended by Mr Hazmi and a third hijacker, Hani Hanjour.
The 9/11 Commission later found the connections to be suspicious, though law enforcement officials said they doubted he knew of the plot.
The following year, he left the US for the UK, where he spent several months giving a series of lectures to Muslim youths.
Prison
Mr Awlaki returned to Yemen in early 2004, and lived in his ancestral village in the southern province of Shabwa with his wife and children.
He soon became a lecturer at al-Iman University, a Sunni religious school in Sanaa headed by Abdul-Majid al-Zindani, a cleric who has been designated a terrorist by both the US and UN for his suspected links with al-Qaeda.
In 2004, Zindani was listed as a "specially designated global terrorist" by the US Treasury Department and the UN, but Yemen has taken no steps to freeze his assets.
Former students include John Walker Lindh , known as the "American Taliban", and several suspected militants.
Mr Awlaki may have met Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab at al-Iman University, while the latter was studying Arabic, sometime in November or December 2009 as the 23-year-old was receiving his final training and indoctrination from members of al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula , ahead of his alleged suicide mission.
"There are indications that he had contact, direct contact with Abdulmutallab," John Brennan, the US deputy national security adviser for homeland security and counter-terrorism, told CNN.
In August 2006, Mr Awlaki was detained by the Yemeni authorities, reportedly on charges relating to a plot to kidnap a US military attache.
He has said he was interviewed by FBI agents during his subsequent 18 months in prison, and believes the US asked the Yemeni authorities to prolong his detention.
Since his release, Mr Awlaki's message has been overtly supportive of violence.
He has published a number of inciteful texts via his website, his Facebook page and many booklets and CDs, including one called "44 Ways to Support Jihad".
Such materials have been found in the possession of several convicted English-speaking militants in Canada, the UK and US.
It also emerged after the Fort Hood incident that Mr Awlaki had given the US Army psychiatrist charged with killing 13 people, Maj Nidal Malik Hasan , religious advice by email. He had also seen Mr Awlaki preach in Virginia in 2001.
In July, the cleric posted a blog saying a Muslim soldier who fought other Muslims was a "heartless beast, bent on evil, who sells his religion for a few dollars". Following the shootings, Mr Awlaki called Maj Hasan a hero.
"My support to the operation was because the operation brother Nidal carried out was a courageous one," he told al-Jazeera in November.
"And I endeavoured to explain my position regarding what happened because many Islamic organisations and preachers in the West condemned the operation."
--
BBC PROFILE AQAP - Sunday, 3 January 2010
Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula has promised "total war on all crusaders"
Profile: Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula
AL-QAEDA OFFSHOOT
- Formed in January 2009 by a merger between al-Qaeda in Saudi Arabia and Yemen
Based in eastern Yemen
- Led by Nasser al-Wuhayshi, a Yemeni former aide to Osama Bin Laden. Deputy leader is Saudi ex-Guantanamo inmate Said al-Shihri
- Aims to topple Saudi monarchy and Yemeni government, and establish an Islamic caliphate
- Came to prominence with Riyadh bombings in 2003, and 2008 attack on US embassy in Sanaa
- Blamed for attempt to blow up US passenger jet in December 2009
Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) was formed in January 2009 by a merger between two regional offshoots of the international Islamist militant network in neighbouring Yemen and Saudi Arabia.
Led by a former aide to Osama Bin Laden , the group has vowed to attack oil facilities, foreigners and security forces as it seeks to topple the Saudi monarchy and Yemeni government, and establish an Islamic caliphate.
It has claimed responsibility for a number of attacks in the two countries over the past 12 months, and has been blamed by President Barack Obama for attempting to blow up a US passenger jet as it flew into Detroit on Christmas Day.
A Nigerian man charged in relation to the incident, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab , has allegedly told investigators that AQAP operatives trained him in Yemen, equipped him with a powerful explosive device and told him what to do.
He also warned there were others like him who would strike soon.
Beheading
Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula first came to prominence in Saudi Arabia in May 2003, when it claimed responsibility for simultaneous suicide bombing attacks on three Western housing compounds in Riyadh , which left 29 dead.
Despite a subsequent crackdown on Islamist militants and radicals by the Saudi security forces, the group was able to mount an attack on the Muhayyah residential compound in the capital that November, killing 17 people.
In 2004, it suffered a major blow when its leader, Khaled Ali Hajj - a Yemeni and former bodyguard of Bin Laden - was ambushed and killed by Saudi troops.
However, the group soon recovered under the guidance of a veteran Saudi militant, Abdul Aziz al-Muqrin , and launched a series of spectacular attacks.
On 1 May 2004, militants shot dead five Western workers at a petrochemical complex in the north-western Red Sea city of Yanbu. On 29 May, more than 20 foreign and Saudi nationals were killed in attacks on three sites in the city of al-Khobar, increasing fears of political instability and pushing up global oil prices.
The following month, members of AQAP abducted and beheaded a 49-year old American aerospace worker named Paul Johnson.
The triumph was short-lived, however, as when security forces stormed a hideout in Riyadh looking for Johnson's murderers Muqrin was shot dead.
Although militants killed at least nine people in a raid on the US consulate in Jeddah in December 2004, al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula enjoyed notably less success under Muqrin's successor, Salih al-Awfi .
The Saudi security services gradually gained the upper hand, and succeed in preventing any major attacks the following year, when Awfi was himself killed during a police raid in the holy city of Medina.
In spite of the large numbers of Saudis who then travelled to militant training camps and gained experience fighting in places such as Iraq, the group found it increasingly difficult to organise operational cells inside the kingdom. Its last attempt a significant attack was at the Abqaiq oil facility in February 2006 .
Prison escape
Meanwhile in Yemen - the ancestral home of Bin Laden - Sunni militants took advantage of the weak central government, whose authority does not extend far outside the capital Sanaa, and established strongholds in its largely autonomous tribal regions.
Although al-Qaeda cells were held responsible for several attacks inside Yemen since the suicide boat attack on the USS Cole near the port of Aden in 2000 that killed 17 US sailors, it was not until the second half of the decade that a fully-functioning affiliated group was formed.
According to Gregory Johnsen of Princeton University, between 2002 and 2003 the Yemeni government co-operated closely with the US to fight al-Qaeda. By the end of that period - which included one leader being killed in a controversial strike by a CIA drone aircraft - al-Qaeda appeared to be substantially weakened and so both countries shifted focus.
The policy appeared to have worked until February 2006, Mr Johnsen says, when 23 suspected al-Qaeda members managed to escape from a prison in Sanaa , including Jamal al-Badawi, the alleged mastermind of the USS Cole bombing.
