The package of the PETN explosive powder is seen in government photos obtained exclusively by ABC News, released to Reuters, December 28, 2009. Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, based in Yemen, said it provided Nigerian suspect Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, 23, with an explosive device to blow upNorthwest Airlines flight 253, a Delta-owned Airbus330, as it approached Detroit on a flight from Amsterdam on Friday with almost 300 people on board

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Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula

Al-Qaeda fighters are said to have found sanctuary with tribesmen in the east of Yemen [File: EPA] Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, the wing of al-Qaeda operating in Saudi Arabia and Yemen, is led by a Yemeni who was once a close aide to Osama bin Laden. The group, which has been gaining strength in recent years, represents units from the two neighbouring countries which merged under the leadership of Nasir Wuhaishi in January. Wuhaishi, who’s appointment was confirmed by Ayman Al-Zawahiri, the deputy al-Qaeda chief, in a video posted online, numbers among Saudi Arabia’s most-wanted. In 2006, he was one of 23 al-Qaeda figures who escaped from a Yemeni prison. The group’s deputy leader is believed to be Said Ali al-Shihri, a former prisoner at the United States’ Guantanamo Bay detention facility, who was released from Saudi custody in 2007. Abu al-Hareth Muhammad al-Oufi, another former Guantanamo detainee, has also been identified as a field commander for the group. Experts say that al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula comprises several hundred fighters. The group is said to have found sanctuaries among a number of Yemeni tribes, particularly in the eastern provinces. ‘Strategic significance’ Analysts say Yemen is of huge significance to al-Qaeda. “Weapons, training, crossing points and the launch of operations have all come from Yemen” Abd Alelah-Haidar, analyst “Weapons, training, crossing points and the launch of operations have all come from Yemen,” Abd Alelah-Haidar, a “terrorism” specialist who has met Wuhaishi, told Al Jazeera. “This country is seen as having strategic significance, not only by al-Qaeda, but also by others. “[However,] their operations are not confined to the Arabian peninsula but also include Iraq, Afghanistan, Nahr al-Bared [in Lebanon], and Palestine.” Ali al-Ahmed, director of the Institute for Gulf Affairs based in Washington, said Yemen had become the third-largest haven for al-Qaeda, and the group there is perhaps the most stable when compared to units operating in Iraq, North Africa and South Asia. “The one in Yemen now is really the most comfortable … its probably the best funded,” he told Al Jazeera. “Its not the best trained [and] it doesn’t have the best talent – that’s why it hasn’t been able to mount successful attacks. But it will come around in the coming years, and it will become a major threat.” Detroit claim The al-Qaeda affiliate has claimed responsibility for an attempted attack on a US aircraft in Detroit on Christmas day, saying it was in response to raids in Yemen that it says were carried out by US jets, and had caused civilian deaths. The Yemen-based al-Qaeda affiliate is said to be one of the best funded [AFP] The Yemeni government has said that it carried out military raids on December 17 and 24, saying more than 30 al-Qaeda members had been killed. A New York Times newspaper report said Washington gave hardware, intelligence and other support to Yemeni forces for the raids. “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,” a statement released by 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 [Prophet] Muhammad.” The group has also claimed responsibility for attacks on the US embassy in Sanaa, the Yemeni capital. US presence Joseph Lieberman, chairman of the US senate homeland security committee, acknowledged on the “Fox News Sunday” television programme that the US has a “growing presence” in Yemen which included special operations, Green Beret special forces and intelligence. Before the merger of the two Saudi Arabian and Yemen based groups, previous al-Qaeda incarnations had carried out a number of attacks across the region. An emailed statement signed by Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula claimed responsibility for the 2004 attack on residential and office buildings in Khobar, Saudi Arabia whick left at least 22 people dead. A suicide attack on an Aramco oil complex in Eastern Province in 2006 was also claimed by al-Qaeda. In Yemen, seven Spanish tourists and their Yemeni guides were killed in a car bombing at an archaeological site in 2007. Also an attack on the USS Cole warship in the harbour in Aden in 2000, which killed 17 US soldier, was carried out by al-Qaeda ——————————— Airline Terror Mission Blessed by Radical Imam Wednesday, December 30, 2009 The Nigerian accused of trying to blow up a Detroit-bound airliner had his suicide mission personally blessed in Yemen by Anwar al-Awlaki, the Muslim imam suspected of radicalizing the Fort Hood shooting suspect, a U.S. intelligence source has told The Washington Times. The intelligence official, who is familiar with the FBI’s interrogation of Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, said the bombing suspect has boasted of his jihad training to the FBI and has said it included final exhortations by al-Awlaki. “It was Awlaki who indoctrinated him,” the official said. “He was told, ‘You are going to be the tip of the spear of the Muslim nation.'” Al-Awlaki, an American-born imam who once led a large Northern Virginia mosque but now lives in Yemen, has gained notoriety in recent months because of his influence on Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, a U.S.