Election preparations start in conflict-torn Yemen

By Mohammed Ghobari

SANAA | Mon Feb 6, 2012

(Reuters) - Yemen has begun a publicity campaign to get citizens to vote in the upcoming presidential election, officials said on Monday, part of a deal to ease President Ali Abdullah Saleh out of office and pull the country back from the brink of civil war.

With Vice President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi the only candidate in the February 21 vote, Yemeni officials fear that a low turnout will dent the legitimacy of the man expected to lead Yemen during a two-year interim period when crucial decisions, dealing with restructuring the armed forms and introducing constitutional reforms, are expected to be taken.

"Your vote protects Yemen," read a giant poster hung in the capital Sanaa, depicting a smiling woman in a pink headscarf as she places her ballot into a voting box.

Abdul Wahhab al-Qudsi, head of the electoral commission's external relations, said preparations for the vote were in full swing. "(Our) main committee has gone to different provinces and the subcommittee will go off this weekend," he told Reuters.

It will be the first time in 33 years that a candidate other than Saleh -- now in the United States for treatment of injuries sustained in an assassination attempt last year -- will head the impoverished Arab state, located along key oil shipping routes.

Yemen is trying to recover from months of mass anti-Saleh protests and factional fighting that have allowed al Qaeda's regional wing to seize swathes of south Yemen and Shi'ite Muslim Houthi rebels to carve out their own domain in the north.

The United States and top oil exporter Saudi Arabia, fearing that instability will allow al Qaeda to expand its base of operations in Yemen, are counting on elections to bring security back to the country and avert the threat of outright civil war.

Many Yemenis feel the same way. "We will vote in order to avoid war," Abdullah Mutlah said as he sold his customers qat -- a mild narcotic plant used widely across Yemen.

CHEATED

Others said they felt cheated by the election, regarding it as a waste of time and money.

"Why are there elections if there is no competition?" shopkeeper Saddam Abdullah said. "Why are millions of riyals being spent on elections whose results are already known?"

Despite all the preparations and costs, some Yemenis worry that the elections may not spawn a peaceful transition.

Analysts said that some of the governments that backed the transition accord worry that a national unity government, comprised of Saleh's People's Congress Party and the opposition's Joint Meeting Parties, would like a low turnout.

"Some of the countries that promoted the initiative feel that both sides want a weak win for Hadi so that they can blackmail him," Yemeni political analyst Ali Hasan said.

Yemeni officials said Washington would not tolerate attempts to upset Hadi's ascension to the presidency.

"The American administration told representatives of (both sides within the unity government) that... the U.N. Security Council will strongly confront any attempts to keep Hadi from being elected as the country's president," a Yemeni minister who attended a meeting with U.S. officials last week told Reuters.

Yemen Military Gets Friendly with Al Qaeda

February 6th, 2012

The highest military authority in Yemen has officially invited Al Qaeda militants for dialogue in an effort to end their control of the Abyan province.

Ali Saeed Obaid, the spokesperson of the Yemen Military Committee, which was formed as part of a power transfer deal in November, told The National that Yemen's new leadership is willing to seek solutions with Al Qaeda fighters and the militants fighting with them.

The committee, chaired by Vice President Abdurabu Mansur Hadi, is responsible for rebuilding the Yemeni military and is looking at all options to end national bloodshed.

Mr Obaid said the offer of dialogue would be in exchange for the militants laying down arms and participating in the democratic process.

"We are offering Al Qaeda members a chance to be involved in the changes that are taking place in Yemen today," he said. "We open our hands to them and ask them to lay [down] arms and reject the use of force."

In return, Mr Obaid said that Al Qaeda fighters must hand over all territories under its control to the military and evacuate all government posts.

The move, considered the first of its kind in the country's fight against the militants, will likely anger Western powers. Al Qaeda in the Arabia Peninsula has been blamed for a number of attempted attacks on the United States.

Yemen is undergoing a historical transfer of power, where President Ali Abdullah Saleh, a long-time US ally, will step down after more than 33 years of rule.

The committee admits that Al Qaeda is in control of areas of Abyan and Shabwa provinces. Islamist militants seized control of Abyan last May after government forces evacuated nearly all of its bases and stations there.

The province was announced an Islamic emirate a week later, resulting in hundreds of fighters joining the AQAP lines.

Since then, hundreds of troops have been killed in daily clashes.

"We are killing one another, and in the end Yemen as a nation loses. Let's try giving other options a chance to succeed," Mr Obaid added.

There has not yet been any response from Al Qaeda, according to the military committee.

A senior defence ministry official told The National that negotiations are taking place between the government and Al Qaeda fighters in Abyan. The official said that the goal of the talks is to ease the tension in the province and bridge the gap of differences.

"Yemen can't take anymore destruction. If this is not solved soon, clashes will then spread to major cities throughout the country," the official said.

Last month, a committee formed by Mr Hadi, who is the only candidate in an election later this month to replace Mr Saleh, convinced Al Qaeda fighters in Radda, Al Baitha province, of evacuating the area two weeks after they took over.