Most were eventually either recaptured or killed, but two of the lesser-known escapees eluded the authorities, including Nasser Abdul Karim al-Wuhayshi, a former personal assistant to Bin Laden in Afghanistan, and Qasim al-Raymi.
A 33-year-old from the southern governorate of al-Baida, Wuhayshi spent time in religious institutions in Yemen before travelling to Afghanistan in the late 1990s. He fought at the battle of Tora Bora in December 2001, before escaping over the border into Iran, where he was eventually arrested. He was extradited to Yemen in 2003.
After escaping from prison, Wuhayshi and Raymi are said to have overseen the formation of al-Qaeda in Yemen, which took in both new recruits and experienced Arab fighters returning from Iraq and Afghanistan. Protected by tribes who were wary of government interference, the group established bases from which to launch fresh attacks.
The group claimed responsibility for two suicide bomb attacks that killed six Western tourists before being linked to the assault on the US embassy in Sanaa in September 2008 , in which militants detonated bombs and fired rocket-propelled grenades. Ten Yemeni guards and four civilians were killed, along with six assailants.
Four months later, Wuhayshi announced in a video the merger of the al-Qaeda offshoots in Yemen and Saudi Arabia to form "al-Qaeda of Jihad Organisation in the Arabian Peninsula".
Analysts say the move was designed to bring Saudi al-Qaeda members who had fled their country and Yemeni militants together under one umbrella as a first step towards launching attacks throughout the region.
Next to Wuhayshi and Raymi in the same video sat the new group's deputy leader, Said Ali al-Shihri, a Saudi national who was released from the US military detention centre at Guantanamo Bay in November 2007.
Another former detainee, Mohammed Atiq al-Harbi, also known as Mohammed al-Awfi, appeared alongside them and was described as a field commander.
Embarrassingly for both Riyadh and Washington, both men had been released from Guantanamo into the custody of the Saudi government's "deradicalisation" programme for militants, which includes art therapy. They both left the facility within weeks.
The group's first operation outside Yemen was carried out in Saudi Arabia in August 2009 against the kingdom's security chief, Prince Mohammed bin Nayef, though he survived. The bomber concealed a bomb containing the high-explosive PETN (pentaerythritol) inside his body.
After news of the failed attempt to destroy the Northwest Airlines Airbus A330 emerged, AQAP released a statement saying it had sought to avenge recent raids by Yemeni forces aided by US intelligence , in which dozens of militants are reported to have died.
"We tell the American people that since you support the leaders who kill our women and children... we have come to slaughter you [and] will strike you with no previous [warning], our vengeance is near," the group said.
"We call on all Muslims... to throw out all unbelievers from the Arabian Peninsula by killing crusaders who work in embassies or elsewhere... [in] a total war on all crusaders in the Peninsula of Muhammad."
Reports on Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula's membership vary wildly - some experts say there are fewer than 50 fighters, while others believe there may be 200 to 300 - but most agree that if it is left unmolested it will soon become a major threat.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/8437724.stm
--
BBC - Tuesday, 5 January 2010
"The country's going to hell. The crises are converging with each other"
Dr Abdullah al-Faqih, Professor of political science, Sanaa University
Al-Qaeda's influence in Yemen
By Jeremy Bowen, Middle East editor - BBC News, Yemen
To get an idea of the state of mind of the men here in Yemen who run al-Qaeda in the Arabia peninsula, just take a look at what they said about the failed attack on the US airliner on Christmas Day.
In a swaggering and ambitious statement, they claimed that they sent the Nigerian student onto the plane, and that he only failed because of a technical fault with the bomb.
For them, getting that close counts as the next best thing to a successful mission.
And take just one look at the terrain of this country to understand why al-Qaeda is feeling so comfortable here, relaxed enough for one of its leaders reportedly to have moved his wife and family down from Saudi Arabia.
Yemen's mountains are rugged, hard to reach, and best of all from a jihadi point of view, they are not controlled by the central government.
Al-Qaeda in the Arabian peninsula established itself in Yemen after it was forced out of Saudi Arabia, taking advantage of the fact that large swathes of Yemeni territory are controlled by powerful, well-armed tribes, not by a government that is getting closer to the US and its counter-terrorism advisers than ever.
Already there are claims and counter-claims of a kind that are familiar from Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iraq.
On 17 and 24 December al-Qaeda sites in Yemen were attacked. Reports based on American sources suggested that 60 "militants" had been killed.
Children killed?
It has been reported in the United States that American military forces carried out the attacks.
But local journalists here who say they have visited the sites in question tell a different story.
Abdulelah Hider Shaea, who has close connections with al-Qaeda, told me that people at the places that were attacked insist that dozens of women and children were among the dead.
It is the belief of at least one person there, he said, that the Yemeni government and US President Barack Obama were congratulating each other on killing their children.
Making deals with tribes that have lost large numbers of women and children in government attacks will be very difficult.
Mr Shaea said that al-Qaeda in Yemen believes that American actions will bring it recruits.
And he compared Yemen with Pakistan's tribal areas.
"The United States wants to fight al-Qaeda here. It won't work, they'll make this a new Waziristan, exporting fighters all over the world."
A diverse range of observers, in Yemen and abroad, agree that a heavy-handed counter-terrorism strategy will create more problems than it will solve.
But alternatives to military action move slowly and do not guarantee success either.
In Washington, President Obama is under pressure to take action. The Christmas Day attempted attack over Detroit may have failed, but it brought back instant memories of 9/11. Military action will continue.
Numerous problems
Al-Qaeda is not Yemen's only problem.
Saudi Arabia has intervened in the long-running tribal war in the north. A separatist movement in the south wants Yemen to be divided back into two countries.
The poor are getting poorer. Levels of illiteracy are high. The birth rate is the highest in the Middle East.
Its main export, oil, will run out within the next 10 years and new gas fields do not appear to be lucrative enough to replace it.
Yemen's water supply is also running dry, not least because of the amount that is used to irrigate the fields of khat.
Chewing khat leaves, which are a mild stimulant, is the national pastime.
Yemen's President Ali Abdallah Saleh surrounds himself with members of his own clan and adroitly juggles all the other forces in Yemen to stay in power.
It is a strategy that has worked for 30 years. But his government is accused of being not just ineffective, but also riddled with corruption.
So the US, Britain and Saudi Arabia, are looking even more nervous about Yemen and its list of challenges.
They will have a chance to talk about what to do next in a meeting in London at the end of the month.
When I asked Dr Abdullah al-Faqih, professor of political science at Sanaa University about Yemen's position, he was succinct.
"The country's going to hell. The crises are converging with each other."
The risk, he said, was that Yemen would go the same way as Somalia, its neighbour across the Gulf of Aden, which descended into violent and bloody confusion a generation ago and has never emerged.