-born Muslim accused of killing 13 people at the Texas military base. Rep. Peter Hoekstra of Michigan, the top Republican on the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, said he has learned of personal ties between Abdulmutallab and al-Awlaki, though he said he could neither confirm nor deny that the two men had been in the same Yemeni prayer room. “From what I’ve heard, the relationship would have been closer than what Awlaki had with Hasan,” Hoekstra told The Times. “He trusted [Abdulmutallab] more.” Muhammad ud-Deen via AP ———————– US Opens Third Front Of War: Yemen Joe Weisenthal | Dec. 27, 2009, 11:14 PM | 1,450 |  4 The return of terrorism to the US — it really doesn’t matter that the attempt to blow up a DC-bound flight actually failed — is bringing us very close to the days of the so-called “war on terror”. Though the term has been banished by the Obama White House (and thus by extension the mainstream media outside of Fox News), tonight the New York Times is actually talking about the US widening the terror war, this time to Yemen, where Al-Qaeda remains strong. In the midst of two unfinished major wars, the United States has quietly opened a third, largely covert front against Al Qaeda in Yemen. A year ago, the Central Intelligence Agency sent many field operatives with counterterrorism experience to the country, according a former top agency official. At the same time, some of the most secretive Special Operations commandos have begun training Yemeni security forces in counterterrorism tactics, senior military officers said. Immediately after 9/11, everyone knew that the center of the terror world was Afghanistan, even if it took some time to put the pieces of the world together. While Afghanistan is a total mess, we’re pretty sure that there are few forces in the country organized to pull off an attack on US soil. But this time, after the Detroit attack, Yemen was the first country that was identified. The enemy is scattered and disorgnized in one place, and yet organized and capable of attacking (kind of) in another. ‘The US military is exhausted’ FOCUS: OPINION By Sarah Lazare The US army is overstretched and exhausted, says peace campaigner Sarah Lazare [AFP] The call for over 30,000 more troops to be sent to Afghanistan is a travesty for the people of that country who have already suffered eight brutal years of occupation. It is also a harsh blow to the US soldiers facing imminent deployment. As Barack Obama, the US president, gears up for a further escalation that will bring the total number of troops in Afghanistan to over 100,000, he faces a military force that has been exhausted and overextended by fighting two wars. Many from within the ranks are openly declaring that they have had enough, allying with anti-war veterans and activists in calling for an end to the US-led wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, with some active duty soldiers publicly refusing to deploy. This growing movement of military refusers is a voice of sanity in a country slipping deeper into unending war. “They shifted me from one war to the next” Eddie Falcon, Iraq and Afghanistan veteran The architects of this war would be well-advised to listen to the concerns of the soldiers and veterans tasked with carrying out their war policies on the ground. Many of those being deployed have already faced multiple deployments to combat zones: the 101st Airborne Division, which will be deployed to Afghanistan in early 2010, faces its fifth combat tour since 2002. “They are just going to start moving the soldiers who already served in Iraq to Afghanistan, just like they shifted me from one war to the next,” said Eddie Falcon, a member of Iraq Veterans Against the War (IVAW), who served in Iraq and Afghanistan. “Soldiers are going to start coming back with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), missing limbs, problems with alcohol, and depression.” Many of these troops are still suffering the mental and physical fallout from previous deployments. Rates of PTSD and traumatic brain injury among troops deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan have been disproportionately high, with a third of returning troops reporting mental problems and 18.5 per cent of all returning service members battling either PTSD or depression, according to a study by the Rand Corporation. Marine suicides doubled between 2006 and 2007, and army suicides are at the highest rate since records were kept in 1980. Resistance in the ranks US army soldiers are refusing to serve at the highest rate since 1980, with an 80 per cent increase in desertions since the invasion of Iraq in 2003, according to the Associated Press. These troops refuse deployment for a variety of reasons: some because they ethically oppose the wars, some because they have had a negative experience with the military, and some because they cannot psychologically survive another deployment, having fallen victim to what has been termed “Broken Joe” syndrome. Over 150 GIs have publicly refused service and spoken out against the wars, all risking prison and some serving long sentences, and an estimated 250 US war resisters are currently taking refuge in Canada. This resistance includes two Fort Hood, Texas, soldiers, Victor Agosto and Travis Bishop, who publicly resisted deployment to Afghanistan this year, facing prison sentences as a result, with Bishop still currently detained. The war in Afghanistan is losing support in the US [AFP] “There is no way I will deploy to Afghanistan,” wrote Agosto, upon refusing his service last