The government now fears that clashes could soon erupt in major cities if Al Qaeda is not dealt with. Attacks during the last year have spread to nine provinces across the country, the military committee confirmed.

Despite the prospect of talks, government officials told The National last week that Yemen would by relying increasingly on US drone strikes to target Islamist militants, who they fear could try to take further territory in the run-up to the election.

Experts are hoping however that Mr Hadi can use his ancestral links to Abyan to convince the fighters there to negotiate.

"Hadi is wise and knows that a continuation of war in Abyan is not in favour of the country. Negotiating with Al Qaeda is not a weakness but a signal that all should work in favour of Yemen," said Abdul Salam Mohammed, director of the Sanaa based Abaad Strategic Center.

Source: the National

Yemen's Karman slams Russia, China over Syria vote

Sunday, February 5, 2012

Yemeni activist and 2011 Nobel Peace Prize winner Tawakkul Karman says Russia and China bear moral responsibility for killings in Syria and is urging governments to expel Syrian ambassadors.

Karman spoke at the Munich Security Conference, an annual gathering of security officials, on Sunday — a day after Moscow and Beijing vetoed a U.N. Security Council resolution aimed at ending Syria's bloodshed.

Their vote came amid international outrage over a devastating bombardment of the city of Homs by President Bashar Assad's forces.

Karman says "those two countries bear the moral and human responsibility for these massacres."

She urged governments to expel Syrian ambassadors and withdraw their own ambassadors from Damascus, saying "that is the minimum you can do to punish this regime."

Fighting over captured Yemeni city kills five

Sun Feb 5, 2012

ADEN (Reuters) - Four Islamists linked to al Qaeda and a government soldier have been killed in clashes in southern Yemen, security sources said on Sunday, hours after the breakdown of a short-lived ceasefire designed to pacify the area ahead of a presidential election.

The clashes between militants from Ansar al-Sharia (Partisans of Islamic Law) and government forces broke out late on Saturday on the outskirts of Zinjibar, capital of Abyan province, which militants seized last May.

The capture of the coastal city has increased the vulnerability of Yemen's second city, Aden, security experts say. The United States and Saudi Arabia are particularly concerned that emboldened militants linked to al Qaeda could threaten nearby oil shipping routes through the Red Sea.

Zinjibar has been nearly destroyed in regular clashes between the government and Islamist militants in the past eight months. Tens of thousands fled and are now refugees in nearby Aden and Lahej.

Tribesmen and residents said government mediators on Saturday forged a ceasefire with militants in an effort to create a peaceful environment for voting on February 21, but militants denied they had made any such agreement.

"They (the government) wanted to hold negotiations with Ansar al-Sharia, but (we) refused," a representative of the Islamist group told Reuters.

Diplomats hope the elections, agreed as part of a deal to ease President Ali Abdullah Saleh out of office, will pull the country back from the brink of civil war. Over the last year, militants have exploited lawlessness that accompanied protests against Saleh's 33-year rule to seize towns like Zinjibar and Radda in Yemen's mountainous interior.

Authorities had opted for negotiations in Zinjibar after it became clear that the military option was "not viable," a government official in Sanaa told Reuters, especially given that the army had been weakened by divisions between supporters of the uprising and Saleh loyalists.

"Because of the split in the army and the political crisis, the military solution did not succeed in Abyan... Tribal negotiations may help get the al Qaeda members out of Abyan as they did in the city of Radda," he said.

Militants quit Radda, around 170 km (105 miles) southeast of Sanaa, in exchange for the release of jailed comrades and the formation of a council to govern the town.

But such a solution would be difficult to replicate in Abyan province where militants are firmly entrenched.

Highlighting the fragile security situation just weeks before voting, militants on Saturday attacked a Yemeni army base in the south, and elsewhere in Abyan unknown gunmen opened fire on a group of tribesmen, killing one and wounding two. Some tribes have joined forces with the army against the militants.

Two southern activists killed in Yemen

February 5, 2012 share

Two southern activists were killed and seven wounded in clashes with police in the Yemeni province of Hadramut on Sunday, activists said.

They said the clashes took place in the city of Mukalla as security forces intervened to evacuate a police station overrun by activists opposed to Yemen's presidential election of February 21.

Security forces recaptured the police station after activists had released detained colleagues, a police source said.

The operation resulted in clashes that left one activist dead and eight wounded, the source said. Activists said one of the wounded later died in hospital.

Late on Friday, armed clashes between supporters and opponents of the presidential election left dozens of people wounded in the main southern city of Aden.

The violence erupted when supporters of the Southern Movement, a separatist group, attacked a march organized by rivals from a year-old protest movement against President Ali Abdullah Saleh, an activist said.

Some factions of the Movement have been campaigning for a boycott of the election, which they say fails to meet their aspirations for autonomy or southern independence.

Saleh's deputy, Abdrabuh Mansur Hadi, himself a southerner, is the sole candidate in the election to succeed the veteran strongman who is standing down after more than three decades in power.

Nationwide protests erupted against Saleh's regime in January last year, triggering months of bloodshed.