Yemen is not Somalia, nor Afghanistan. At least not yet. It is not a failed state, but it is failing.
Holding back chaos
It will be very hard to stabilise matters here, but it is not impossible.
Many Yemenis are devout, but that does not make them jihadis. The tribes are powerful and traditionally are open to making deals.
One strategy for al-Qaeda's enemies could be to pay them to ban al-Qaeda from their territory.
The Saudis and the Americans have plenty of money for that. They don't necessarily have the necessary time, luck and judgement that has to go along with cash.
Action is needed, because all the indications suggest that if matters are left as they are, Yemen will slide steadily into chaos.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/8442212.stm
--
[ US puts Awlaki first on a hit list first and then on the terror list!!]
BBC - Wednesday, 7 April 2010 17:51 UK
US approves killing US-born cleric Anwar al-Awlaki
The US government has authorised the capture or killing of radical Muslim cleric Anwar al-Awlaki, currently based in Yemen, officials have confirmed.
The cleric, who is a US citizen, is being targeted for his involvement in planning attacks on the US.
Mr Awlaki was linked to the attempted bombing of an airliner bound for the US and a shooting on a US Army base.
US officials have warned that Yemen is becoming a safe haven for al-Qaeda militants.
The BBC's Steve Kingstone, in Washington, says it is highly unusual for the CIA to be given approval by the president's National Security Council to target a US citizen.
The order was made by the Obama administration earlier this year, but it has just been revealed after a review of national security policy.
'Serious attacks'
It was first reported in the New York Times and later confirmed to the BBC by US officials.
"Awlaki is a threat to the United States and our allies. He's plotted serious attacks against this country and others. Of course he's a US government target," one official said.
Mr Awlaki was born in New Mexico, and later served as an imam in Colorado, California and Virginia.
He became popular among Islamic radicals for his firebrand preaching in English which endorsed the use of violence as a religious duty.
It was while he was an imam in San Diego that his sermons were attended by two of the 9/11 hijackers.
He fled the US in 2007 and moved to Yemen.
US intelligence previously viewed him as a radical Islamist preacher, but officials say he is now an active recruiter for al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula.
Mr Awlaki has been linked to the suspects in the Fort Hood shootings last November in which 13 people died, and a failed attempt to blow up a transatlantic airliner on Christmas day.
Potentially, a US attack on him could be in the form of an air strike by an unmanned drone, our correspondent says.
The US military already has approval for such killings, based on a congressional authorisation for war with al-Qaeda after the 9/11 attacks on the US.
Failed state
"Awlaki knows what he's done, and he knows he won't be met with handshakes and flowers. None of this should surprise anyone," the New York Times quoted an official as saying.
The Yemeni government, with support from the US and Saudi Arabia, has bombed suspected al-Qaeda hideouts in the last few months.
But some analysts have warned that Yemen may become a failed state because of the fragile hold the Yemeni government has on its own country.
Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the Nigerian man accused of trying to blow up a plane on its way into Detroit airport on Christmas Day 2009, allegedly met Mr Awlaki in Yemen weeks before boarding a US-bound plane in Lagos.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/8606584.stm
--
BBC: 16 July 2010
US puts Muslim cleric on terror blacklist
Washington has added a US-born Muslim cleric linked to al-Qaeda to its terrorism blacklist and imposed financial sanctions on him.
The move would freeze any US assets of Anwar al-Awlaki, prevent him from travelling to the US and bar Americans from sending him money.
Mr al-Awlaki is suspected of helping plan the failed bombing of an airliner over Detroit last Christmas.
He is thought to be in Yemen with al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula.
US officials have warned Yemen is becoming a safe haven for al-Qaeda militants.
He is also thought to have exchanged e-mails with an army officer charged with killing 13 people last November at a military base in Texas.
In April the US government authorised his capture or killing and now the US treasury department has placed him on its list of Specially Designated Global Terrorists.
"Anwar al-Awlaki has proven that he is extraordinarily dangerous, committed to carrying out deadly attacks on Americans and others worldwide," said Stuart Levey, the treasury undersecretary for terrorism and financial intelligence.
"He has involved himself in every aspect of the supply chain of terrorism - fund-raising for terrorist groups, recruiting and training operatives, and planning and ordering attacks on innocents," Mr Levey said in a statement.
The Treasury also said that Mr al-Awlaki had pledged an oath of loyalty to al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) and "facilitated training at camps in Yemen in support of acts of terrorism and helped focus AQAP's attention on planning attacks on US interests".
Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab was arrested on Christmas Day last year after allegedly trying to blow up a plane he was on that was travelling to Detroit.
The treasury said he had met Mr al-Awlaki and received instructions from him weeks before the failed attack.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-10669422
--
BBC: Monday 8 November 2010
Yemen Muslim cleric al-Awlaki in US death threat video
A radical US-born Yemeni Islamist cleric has called for the killing of Americans in a new video message posted on radical web sites.
Anwar al-Awlaki said no permission was needed to kill Americans as they are from the "party of devils".
It comes shortly after authorities intercepted air cargo bombs sent from Yemen to the US in a plot linked to Mr Awlaki.
The US has named Mr Awlaki a "specially designated global terrorist".
Investigators have linked Mr Awlaki to the US army base killings in Fort Hood, Texas, last year's Christmas airline bomb attempt, and the failed Times Square bombing in New York.
US officials say he is a leader of al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, an offshoot of the militant network based in Saudi Arabia and Yemen.
'Leaders are corrupt'
In the 23-minute message posted on Monday, Mr Awlaki called all Arab and Yemeni leaders "corrupt".
"Kings, emirs, and presidents are not now qualified to lead the nation, or even a flock of sheep," he said.
"If the leaders are corrupt, the scholars have the responsibility to lead the nation."
He was shown seated at a desk, wearing traditional Yemeni clothes with a dagger in his belt.
Last week, YouTube removed hundreds of clips of Anwar al-Awlaki's calls to jihad saying they violated a ban on hate speech and incitement to violence.
Last month, investigators working for New York Congressman Anthony Weiner, a Democrat, reported finding more than 700 videos in which Mr Awlaki appeared. The clips had garnered more than 3.5m hits.
Mr Awlaki, an American-born cleric of Yemeni descent, is said to be on a CIA hit list authorised by President Barack Obama.
In July, the US treasury department put Mr Awlaki on its terrorism blacklist and imposed financial sanctions on him.
US officials say Mr Awlaki helped recruit Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the Nigerian accused of attempting to blow up an airliner as it flew into Detroit on 25 December 2009.