May. “The occupation is immoral and unjust.” Within the US military, GI resisters and anti-war veterans have organised through broad networks of veteran and civilian alliances, as well as through IVAW, comprised of Iraq and Afghanistan veterans. This organisation, which is over 1,700 strong, with members across the world, including active-duty members on military bases, is opposed to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and openly supports GI resistance. “Iraq Veterans Against the War calls on Obama to end the war in Afghanistan (and Iraq) by withdrawing troops immediately and unconditionally,” wrote Jose Vasquez, the executive director of IVAW, in a December 2 open letter. “It’s not time for our brothers and sisters in arms to go to Afghanistan. It’s time for them to come home.” No clear progress GI coffee houses have sprung up at several military bases around the country. In the tradition of the GI coffee houses of the Vietnam war era, these cafes provide a space where active duty troops can speak freely and access resources about military refusal, PTSD, and veteran and GI movements against the war. “Here at Fort Lewis, we’ve lost 20 soldiers from the most recent round of deployments,” said Seth Menzel, an Iraq combat veteran and founding organiser of Coffee Strong, a GI coffee house at the sprawling Washington army base. “We’ve seen resistance to deployment, mainly based on the fact that soldiers have been deployed so many times they don’t have the patience to do it again.” As the occupation of Afghanistan passes its eighth year, with no clear progress, goals that remain elusive, and a high civilian death count, this war is coming to resemble the Iraq war that has been roundly condemned by world and US public opinion. The never-ending nature of this conflict belies the real project of establishing US dominance in the Middle East and control of the region’s resources, at the expense of the Afghan civilians and US soldiers being placed in harm’s way. The voices of refusal coming from within the US military send a powerful message that soldiers will not be fodder for an unjust and unnecessary war. By withdrawing their labour from a war that depends on their consent, these soldiers have the power to help bring this war to an end, as did their predecessors in the GI resistance movement against the Vietnam war. And the longer the war in Afghanistan drags on – the more lives that are lost and destroyed – the more resistance we will see coming from within the ranks. Sarah Lazare is an anti-militarist and GI resistance organiser with Dialogues Against Militarism and Courage to Resist. She is interested in connecting struggles for justice at home with global movements against war and empire. The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial policy. ———————- Yemen’s fight with rebels a regional concern Of course Iran denies it and warns us to mind our own business. Warns those in the region, do not pour oil on the fire ! Saudi combat jets hit rebel targets in Yemen ———————– By James Joiner ————————— Yemen’s fight with rebels a regional concern Of course Iran denies it and warns us to mind our own business. Warns those in the region, do not pour oil on the fire ! Saudi combat jets hit rebel targets in Yemen Despite threats from Iran warning not to attack the Yemeni militants Iran is backing and supplying :Yemen, Saudi forces continue strikes on Shiite rebels Could this confrontation erupt in war between Iran and at the least US armed Saudi Arabia ? Iran is warningand threatening retribution but they are supplying the Yemeni Rebels who pushed into Saudi Arabia. Saudi Arabia has fired well over a hundred missiles from their fighter jets as they pummel their hideouts. You can not blame them but I had no idea the dissention goes all the way back to the naming of the Gulf. Saudi’s know it as the Gulf of Arabia and I can remember that but Iran calls it the Persian Gulf as the rest of us seem to now. Both Iran and Saudi Arabia have been using Lebanon as their battlefront up to now able to avoid direct confrontation. Iran has pumped millions of dollars in supplies and arms much to the consternation of her suffering people while Saudi Arabia has been supporting the Palestinian Authority. While the world has been engrossed following events in Iran since the election was stolen to keep fascist Ahmadinejad and he fascist agenda in control Iran has been fueling a rebel war in Yemen and what a surprise it has extended into Saudi Arabia. The Hajj has even been threatened. The Hajj as you may know is known as the 5th Pillar of Islam and is associated with the life of Islamic prophet Muhammad from the 7th century, but the ritual of pilgrimage to Mecca is considered by Muslims to stretch back thousands of years. Please read on and learn A propaganda war is also being waged. Egypt and Saudi Arabia have pulled the plug on Iran’s Arabic speaking TV. It makes me wonder why they did not do that during the height of the protests when Iran’s Government sanctioned channel was televising pure lies and propaganda ? I find it hard to believe that Iran is that vulnerable in that area ! So far there has been no direct confrontation. However I absolutely see what I have been warning about since Bush diverted from Afghanistan to attack Iraq and get back in the middle east to create a new middle east (dis)order ! I do not give a damn what anyone says. Bush Chaney and their Democratization program in an already historically unstable middle east set all of this and more in motion ! * The hell on earth Bush created for Iraqi’s will engulf the entire Middle East before it encompasses the entire world if we can not contain it. Under Bush we broke