Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula Announces Abyan an Islamic Emirate

By Fatik Al-Rodaini

Sana'a, Mar 29, 2011- Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, AQAP, announced on Monday Yemen's southern province of Abyan an Islamic emirate.

According to private sources the AQAP said in its first statement on Abyan's radio that they announced the Abyan province an Islamic emirate.

Local sources told the Yemen Post that they also called women to not go out without need. They said that women should have their own identify cards or their own passports. The first statement warned women not to go to the streets without their Mahram, (a man with them).

Yesterday, at least 124 people were killed, including three children, and 52 wounded in the blast at a weapon factory in Yemen's southern province of Abyan, when residents entered to the factory to seize some weapons from there.

Security sources said that Al-Qaeda militants were responsible for a deadly explosion in southern Yemen on Monday.

Yemen's opposition coalition, the Joint Meeting Parties, JMP, accused President Ali Abdullah Saleh of being behind the explosion.

On Sunday, Islamic militants took over the factory, which was near the town of Jaar and used to make explosives for road construction.

Yemen could be described as the spiritual home of Al-Qaeda since January 2009 when Al-Qaeda supporters in Saudi Arabia and Yemen formed the new Al-Qaeda group in the Arabian Peninsula.