Maj Nidal Hasan, the US Army psychiatrist accused of killing 13 comrades in the Fort Hood shooting last year, sought religious advice from Mr Awlaki and saw him preach in the US state of Virginia in 2001, US officials say.
A student found guilty of attempting to murder MP Stephen Timms in east London was said to have been inspired by Mr Awlaki's online sermons.
--
THE INDEPENDENT - Sunday, 7 November 2010
West panics at American-born voice of jihad
But the cleric accused of radicalising Western Muslims is just a sideshow
By Patrick Cockburn
Anwar al-Awlaki, the militant Islamic cleric in hiding in Yemen, was being denounced in the US and Britain last week as an arch-conspirator against the West, leading to hundreds of videos of his speeches and interviews being hurriedly removed from YouTube.
Awlaki, an eloquent preacher, is alleged to have radicalised Roshonara Choudhry, the theology student who stabbed Stephen Timms MP for voting for the Iraq war. Awlaki was also in contact with militant Muslims who later attacked American targets, such as the Nigerian student with explosives sewn into his underpants and the US officer who shot dead 13 of his fellow soldiers at Fort Hood.
On the videos of Awlaki still available on YouTube, often excerpts from his speeches broadcast on US TV, his message remains chillingly clear. In a soft, measured voice he describes how he was born in America, lived there for 21 years and became an Islamic preacher, advocating non-violence until the invasion of Iraq in 2003. This turned him into a supporter of holy war against America: "I eventually came to the conclusion that jihad against the United States is binding for Muslims."
Awlaki has been denounced as "murderous thug" and as a leader of al-Qa'ida in the Arabian Peninsula, but the reason he has significant influence is that he is almost the only jihadi leader who can explain the ideology of holy war in rational and convincing words. Speeches by Osama bin Laden are at best cryptic, and those by al-Qa'ida leaders in Iraq and Pakistan are often sectarian rants.
In contrast Awlaki, who was born in New Mexico and is highly educated, seldom raises his voice, and his method of speaking is similar to that of a television preacher. He speaks humbly and directly to his audience, citing recent political events and incidents from day-to-day life to illuminate his theme. In one video, illustrated by photographs of Muslims at war, he seeks to raise the morale of Muslims by describing how dark the future for Islam appeared when he was a young man. Afghanistan and South Yemen were dominated by communists, and Iraq and the Palestinian movement by nationalists. His point is that all these enemies of Islam have been unexpectedly swept away.
Most alarming for the US and British governments, Awlaki's words are directed primarily at English-speaking Muslims. He asks how American Muslims can give their loyalty to a country that is at war with Islam. Also alarming for potential targets of jihadists is that those moved to militant action by Awlaki may have had no previous contact with militant movements, so any attack comes as a surprise. Choudhry, who was jailed for life last week after stabbing Mr Timms, was the daughter of Bangladeshi immigrants to Britain. She had held moderate opinions until she started browsing Islamic websites.
Awlaki is scarcely typical of the mainstream of al-Qa'ida, whose strongholds are in the tribal areas of north-west Pakistan and in Sunni Arab parts of Iraq. In sharp contrast to his sophisticated justification for holy war against the US and its allies, al-Qa'ida fighters in Iraq have largely focused on attacking the Shia majority whom they see as heretics. The Pakistan Taliban, heavily influenced by al-Qa'ida, shoot and bomb those not subscribing to their brand of Sunni Islam.
Saudi security sources say that foreign volunteers from the Muslim world, mostly from Saudi Arabia and Yemen, who imagine they are travelling to Iraq to fight US troops, end up as suicide bombers targeting Shia marketplaces and mosques. More than 100 people died in co-ordinated bomb attacks on Shia areas of Baghdad this week.
Al-Qa'ida has survived the onslaught of the US and its allies since 2003 in large part because it exists more as an ideology and set of attitudes than as an organised movement that can be disrupted or destroyed. The US policy of systematically eliminating its leaders has likewise had limited impact because the strongest elements in al-Qa'ida are local franchisees who do not give priority to holy war against the US. If they did so, attacks would be far more devastating because in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan there are many jihadi cadres skilled and experienced in making bombs and getting them to their targets.
The US government and media are now demonising Awlaki, and probably exaggerating his influence, as the inspiration for attacks by focusing on Yemen as the new bastion of al-Qa'ida. But, as in Iraq, al-Qa'ida has strength mainly because it associates itself with groups already in opposition to the central government. In Yemen there is increasing dissent in the south, formerly the People's Democratic Republic of Yemen, which united with the Yemen Arab Republic in the north in 1990. The government in the capital, Sanaa, has every incentive to persuade the US to label its many domestic enemies as al-Qa'ida so it can obtain financial aid and arms, along with military and political support.
--
UPDATE:
BBC - 3 November 2010
Anwar al-Awlaki advocates violent jihad against the United States
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-11658920
Profile: Anwar al-Awlaki
Anwar al-Awlaki, a radical American Muslim cleric of Yemeni descent, has been linked to a series of attacks and plots across the world - from 11 September 2001 to the shootings at Fort Hood in November 2009.
Since going on the run in Yemen in December 2007, Mr Awlaki's overt endorsement of violence as a religious duty in his sermons and on the internet is thought to have inspired new recruits to Islamist militancy.
US officials say he is also a leader of al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, an offshoot of the militant network in Saudi Arabia and Yemen, and helped recruit Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the Nigerian accused of attempting to blow up an airliner as it flew into Detroit on 25 December 2009.
Following the failed attack, President Barack Obama took the extraordinary step of authorising the Central Intelligence Agency to kill him. Soon afterwards, Mr Awlaki survived an airstrike on a suspected al-Qaeda base in southern Yemen.
His family say he not a terrorist and have launched a legal challenge to stop the US executing one of its citizens without any judicial process.
9/11 Hijackers
Mr Awlaki was born in 1971 in the southern US state of New Mexico, where his father, Nasser, a future Yemeni agriculture minister and university president, was studying agricultural economics.
He lived in the US until the age of seven, when his family returned to Yemen.
After studying Islam during his teenage years, Mr Awlaki returned to the US to gain a degree in civil engineering from Colorado State University and a master's in education at San Diego State.
In 1994, he married a cousin from Yemen and took a part-time job as imam at the Denver Islamic Society.
Mr Awlaki later became imam at a mosque in Fort Collins, Colorado, before returning to San Diego in 1996, where he took charge of the city's Masjid Ar-Ribat al-Islami mosque.
During his four years there, his sermons were attended by two future 9/11 hijackers, Khalid al-Midhar and Nawaf al-Hazmi. The two men were also seen attending long meetings with the cleric.
In early 2001, he moved to the Dar al-Hijrah mosque in Falls Church, Virginia, which was attended by Mr Hazmi and a third hijacker, Hani Hanjour.