a long standing tradition of not adding fuel to the Middle East fire by supplying weapons. We are now, including advanced weaponry and missile defense systems. The Middle East breakdown Bush started armed and funded will continue under Obama. This up to now proxy war in the middle east is under way. Wait, watch, and listen, this is not good for the world and our future ! James Joiner Despite threats from Iran warning not to attack the Yemeni militants Iran is backing and supplying :Yemen, Saudi forces continue strikes on Shiite rebels Could this confrontation erupt in war between Iran and at the least US armed Saudi Arabia ? Iran is warningand threatening retribution but they are supplying the Yemeni Rebels who pushed into Saudi Arabia. Saudi Arabia has fired well over a hundred missiles from their fighter jets as they pummel their hideouts. You can not blame them but I had no idea the dissention goes all the way back to the naming of the Gulf. Saudi’s know it as the Gulf of Arabia and I can remember that but Iran calls it the Persian Gulf as the rest of us seem to now. Both Iran and Saudi Arabia have been using Lebanon as their battlefront up to now able to avoid direct confrontation. Iran has pumped millions of dollars in supplies and arms much to the consternation of her suffering people while Saudi Arabia has been supporting the Palestinian Authority. While the world has been engrossed following events in Iran since the election was stolen to keep fascist Ahmadinejad and he fascist agenda in control Iran has been fueling a rebel war in Yemen and what a surprise it has extended into Saudi Arabia. The Hajj has even been threatened. The Hajj as you may know is known as the 5th Pillar of Islam and is associated with the life of Islamic prophet Muhammad from the 7th century, but the ritual of pilgrimage to Mecca is considered by Muslims to stretch back thousands of years. Please read on and learn A propaganda war is also being waged. Egypt and Saudi Arabia have pulled the plug on Iran’s Arabic speaking TV. It makes me wonder why they did not do that during the height of the protests when Iran’s Government sanctioned channel was televising pure lies and propaganda ? I find it hard to believe that Iran is that vulnerable in that area ! So far there has been no direct confrontation. However I absolutely see what I have been warning about since Bush diverted from Afghanistan to attack Iraq and get back in the middle east to create a new middle east (dis)order ! I do not give a damn what anyone says. Bush Chaney and their Democratization program in an already historically unstable middle east set all of this and more in motion ! * The hell on earth Bush created for Iraqi’s will engulf the entire Middle East before it encompasses the entire world if we can not contain it. Under Bush we broke a long standing tradition of not adding fuel to the Middle East fire by supplying weapons. We are now, including advanced weaponry and missile defense systems. The Middle East breakdown Bush started armed and funded will continue under Obama. This up to now proxy war in the middle east is under way. Wait, watch, and listen, this is not good for the world and our future ! James Joiner ———————————— Yemen rebel leader ‘may be dead’ The Yemeni military launched an offensive against the Houthi rebels in August [EPA/Yemeni army] The leader of a rebel group fighting government forces in the north of Yemen may have died after being severely wounded in an air raid, a government website and local media have reported. The website of Yemen’s defence ministry said on Sunday that Abdul-Malik al-Houthi, the leader of the so-called Houthi fighters, may have already been buried. “There are increasing reports about the death of the terrorist Abdul-Malik al-Houthi, who was severely injured in an attack aimed at a gathering with a group of terrorist elements,” it said on Sunday. The Houthi declined to comment on the reports. A purported rebel spokesman had, however, described a defence ministry statement on December 20, which said that Abdul-Malik al-Houthi had been badly wounded, as “baseless”. Power vacuum Abdulghani al-Iryani, a political analyst based in Sanaa, said that if the reports of al-Houthis death were true they could extend the conflict. “It is a complication that comes at the worst possible time,” he told Al Jazeera. “The war in Saada [where Yemeni forces are battling Houthi fighters] could have been stopped by this time because Abdul-Malik al-Houthi had agreed to the five conditions set by the government for a ceasefire. “All he needed to do was make a public statement to that effect. If he is now dead, then there will be a power vacuum in the leadership of al-Houthis that will postpone that possibility.” The fighters, who launched a rebellion against the Yemeni government in 2004, belong to the minority Zaidi sect of Shia Islam and complain of social, economic and religious marginalisation. Government forces launched “Operation Scorched Earth” on August 11 in an attempt to crush the rebels in the mountainous northern region. —————————– ————————- ‘Fabricated lie’ The Yemeni government says the rebels are receiving support from Iran, although Tehran has denied any involvement in the fighting. Sanaa has also recently claimed that the Houthi are working with predominantly Sunni Muslim al-Qaeda fighters in Yemen, but the group has dismissed the allegations. “The allegation about our relationship with what is called the al-Qaeda group is a fabricated lie and defamation,” the group said in comments emailed to the Reuters news agency earlier this week. Meanwhile, al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula said in comments posted on a website