\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n <\/td>\n<\/tr>\n \nAl-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula said it provided Abdulmutallab with an explosive device\u00a0[AFP]<\/strong> <\/strong><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\nA 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<\/strong> Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab is accused of trying to\u00a0to light an explosive device while on a flight from Amsterdam to Detroit. He\u00a0was overpowered by passengers on the flight, which\u00a0had nearly 300 people on board.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n \n <\/strong><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\nAccording 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.———————————————— <\/object> 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\u00a0senior 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\u00a0The New York Times<\/em>, 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’<\/strong> The Yemeni government said on\u00a0Monday\u00a0that Abdulmutallab had lived in Yemen from August to December after obtaining a visa to study Arabic there, but\u00a0that 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<\/strong> Abdulmutallab, a former student in London, was added to a watch-list of\u00a0about 550,000 names last month after his father told US embassy officials in Abuja that he was concerned by his son’s increasing radicalism.<\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/td>\n<\/tr>\n \nAbdulmutallab is accused of trying to blow up a flight as it landed in Detroit [Reuters]<\/strong> <\/strong><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\nBut 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\u00a0spokesman,\u00a0said. Bob Baer, a former CIA agent who in 2006 warned\u00a0that a Northwest Airlines flight from Amsterdam could be the target of an attack,\u00a0said 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\u00a0said on his blog<\/span>: “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.”<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n—————- <\/object> ———————-<\/p>\nProfile: Yemen’s Houthi fighters<\/h2>\n \n\n\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n \n\n\n\n\n <\/td>\n<\/tr>\n \nYemen’s north, where the\u00a0Houthi\u00a0 group is\u00a0based, is inhabited by a number of tribes\u00a0people [EPA]<\/strong><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\nYemen, 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<\/strong> <\/strong> <\/strong> <\/strong> <\/strong> <\/strong> <\/strong> <\/strong> <\/strong> <\/strong> <\/strong> <\/strong> <\/strong> <\/strong> <\/strong> <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n\n<\/div>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n
Nine Saudi soldiers are missing in the kingdom’s borders with Yemen amid fighting between the country’s forces and Shia Houthi fighters.<\/span> 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 —————————–<\/span> Houthis seize full control of Saudi border post<\/strong> Tue, 29 Dec 2009 07:35:17 GMT<\/strong> 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.<\/span> 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\u00a0Operation Scorched Earth<\/em> 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. ————————————-<\/p>\nYemen the first open battleground in the war for the new middle east order!<\/h2>\n Yemen conflict worries the entire middle east __________________ <\/object> ___________ emen as you know is a strategic Middle East nation. where Osama Bin Laden\u2019s 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\u2019s father was born. Knowing all that you know my focus has been on Iran\u2019s interference in Yemen as they try to install Shiite dominance there and everywhere else in the middle East.\u00a0Yemeni air strike kills 30, targets home of cleric linked to Ft. Hood attack<\/a> Factbox: Who is Anwar al-Awlaki?<\/a> 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\u2019s 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!!!<\/strong> History will record that 2,500 years of Jewish life in Yemen is now over. As\u00a0The Wall Street Journal<\/em> reported October 31, the\u00a0US State Department\u00a0has completed a clandestine operation which brought\u00a060 of the country’s remaining Jews to America<\/span><\/strong>. The newspaper quoted Yeshiva University’s Hayim Tawil, a Yemeni Jewry expert, as issuing\u00a0the certificate\u00a0of death: “This is the end\u00a0of 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\u00a0creation 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\u00a0The Jews of Islam<\/em>, 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\u00a0Dhimmi<\/em> 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.\u00a0The north and south\u00a0(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.<\/p>\n\n
A family of Yemeni Jewish olim arrives at Ben Gurion International Airport.
Photo: AP [file]<\/strong><\/div>\n———————— <\/object> ———————<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The package of the PETN explosive powder is seen in government photos obtained exclusively by\u00a0ABC News, released to Reuters, December 28, 2009.\u00a0Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, based in Yemen, said it provided Nigerian suspect\u00a0Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, 23, with an explosive device to blow upNorthwest Airlines flight 253, a Delta-owned\u00a0Airbus330, as it approached Detroit on […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":54,"featured_media":11302,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[163,160,30,143],"tags":[4136],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/ethiopianism.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/05\/0118.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ethiopianism.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/795"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ethiopianism.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ethiopianism.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ethiopianism.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/54"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ethiopianism.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=795"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/ethiopianism.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/795\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ethiopianism.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11302"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ethiopianism.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=795"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ethiopianism.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=795"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ethiopianism.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=795"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}