The 9/11 Commission found the connections to be suspicious, though FBI agents who interviewed him said they doubted he knew of the plot.
It also emerged that in 1998 and 1999, while serving as vice-president of an Islamic charity that the FBI described as "a front organisation to funnel money to terrorists", Mr Awlaki was visited by Ziyad Khaleel, an al-Qaeda operative, and an associate of Sheikh Omar Abdel Rahman, who was serving a life sentence for plotting to blow up landmarks in New York.
Prison
In 2002, he left the US for the UK, where he spent several months giving a series of popular lectures to Muslim youths.
Unable to support himself, Mr Awlaki returned to Yemen in early 2004, and moved to his ancestral village in the southern province of Shabwa with his wife and children.
He soon became a lecturer at al-Iman University, a Sunni religious school in Sanaa headed by Abdul-Majid al-Zindani, a cleric who has been designated a terrorist by both the US and UN for his suspected links with al-Qaeda.
In 2004, Zindani was listed as a "specially designated global terrorist" by the US Treasury Department and the UN, but Yemen took no steps to freeze his assets.
Former students include John Walker Lindh, known as the "American Taliban", and several suspected militants.
In August 2006, Mr Awlaki was detained by the Yemeni authorities, reportedly on charges relating to a plot to kidnap a US military attache.
He has said he was interviewed by FBI agents during his subsequent 18 months in prison, and believes the US asked the Yemeni authorities to prolong his detention.
Incitement
Since his release, Mr Awlaki's message has been overtly supportive of violence, railing against the US-led invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, and the killing of Muslims in covert operations in Pakistan and Yemen.
He has incited violence in a number of texts via his website his Facebook page and many booklets and CDs, including one called "44 Ways to Support Jihad".
Such materials have been found in the possession of several convicted English-speaking militants in Canada, the UK and US.
It also emerged after the Fort Hood incident that Mr Awlaki had given the US Army psychiatrist charged with killing 13 people, Maj Nidal Malik Hasan, religious advice by email. He had also seen Mr Awlaki preach in Virginia in 2001.
In July 2009, the cleric posted a blog saying a Muslim soldier who fought other Muslims was a "heartless beast, bent on evil, who sells his religion for a few dollars". Following the shootings, Mr Awlaki called Maj Hasan a hero.
"My support to the operation was because the operation brother Nidal carried out was a courageous one," he told al-Jazeera.
"And I endeavoured to explain my position regarding what happened because many Islamic organisations and preachers in the West condemned the operation."
'Global terrorist'
Mr Awlaki again hit the headlines in January, when US officials said he might have met Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab at al-Iman University, while the latter was studying Arabic there in November or December 2009.
The 23-year-old was at the same time receiving his final training and indoctrination from members of al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, ahead of his alleged suicide mission, they said.
Mr Awlaki later acknowledged that he had "communications" with the Nigerian in late 2009, but denied any role in the alleged attack.
In May, Faisal Shahzad, the US citizen of Pakistani origin who has admitted attempting to bomb New York's Times Square, said he had been inspired by the violent rhetoric of Mr Awlaki, according to US officials.
Two months later, the US treasury department named Mr Awlaki a "specially designated global terrorist", blocked his assets and made it a crime for Americans to do business with him of for his benefit.
And in late October, he was the only man named by the head of the UK's Secret Intelligence Service (SIS) when he outlined major threats to the country in his first public speech.
Only days later, two suspect packages containing bombs and addressed to synagogues in the US city of Chicago were sent from Yemen. They were carried by plane and intercepted in the UK and Dubai.
US officials blamed al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula for the failed attack and again linked the plot to Mr Awlaki.
On 2 November, the Yemeni authorities surprised many by putting him on trial in absentia, charged with inciting violence against foreigners in connection with the killing the previous month of a French security guard at an oil company's compound.
According to prosecutors, Mr Awlaki and his cousin, Osman, were in contact with the alleged attacker, Hisham Assem. Yemeni officials had until then said they had no legal justification to detain Mr Awlaki.
He is currently thought to be hiding in the mountainous governorates of Shabwa and Marib, under the protection of the large and powerful Awalik tribe, to which he belongs.
--
Saturday, 14 August 2010
Mosque Wars
AFP - 13 August 2010
Obama defends mosque near Ground Zero
WASHINGTON — In a passionate defense of religious freedom, President Barack Obama on Friday waded into a bitter controversy by defending the right of Muslims to build a mosque just blocks from Ground Zero.
"As a citizen, and as president, I believe that Muslims have the same right to practice their religion as anyone else in this country," Obama said.
"That includes the right to build a place of worship and a community center on private property in lower Manhattan, in accordance with local laws and ordinances."
Obama's remarks, delivered at a White House Iftar meal for Muslims breaking their Ramadan fast, were the president's first on the controversial project, which has become a test of tolerance for Islam in post-9/11 America and sparked a national debate on freedom of religion.
Intended to include a mosque, sports facilities, theater, restaurant and possibly a day care, the multi-story Islamic center would be open to all visitors to demonstrate that Muslims are part of their community, planners say.
But the proposed location, two blocks from the gaping Ground Zero hole, where the Twin Towers were destroyed on September 11, has touched raw nerves.
Obama acknowledged that the site where the World Trade Center towers once stood remains "hallowed ground," and that 9/11 attacks "were a deeply traumatic event for our country."
But he said American values required that all religious groups be treated equally and fairly.
"This is America, and our commitment to religious freedom must be unshakeable. The principle that people of all faiths are welcome in this country, and will not be treated differently by their government, is essential to who we are."
New York City has approved plans for the lower Manhattan building to be turned into a mosque and an interfaith venue called "Cordoba House."
But hearings on whether the construction should be allowed prompted furious exchanges, with supporters accusing critics of racism and Islamophobia, and opponents warning insulted the memory of the 3,000 victims of the 9/11 attacks.
Applause erupted when a New York city commission unanimously approved the project August 3, but others shouted "shame," and waved signs reading "Islam builds mosques at the sites of their conquests."
Obama acknowledged the "pain and suffering experienced by those who lost loved ones is unimaginable," but he called on Americans to "always remember who we are fighting against, and what we are fighting for."
"Al-Qaeda's cause is not Islam -- it is a gross distortion of Islam," the president said. "In fact, Al-Qaeda has killed more Muslims than people of any other religion -- and that list of victims includes innocent Muslims who were killed on 9/11."
Before an audience of prominent Muslim Americans, including administration officials, and Muslim members of Washington's diplomatic corps, Obama paid tribute to US history of accepting and engaging Muslims.