that it will take revenge against the US over air raids in Yemen that it claims killed about 50 people. “We will not let Muslim women and children’s blood be spilled without taking revenge,” a statement dated December 20 said. The group has said that the raids were carried out by five US warplanes, but the Yemeni government has said that it launched the attacks with aircraft and ground forces to foil planned suicide bombings. —————- ————————————— NEWS AMERICAS Al-Qaeda group claims US plane plot Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula said it provided Abdulmutallab with an explosive device [AFP] A group calling itself Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula has said it was behind the failed attempt by a Nigerian man to bomb a US aircraft on Christmas day. The group said in statements posted on the internet on Monday that the attempt had been carried out to avenge US operations in Yemen. “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],” the statement said. “Our vengeance is near.” The group had earlier said in comments posted on a website that it would take revenge against the US over air raids in Yemen that it claims killed about 50 people. Failed attack Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab is accused of trying to to light an explosive device while on a flight from Amsterdam to Detroit. He was overpowered by passengers on the flight, which had nearly 300 people on board. According to a charge sheet prepared by prosecutors, Abdulmutallab tried to bring down the aircraft using a device containing the explosive PETN, also known as pentaerythritol.———————————————— Al Jazeera talks to a former CIA agent about the growing threat facing air travel ————————————– The explosive material was allegedly sewn into his underwear. Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula said it had provided Abdulmutallab with the device, but that a technical fault prevented it from detonating. Abdulmutallab, who suffered burns in the incident, was moved from a hospital to a federal prison west of Detroit on Monday. Janet Napolitano, Obama’s senior security official, said there was “no indication” Abdulmutallab was acting as part of a larger plot and warned against speculating that he had been trained by al-Qaeda. According to The New York Times, Abdulmutallab told FBI agents he was connected to an al-Qaeda affiliate, which operates largely in Yemen and Saudi Arabia, by a radical Yemeni cleric whom he contacted online. ‘Nothing suspicious’ The Yemeni government said on Monday that Abdulmutallab had lived in Yemen from August to December after obtaining a visa to study Arabic there, but that there was “nothing suspicious about his intentions” to visit the country. “Authorities are currently investigating who he was in contact with in Yemen and the results of the investigation will be delivered to those concerned with investigating the terror plot in the United States,” a statement from the Yemeni foreign ministry said. Ali al-Ahmed, the director of the Institute for Gulf Affairs in the US, said that the attack had similarities with other operations carried out by Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, a relatively new branch of al-Qaeda formed in 2008. “It has carried out several operations – about a year ago against the US embassy in Sanaa, a failed attempt on the Saudi assistant minister of the interior in September. “In this case, the age of the suicide bomber who tried to kill the Saudi assistant minister – 23 years old – [is] the same age as this young man, Abdulmutallab. And the same explosives [were used]. “In the first attack in Saudi Arabia, the attacker put the bomb inside his body to conceal it. This is very similar.” Security review Abdulmutallab, a former student in London, was added to a watch-list of about 550,000 names last month after his father told US embassy officials in Abuja that he was concerned by his son’s increasing radicalism. Abdulmutallab is accused of trying to blow up a flight as it landed in Detroit [Reuters] But he remained off a short-list of 18,000 names from which the no-fly list of 4,000 is selected and flew from Lagos to Amsterdam on Christmas Eve and on to Detroit the following day with a valid US visa. Barack Obama, the US president, has ordered a review of how travellers are placed on watch lists and the screening procedures of air passengers following the failed bid to blow up the airliner. Speaking while on vacation in Hawaii on Monday, Obama said: “We will not rest until we find all who were involved and hold them accountable.” Obama has also ordered a second review to examine how “an individual with the chemical explosive he had on him could get onto an airliner in Amsterdam and fly into this country,” Robert Gibbs, the White House press spokesman, said. Bob Baer, a former CIA agent who in 2006 warned that a Northwest Airlines flight from Amsterdam could be the target of an attack, said the attempted bombing had shown that security checks are “not effective at all”. “It’s not a question of a gaping hole, it’s a question of the terrorist groups evolving their techniques very quickly,” he told Al Jazeera. “So they’re getting better and better and they’re much faster than our security measures.” Bruce Schneier, a writer on security issues and the author of “Beyond Fear”, said the epoisode illustrated that there were very few effective security measures on flights. He said on his blog: “For years I’ve been saying this: Only two things have made flying safer [since 9/11] – the reinforcement of cockpit doors, and the fact that passengers know now to resist hijackers. “This week, the second one worked over Detroit. Security succeeded.”

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Profile: Yemen’s Houthi fighters

Yemen’s north, where the Houthi  group is based, is inhabited by a number of tribes people [EPA]

Yemen, one of the world’s poorest countries and a crucial US ally in Washington’s fight against al-Qaeda, is in the midst of a series of conflicts that threaten its stability. As well as tackling al-Qaeda fighters and sealing with growing secessionist feeling from south Yemen, the government has for five-years waged a campaign against a group of Shia Muslim fighters in the country’s north. The conflict with the Houthi fighters, which has cost the lives of thousands of people, is a mix of local and tribal concerns stemming from historical roots. Although the current campaign is part of a fight that has been under way since 2004, its roots go back even further. Zaydi rulers toppled In 1962, a revolution in Yemen ended over 1,000 years of rule by Zaydi Hashemites, who claimed descendance from the Prophet Mohammed. Zaydism is a branch of Shia Islam, though its practices often appear closer to Sunni Islam than traditional Shia belief. Saada, in the north, was their main stonghold and since their fall from power the region was largely ignored economically and remains underdeveloped. During Yemen’s 1994 civil war, the Wahhabis, an Islamic group adhering to a strict version of Sunni Islam found in neighbouring Saudi Arabia, helped the government in its fight against the secessionist south. Zaydis complain the government has subsequently allowed the Wahabis too strong a voice in Yemen. Saudi Arabia, for its part, worries that strife instigated by the Shia sect so close to Yemen’s border with Saudi Arabia could stir up groups in Saudi itself. Although it has received little international coverage, the conflict essentially pits Yemen’s Sunni-majority government against Shia fighters, a conflict that has added significance for many Arab countries worried about the rising influence of Shia-ruled Iran. Yemeni officials have frequently accused Iran of funding the Houthi fighters. The last five years of fighting against the armed Houthi group were sparked in 2004 by the government’s attempt to arrest Hussein al-Houthi, a Zaydi religious leader and a former parliamentarian on whose head the government had placed a $55,000 bounty. Little authority The Yemeni government has little authority in the mountainous areas outside the major cities, but amid a sustained campaign, al-Houthi was killed in an attack on his hideout. The movement is now led by al-Houthi’s brothers, including Abdul-Malik al-Houthi. Fighting eased over the years and in 2007 a deal was signed between the government and the fighters, but never implemented. A year later, in 2008, Qatari mediators helped revive the deal and the two sides met in Doha to sign a document outlining procedures for the implementation of the earlier agreement. But on August 10, 2009, Ali Abdullah al-Saleh, the Yemeni president, said the fighters showed no intention of adhering to the peace process and accused them of destroying homes and farms and blocking food distribution. The campaign began again and Yemen’s Supreme Security Committee announced it would crush the fighters with an “iron fist”. ———————— 9 Saudi soldiers missing as Yemen fighting rages

Nine Saudi soldiers are missing in the kingdom’s borders with Yemen amid fighting between the country’s forces and Shia Houthi fighters. A Saudi defense ministry spokesman told the official SPA news agency on Thursday the Yemen-based fighters may have taken the soldiers prisoner, and that Houthis are ‘entirely responsible for their wellbeing.’ The source provided a list of Saudi soldiers reported missing: 1. Lt. Col. Sa’eed Bin Muhammad Bin Ma’toug Al-Amri 2. Corporal Ayidh Bin Ali Bin Sa’eed Al-Shehri 3. Sergeant Ahmad Bin Ali Bin Ali Madadi 4. Staff Sergeant Muhammad Bin Mohsin Bin Sultan Al-Amri 5. Sergeant Ahmad Bin Abdullah Bin Muhammad Al-Amri 6. Staff Sergeant Miflih Bin Jam’an Bin Miflih Al-Shahrani 7. Corporal Ali Bin Salman Bin Ali Al-Hiqwi 8. Sergeant Khalid Bin Saleh Bin Omar Al-Owdah 9. Private First Class Yahya Bin Abdullah Bin Amer Al-Khuza’iy The conflict in northern Yemen first began in 2004 between Sana’a and Houthi fighters, but relative peace had returned to region until August 11, when the Yemeni army began a major offensive, dubbed Operation Scorched Earth, against the province of Sa’ada. The government claims that the fighters, who are named after their leader Abdul Malik al-Houthi, seek to restore the Shia Zaidi imamate system, which was overthrown in a 1962 coup. The Houthis, however, say they are defending their people against government marginalization policies which they believe have been adopted under pressure from Saudi-backed Wahhabi extremists, who consider Shias heretics. The Saudi Arabian government has aggravated the conflict even more by launching its own offensive against northern Yemen based on an allegation that Houthi fighters have killed two of its soldiers on the border. The fighters say Yemeni villages are being targeted