He cited the example of president Thomas Jefferson, who he said hosted the first White House Iftar, more than 200 years ago.
But the appeal to US history is unlikely to convince those most opposed to the mosque, which has attracted increasingly strident criticism, raising fears among US Muslims of an Islamophobic backlash.
A Florida church has already said it will hold a "Koran-burning" on September 11 this year, and Muslim advocacy groups say they have reached out to law enforcement officials seeking extra vigilance.
But Obama said while America's diversity contained the seeds of conflict, US values were stronger and would always overcome difference.
"Time and again, the American people have demonstrated that we can work through these issues, stay true to our core values, and emerge stronger for it. So it must be -- and will be -- today," he said.
-
Obama defends mosque near Ground Zero
WASHINGTON — In a passionate defense of religious freedom, President Barack Obama on Friday waded into a bitter controversy by defending the right of Muslims to build a mosque just blocks from Ground Zero.
"As a citizen, and as president, I believe that Muslims have the same right to practice their religion as anyone else in this country," Obama said.
"That includes the right to build a place of worship and a community center on private property in lower Manhattan, in accordance with local laws and ordinances."
Obama's remarks, delivered at a White House Iftar meal for Muslims breaking their Ramadan fast, were the president's first on the controversial project, which has become a test of tolerance for Islam in post-9/11 America and sparked a national debate on freedom of religion.
Intended to include a mosque, sports facilities, theater, restaurant and possibly a day care, the multi-story Islamic center would be open to all visitors to demonstrate that Muslims are part of their community, planners say.
But the proposed location, two blocks from the gaping Ground Zero hole, where the Twin Towers were destroyed on September 11, has touched raw nerves.
Obama acknowledged that the site where the World Trade Center towers once stood remains "hallowed ground," and that 9/11 attacks "were a deeply traumatic event for our country."
But he said American values required that all religious groups be treated equally and fairly.
"This is America, and our commitment to religious freedom must be unshakeable. The principle that people of all faiths are welcome in this country, and will not be treated differently by their government, is essential to who we are."
New York City has approved plans for the lower Manhattan building to be turned into a mosque and an interfaith venue called "Cordoba House."
But hearings on whether the construction should be allowed prompted furious exchanges, with supporters accusing critics of racism and Islamophobia, and opponents warning insulted the memory of the 3,000 victims of the 9/11 attacks.
Applause erupted when a New York city commission unanimously approved the project August 3, but others shouted "shame," and waved signs reading "Islam builds mosques at the sites of their conquests."
Obama acknowledged the "pain and suffering experienced by those who lost loved ones is unimaginable," but he called on Americans to "always remember who we are fighting against, and what we are fighting for."
"Al-Qaeda's cause is not Islam -- it is a gross distortion of Islam," the president said. "In fact, Al-Qaeda has killed more Muslims than people of any other religion -- and that list of victims includes innocent Muslims who were killed on 9/11."
Before an audience of prominent Muslim Americans, including administration officials, and Muslim members of Washington's diplomatic corps, Obama paid tribute to US history of accepting and engaging Muslims.
He cited the example of president Thomas Jefferson, who he said hosted the first White House Iftar, more than 200 years ago.
But the appeal to US history is unlikely to convince those most opposed to the mosque, which has attracted increasingly strident criticism, raising fears among US Muslims of an Islamophobic backlash.
A Florida church has already said it will hold a "Koran-burning" on September 11 this year, and Muslim advocacy groups say they have reached out to law enforcement officials seeking extra vigilance.
But Obama said while America's diversity contained the seeds of conflict, US values were stronger and would always overcome difference.
"Time and again, the American people have demonstrated that we can work through these issues, stay true to our core values, and emerge stronger for it. So it must be -- and will be -- today," he said.
-
Tuesday, 27 July 2010
Afghan Secrets Leaked
--
US braces for blowback over Afghan war disclosures
By KIMBERLY DOZIER - AP - Tuesday July 27, 2010
Intelligence officials, past and present, are raising concerns that the WikiLeaks.org revelations could endanger U.S. counterterror networks in the Afghan region, and damage information sharing with U.S. allies.
People in Afghanistan or Pakistan who have worked with American intelligence agents or the military against the Taliban or al-Qaida may be at risk following the disclosure of thousands of once-secret U.S. military documents, former and current officials said.
Meanwhile, U.S. allies are asking whether they can trust America to keep secrets. And the Obama administration is scrambling to repair any political damage to the war effort back home.
The material could reinforce the view put forth by the war's opponents in Congress that one of the nation's longest conflicts is hopelessly stalemated. Congress has so far backed the war, and an early test of that continued support will come Tuesday when the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, led by Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., holds a hearing on the Afghan war.
Meanwhile, Pentagon spokesman Geoff Morrell said Tuesday the military doesn't know who was behind the leaks, although it has launched "a very robust investigation."
Morrell complained that too much was being made of the documents, of which even the most recent is at least six months old.
Speaking about questions the material raises about the reliability of Pakistan in the war on terror, he said statements about a dubious partnership are "clearly out of step with where this relationship is now, and has been heading for some time."
Sen. Kit Bond, R-Mo., the ranking Republican on the Senate Intelligence Committee, said Tuesday he worries that the leaks won't stop "until we see someone in an orange jump suit."
Still, the leaks are not expected to affect passage of a $60 billion war funding bill. Despite strong opposition among liberals who see Afghanistan as an unwinnable quagmire, House Democrats must either approve the bill before leaving at the end of this week for a six-week vacation, or commit political suicide by leaving troops in the lurch in war zones overseas.
As that political battle plays out, U.S. analysts are in a speed-reading battle against their adversaries.
They are trying to limit the damage to the military's human intelligence network that has been built up over a decade inside Afghanistan and Pakistan. Such figures range from Afghan village elders who have worked behind the scenes with U.S. troops to militants who have become double-agents.
Col. Dave Lapan, a Defense Department spokesman, said the military may need weeks to review all the records to determine "the potential damage to the lives of our service members and coalition partners."
WikiLeaks insists it has behaved responsibly, even withholding some 15,000 records that are believed to include names of specific Afghans or Pakistanis who helped U.S. troops on the ground.
But former CIA director Michael Hayden denounced the leak Monday as incredibly damaging to the U.S. — and a gift to its enemies.
"If I had gotten this trove on the Taliban or al-Qaida, I would have called it priceless," he said. "I would love to know what al-Qaida or the Taliban was thinking about a specific subject in 2007, for instance, because I could say they got that right and they got that wrong."
Hayden predicted the Taliban would take anything that described a U.S. strike and the intelligence behind it "and figure out who was in the room when that particular operation, say in 2008, was planned, and in whose home." Then the militants would probably punish the traitor who'd worked with the Americans, he said.
"It's possible that someone could get killed in the next few days," said former senior intelligence officer Robert Riegle. He recalled what happened when the U.S. arrested the Soviet double agent, Robert Hanssen: "When people found out what we knew, people died."
Another casualty may be the U.S. attempts to forge cooperation with Pakistan's secretive intelligence agency, the Inter-Services Intelligence.
Multiple American cables complain about ISI complicity with the Taliban. And they also tell the Pakistanis "how much we know about them," said Riegle, who now runs Mission Concepts Inc., a private intelligence firm.
"You're not going to see any cooperation," he said. "People are going to freeze."
The raw data released Sunday may also prove useful in a wider way to America's "frenemies" — the intelligence services of countries like China and Russia, who have the resources to process and make sense of such vast vaults of data, said Ellen McCarthy, former intelligence officer and president of the Intelligence and National Security Alliance.
Former CIA chief Hayden added: "If I'm head of the Russian intelligence, I'm getting my best English speakers and saying: 'Read every document, and I want you to tell me, how good are these guys? What are their approaches, their strengths, their weaknesses and their blind spots?'"
Former CIA official Paul Pillar described what he called the coming chill in the U.S. intelligence community, which had been pushed into sharing information across agencies in the aftermath of the intelligence failures that led to 9/11.
"The pendulum will now swing back," he said. Pillar, who now teaches at Georgetown University, said the community would shift from "need to know" back to "need to protect.",0099
Morrell was interviewed on CBS's "The Early Show" and Bond appeared on NBC's "Today" show.
-
Huge leak of secret files sows new Afghan war doubts
Jo Biddle - AFP - Tuesday July 27, 2010
The leak of 90,000 secret military files has emboldened critics of the war in Afghanistan, who raised fresh questions Tuesday about the viability of the increasingly unpopular US-led campaign.
The New York Times said in an editorial Tuesday the documents made public by the website WikiLeaks "confirm a picture of Pakistani double-dealing that has been building for years."
The Times said President Barack Obama will have to deal firmly with Islamabad in response to the most controversial files, which indicate that key ally Pakistan allows its spies to meet directly with the Taliban.
"If Mr Obama cannot persuade Islamabad to cut its ties to, and then aggressively fight, the extremists in Pakistan, there is no hope of defeating the Taliban in Afghanistan," wrote the daily.
Americans are increasingly weary of this costly war," wrote the Times, one of three media organizations, along with German magazine Der Spiegel and Britain's Guardian, to have received the documents weeks ago from WikiLeaks.
Some members of Congress questioned Obama's Afghanistan strategy, as well as an as-yet unpassed 37-billion dollar funding bill for the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, following the leaks.
Democratic Senator Russell Feingold said the disclosures "make it clear that there is no military solution in Afghanistan."
Meanwhile, Democratic Representative Jane Harman, who chairs a Homeland Security intelligence subcommittee, said the documents "reinforce the view that the war in Afghanistan is not going well."
The 92,000 documents released Sunday, dating from 2004 to 2009, triggered an outcry from nations fighting in Afghanistan as the Pentagon scrambled to uncover the source of the security breach and whether it would endanger lives.
US experts were working to see if the huge cache "could jeopardize force protection or operational security, or even worse still, the national security of this country," Pentagon spokesman Geoff Morrell told Fox News.
In addition to the Pakistan allegations, the leaked files maintain that the deaths of innocent civilians have been covered up, and that Iran is funding Taliban militants eight years after the 2001 US-led invasion ousted the radical Islamic regime from power.
The bombshell revelations triggered outrage, with a top NATO general calling for increased vigilance against such leaks as the White House slammed them as "irresponsible."
The coalition needed to be aware that some "documents are pushed out into the open via leaks, but that obliges us even more to work with the greatest care," said General Egon Ramms, who is in charge of NATO forces in Afghanistan.
White House spokesman Robert Gibbs warned that the leaks had put the names of service personnel and military operations in the public domain, but played down the likely strategic and political impact.
"In terms of broad revelations, there aren't any that we see in these documents," Gibbs said, pointing out that most of the period covered by the leaks was during the previous Bush administration.
Britain, which has some 9,500 troops in Afghanistan, said Monday it regretted the leak while Pakistan has said the reports were "skewed" and not based on the reality on the ground.
In Berlin, a defense ministry spokesman said releasing the documents "could affect the national security of NATO allies and the whole NATO mission."
But WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange defended the decision to publish the leaked files, saying they showed "thousands" of war crimes may have been committed in Afghanistan.
-
Hit list draws fire in wake of leaked US documents
AP - When it comes to war, killing the enemy is an accepted fact. But there are charges that some American commando operations in Afghanistan may have amounted to war crimes.
The thousands of pages of classified U.S. documents released Sunday by whistle-blower website WikiLeaks.org include nearly 200 incidents involving an elite military unit tasked with hunting down and killing enemy combatants.
But military officials and experts are denouncing suggestions that U.S. troops are engaged in war crimes in Afghanistan. They say enemy hit lists may be ugly and uncomfortable, but they are an enduring and sometimes unavoidable staple of war.
Amnesty International's Tom Parker says it's hard to tell "where assassination ends and war starts."
_______________________________
US braces for blowback over Afghan war disclosures
By KIMBERLY DOZIER - AP - Tuesday July 27, 2010
Intelligence officials, past and present, are raising concerns that the WikiLeaks.org revelations could endanger U.S. counterterror networks in the Afghan region, and damage information sharing with U.S. allies.
People in Afghanistan or Pakistan who have worked with American intelligence agents or the military against the Taliban or al-Qaida may be at risk following the disclosure of thousands of once-secret U.S. military documents, former and current officials said.
Meanwhile, U.S. allies are asking whether they can trust America to keep secrets. And the Obama administration is scrambling to repair any political damage to the war effort back home.
The material could reinforce the view put forth by the war's opponents in Congress that one of the nation's longest conflicts is hopelessly stalemated. Congress has so far backed the war, and an early test of that continued support will come Tuesday when the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, led by Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., holds a hearing on the Afghan war.
Meanwhile, Pentagon spokesman Geoff Morrell said Tuesday the military doesn't know who was behind the leaks, although it has launched "a very robust investigation."
Morrell complained that too much was being made of the documents, of which even the most recent is at least six months old.
Speaking about questions the material raises about the reliability of Pakistan in the war on terror, he said statements about a dubious partnership are "clearly out of step with where this relationship is now, and has been heading for some time."
Sen. Kit Bond, R-Mo., the ranking Republican on the Senate Intelligence Committee, said Tuesday he worries that the leaks won't stop "until we see someone in an orange jump suit."