with deadly phosphorous bombs, which cause massive injuries among the Shia civilian population. Saudi officials have not given any figures for soldiers or civilians killed in the fighting. Unofficial estimates, however, say at least nine Saudi soldiers and four civilians have been killed since Riyadh began targeting Houthi positions inside Yemen. The UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) estimates that since 2004 up to 175,000 people have been forced to leave their homes in Sa’ada to take refuge at overcrow —————————– Houthis seize full control of Saudi border post Tue, 29 Dec 2009 07:35:17 GMT Houthi fighters in northern Yemen say they have seized control of a Saudi military post along the border between the two countries where Saudi and Yemeni forces are waging a campaign to uproot them. According to a report released by Hezbollah’s al-Manar television network, Houthis have seized “full control of the Al-Jamrah Saudi military post” as well as weapons, communication material, military vehicles and surveillance equipment. The report added that the northern Yemen’s Shia fighters overran the Saudi post on Monday and forced soldiers to flee. The post is said to be located in close proximity to al-Khoba in Saudi Arabia’s southern province of Jizan. Meanwhile, Houthi fighters have managed to repulse Saudi forces trying to infiltrate into the rugged Sa’ada province in northern Yemen, after killing an unspecified number of Saudi soldiers. Houthis said they pushed back Saudi troops from Shada border region in northern Yemen on the border with oil-rich Saudi-Arabia, and also set four Saudi military vehicles ablaze. Houthi fighters also resisted a Yemeni military infiltration into Jebel Dhar al-Hamar region. The conflict in northern Yemen began in 2004 between Sana’a and Houthi fighters. The conflict intensified in August 2009 when the Yemeni army launched Operation Scorched Earth in an attempt to crush the fighters in the northern province of Sa’ada. The Houthis accuse the Yemeni government of violation of their civil rights, political, economic and religious marginalization as well as large-scale corruption. This is while in addition to the Yemeni government, Saudi Arabia also pounds the Houthis. The Houthis say that Saudi forces strike Yemeni villages and indiscriminately target civilians. According to the fighters, Saudis use toxic materials, including white phosphorus bombs, against civilians in northern Yemen. The US military is also said to be involved in bombing Yemen’s northern rugged regions of Amran, Hajjah and Sa’ada. The UN High Commissioner for Refugees estimates that since 2004, up to 175,000 people have been forced to leave their homes in Sa’ada and take refuge at overcrowded camps set up by the United Nations. ————————————-

Yemen the first open battleground in the war for the new middle east order!

Yemen conflict worries the entire middle east __________________ ___________ emen as you know is a strategic Middle East nation. where Osama Bin Laden’s father was born. I know that in 2000, al-Qaeda bombers attacked the USS Cole in the southern Yemini city of Aden killing 17 American sailors. Since, militants have attacked U.S. missionaries, foreign tourists and Yemeni security forces. Last year gunmen targeted the American embassy with a car bomb and rockets. The attack killed 16, including six assailants. There is a lot of activity there that has been attributed to Al Qaeda and their interests. I was surprised to learn that Yemen is Middle East nation, where Osama Bin Laden’s father was born. Knowing all that you know my focus has been on Iran’s interference in Yemen as they try to install Shiite dominance there and everywhere else in the middle East. Yemeni air strike kills 30, targets home of cleric linked to Ft. Hood attack Factbox: Who is Anwar al-Awlaki? As many of you know by now my prime concern in Yemen was the interference by Iran in trying to get Shiite dominance there. Bush freed Iran up to pursue her version of new middle East order by interfering wherever she could while Bush was doing the same thing with his Middle East Democratization program. The goal now absolutely is to be the country who decides which direction the new Middle East (dis)order will take. Bush started it by attacking Iraq to get into the middle east to destabilize it and start the new middle east order the idiot said God told him to do now it will be up to Iran and Saudi Arabia at least up front fight it out whether this goes the Iranian Shiite way or the Saudi Arabian Sunni way and do not forget Israel! In Yemen once again the Iranian Revolutionary Guard is the instigator. They are ferrying weapons through Eritrea to Yemen. They are now avoiding the Arabian Peninsula as Saudi Arabia has instituted a blockade along the coast of Yemen. Iran’s Revolutionary Guard has also transported Lebanese Hezbollah fighters to fight with the rebels. As you know, Saudi Arabia is also there fighting the Iranian backed Houthi rebels. So far there has been no direct confrontation. However I absolutely see what I have been warning