Still, the leaks are not expected to affect passage of a $60 billion war funding bill. Despite strong opposition among liberals who see Afghanistan as an unwinnable quagmire, House Democrats must either approve the bill before leaving at the end of this week for a six-week vacation, or commit political suicide by leaving troops in the lurch in war zones overseas.
As that political battle plays out, U.S. analysts are in a speed-reading battle against their adversaries.
They are trying to limit the damage to the military's human intelligence network that has been built up over a decade inside Afghanistan and Pakistan. Such figures range from Afghan village elders who have worked behind the scenes with U.S. troops to militants who have become double-agents.
Col. Dave Lapan, a Defense Department spokesman, said the military may need weeks to review all the records to determine "the potential damage to the lives of our service members and coalition partners."
WikiLeaks insists it has behaved responsibly, even withholding some 15,000 records that are believed to include names of specific Afghans or Pakistanis who helped U.S. troops on the ground.
But former CIA director Michael Hayden denounced the leak Monday as incredibly damaging to the U.S. — and a gift to its enemies.
"If I had gotten this trove on the Taliban or al-Qaida, I would have called it priceless," he said. "I would love to know what al-Qaida or the Taliban was thinking about a specific subject in 2007, for instance, because I could say they got that right and they got that wrong."
Hayden predicted the Taliban would take anything that described a U.S. strike and the intelligence behind it "and figure out who was in the room when that particular operation, say in 2008, was planned, and in whose home." Then the militants would probably punish the traitor who'd worked with the Americans, he said.
"It's possible that someone could get killed in the next few days," said former senior intelligence officer Robert Riegle. He recalled what happened when the U.S. arrested the Soviet double agent, Robert Hanssen: "When people found out what we knew, people died."
Another casualty may be the U.S. attempts to forge cooperation with Pakistan's secretive intelligence agency, the Inter-Services Intelligence.
Multiple American cables complain about ISI complicity with the Taliban. And they also tell the Pakistanis "how much we know about them," said Riegle, who now runs Mission Concepts Inc., a private intelligence firm.
"You're not going to see any cooperation," he said. "People are going to freeze."
The raw data released Sunday may also prove useful in a wider way to America's "frenemies" — the intelligence services of countries like China and Russia, who have the resources to process and make sense of such vast vaults of data, said Ellen McCarthy, former intelligence officer and president of the Intelligence and National Security Alliance.
Former CIA chief Hayden added: "If I'm head of the Russian intelligence, I'm getting my best English speakers and saying: 'Read every document, and I want you to tell me, how good are these guys? What are their approaches, their strengths, their weaknesses and their blind spots?'"
Former CIA official Paul Pillar described what he called the coming chill in the U.S. intelligence community, which had been pushed into sharing information across agencies in the aftermath of the intelligence failures that led to 9/11.
"The pendulum will now swing back," he said. Pillar, who now teaches at Georgetown University, said the community would shift from "need to know" back to "need to protect.",0099
Morrell was interviewed on CBS's "The Early Show" and Bond appeared on NBC's "Today" show.
-
Huge leak of secret files sows new Afghan war doubts
Jo Biddle - AFP - Tuesday July 27, 2010
The leak of 90,000 secret military files has emboldened critics of the war in Afghanistan, who raised fresh questions Tuesday about the viability of the increasingly unpopular US-led campaign.
The New York Times said in an editorial Tuesday the documents made public by the website WikiLeaks "confirm a picture of Pakistani double-dealing that has been building for years."
The Times said President Barack Obama will have to deal firmly with Islamabad in response to the most controversial files, which indicate that key ally Pakistan allows its spies to meet directly with the Taliban.
"If Mr Obama cannot persuade Islamabad to cut its ties to, and then aggressively fight, the extremists in Pakistan, there is no hope of defeating the Taliban in Afghanistan," wrote the daily.
Americans are increasingly weary of this costly war," wrote the Times, one of three media organizations, along with German magazine Der Spiegel and Britain's Guardian, to have received the documents weeks ago from WikiLeaks.
Some members of Congress questioned Obama's Afghanistan strategy, as well as an as-yet unpassed 37-billion dollar funding bill for the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, following the leaks.
Democratic Senator Russell Feingold said the disclosures "make it clear that there is no military solution in Afghanistan."
Meanwhile, Democratic Representative Jane Harman, who chairs a Homeland Security intelligence subcommittee, said the documents "reinforce the view that the war in Afghanistan is not going well."
The 92,000 documents released Sunday, dating from 2004 to 2009, triggered an outcry from nations fighting in Afghanistan as the Pentagon scrambled to uncover the source of the security breach and whether it would endanger lives.
US experts were working to see if the huge cache "could jeopardize force protection or operational security, or even worse still, the national security of this country," Pentagon spokesman Geoff Morrell told Fox News.
In addition to the Pakistan allegations, the leaked files maintain that the deaths of innocent civilians have been covered up, and that Iran is funding Taliban militants eight years after the 2001 US-led invasion ousted the radical Islamic regime from power.
The bombshell revelations triggered outrage, with a top NATO general calling for increased vigilance against such leaks as the White House slammed them as "irresponsible."
The coalition needed to be aware that some "documents are pushed out into the open via leaks, but that obliges us even more to work with the greatest care," said General Egon Ramms, who is in charge of NATO forces in Afghanistan.
White House spokesman Robert Gibbs warned that the leaks had put the names of service personnel and military operations in the public domain, but played down the likely strategic and political impact.
"In terms of broad revelations, there aren't any that we see in these documents," Gibbs said, pointing out that most of the period covered by the leaks was during the previous Bush administration.
Britain, which has some 9,500 troops in Afghanistan, said Monday it regretted the leak while Pakistan has said the reports were "skewed" and not based on the reality on the ground.
In Berlin, a defense ministry spokesman said releasing the documents "could affect the national security of NATO allies and the whole NATO mission."
But WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange defended the decision to publish the leaked files, saying they showed "thousands" of war crimes may have been committed in Afghanistan.
-
Hit list draws fire in wake of leaked US documents
AP - When it comes to war, killing the enemy is an accepted fact. But there are charges that some American commando operations in Afghanistan may have amounted to war crimes.
The thousands of pages of classified U.S. documents released Sunday by whistle-blower website WikiLeaks.org include nearly 200 incidents involving an elite military unit tasked with hunting down and killing enemy combatants.
But military officials and experts are denouncing suggestions that U.S. troops are engaged in war crimes in Afghanistan. They say enemy hit lists may be ugly and uncomfortable, but they are an enduring and sometimes unavoidable staple of war.
Amnesty International's Tom Parker says it's hard to tell "where assassination ends and war starts."
_______________________________
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)