about since Bush diverted from Afghanistan to attack Iraq and get back in the middle east to create a new middle east (dis)order! This is going to bea total middle east war for a new midle east oirder like it or not, Sunni against Shiite. It is looking like Yemen is going to be the first country down! Please watch the video, the Middle East is right to be concerned. Yemen is going through severe domestic turmoil due to the violent activities of Al Qaeda, Houthi rebels in the north and the Southern Movement in the south. The remaining Jews are threatened with slaughter by the Shiite. How much longer can Yemen hold on? What is next? James Joiner ———————– Yemen’s Jews. The End!!! History will record that 2,500 years of Jewish life in Yemen is now over. As The Wall Street Journal reported October 31, the US State Department has completed a clandestine operation which brought 60 of the country’s remaining Jews to America. The newspaper quoted Yeshiva University’s Hayim Tawil, a Yemeni Jewry expert, as issuing the certificate of death: “This is the end of the Jewish Diaspora of Yemen. That’s it.” As Israelis and Jews we earnestly appreciate the efforts of the Obama administration on behalf of our Yemeni brethren. THE RESCUE illuminates an often overlooked aspect of the 60-year-plus Arab-Israel conflict. Whereas the Arab world has purposefully maintained the 700,000 or so Palestinian Arabs made homeless in the course of the 1948 war and their descendants as permanent refugees and political pawns, the State of Israel and world Jewry have worked hard to resettle a roughly equal number of Jewish refugees forced to flee Arab lands. The behavior of Arab leaders toward their Jewish subjects after the creation of Israelwas (with notable exceptions) characterized by scapegoating and marginalization culminating in mass exodus. In 1947, Arab rioters in Aden killed dozens of Jews to protest a two-state solution in Palestine. In 1949 and 1950 the bulk of Yemen’s Jews, some 49,000 souls, were airlifted here in “Operation Magic Carpet.” The broad Arab refusal to accept the legitimacy of Israel as a sovereign Jewish state is partly attributable to Arab attitudes toward their Jewish minorities. Coexistence was possible – so long as Jews knew their place. JEWISH life under Muslim rule was historically neither the utopia Arab propagandists claim nor the purgatory Jewish polemicists assert. As the doyen of Middle East studies Bernard Lewis wrote in The Jews of Islam, the actual state of affairs varied depending on the era, locale, political and economic conditions, the stability of the ruling Islamic regime, and on developments within the Jewish community. Jews were granted Dhimmi or tolerated status. They paid a special jizya tax to underscore their subordinate position in society. If they missed the point, Islamic tradition allowed for the local Muslim authority to deliver a ceremonial slap on the neck to the Jew upon payment of the levy. Jews were required to wear distinguishing clothes; they were expected to deport themselves deferentially in the presence of Muslims. And unlike everyone else, Jews were not permitted to carry weapons. On the other hand, Lewis wrote, Jews were not required to convert to Islam, and could enjoy a high degree of acculturation. (They were certainly better off than their coreligionists living under medieval Christendom.) At any rate, this social contract crumbled in part because the Zionist movement was a direct assault on the Dhimmi principle. The Yemen experience also reminds us that the Arab world’s antagonism to modern values has led it to extended periods of internal instability as well a visceral rejection of Israel for embodying the Western liberal idea. POLITICAL instability is always “bad for the Jews,” and Yemen has long been a volatile mess. The ancestral homeland of Osama bin Laden is burdened by internal strife, poverty and a dysfunctional regime. The north and south (where the oil is) are at odds. The secular-oriented government of Ali Abdullah Saleh, a Shi’ite, is corrupt and undemocratic. He is battling an insurrection by Shi’ite religious extremists who were once his allies against fanatical Sunnis. Extremist Sunnis, supportive of al-Qaida, are also battling the regime and attacking Western targets. Yemen has a Sunni majority with a large Shi’ite minority. On top of all this, there are also tribal tensions; the president’s tribe dominates the security services. But the Yemeni masses were able to put some of these differences aside during Operation Cast Lead… and attack the Jews. With few friends, Yemen’s president sought to stay in Washington’s good graces by trying to protect the besieged remnants of Yemeni Jewry. AS THE saga of Yemen’s Jews now comes to a close, our thoughts are also drawn to Israel’s treatment of its Arab minority. Any one of 10 Arab Knesset members could persuasively argue, Jewish Israelis have nothing to be smug about. Yet if they were fair minded, they might grant that the Jewish state has done a comparatively decent job in bringing its minority citizens into the mainstream.