Yemen's Cabinet forms independent national authority for human rights

By Fatik al-Rodaini

SANA'A, April 17, 2012- Yemen's Cabinet approved on Tuesday the formation of a ministerial committee to draft a law on establishing an independent national authority for human rights.

In a meeting headed by Prime Minister Mohammed Salem Basindwa, the government authorized the committee to form an assistant technical team provided that representatives of the concerned civil society organizations to be involved in the team.

The formation of the committee came according to a suggestion presented by Yemen's Human Right Minister, Hooria Mashhour, on the institutional and legal frameworks and the measures required to form the authority.

The establishment of authority is in pursuance to the recommendations of the Human Rights Council (HRC) to establish such authority in accordance with the Paris Principles.

Bid Laden family to be deported

April 17, 2012

OSAMA bin Laden's family is expected to be deported from Pakistan today, their lawyer and officials have said.

Bin Laden's three widows and their children will be deported to Saudi Arabia 11 months after the US raid that killed the al-Qaida leader.

The bin Laden family was detained by the Pakistani authorities after the US Navy SEAL operation in the garrison town of Abbottabad, north of Islamabad, last May.

The news came as Washington and Islamabad try to patch up their relationship, which was badly damaged by the revelation that the world's most wanted man was living a stone's throw from Pakistan's elite military academy.

Two weeks ago a court sentenced the widows and two of bin Laden's older daughters to 45 days' detention on charges of illegal entry and residency in Pakistan and ordered their deportation as soon as possible.

They were due to complete the sentence, served in an Islamabad villa designated by authorities as a "sub-jail", yesterday, as it officially began when they were formally arrested on the charges on March 3.

"They will go tonight or tomorrow early in the morning. After 12 tonight they can be deported any time," their lawyer Muhammad Aamir said yesterday.

Mr Aamir said the family - who number 12, including bin Laden's three widows, eight children and one grandchild - would probably initially go to Saudi Arabia.

He said bin Laden's youngest and reportedly favourite wife, Amal Abdulfattah, who is Yemeni, may be sent to Yemen afterwards with her five children.

A Pakistani intelligence official confirmed that the family was expected to be deported "sometime around midnight" and said "most likely they would be flown to Saudi Arabia."

A number of Saudi diplomats have visited Pakistan in recent weeks to work out the details of the deportation, sources say.

The discovery of bid Laden in Abbottabad dealt a massive blow to US-Pakistan relations and led to accusations of Pakistani complicity or incompetence.

Ms Abdulfattah, 30, told Pakistani interrogators bin Laden had fathered four children while he hid out in Pakistan, according to a police report.

After fleeing Afghanistan in the wake of the 9/11 attacks, bin Laden moved his family around Pakistan before settling in a three-storey house inside a walled compound in the garrison town of Abbottabad in 2005.

According to the police report, the family movements while they were on the run were organised by "Ibrahim and Abrar", two Pakistanis given responsibility for the task by members of al-Qaida.

Both the men were killed during the raid on Abbottabad and had been living in the same compound, along with Ibrahim's wife, Bushra, and bin Laden's son, Khalid.

In February the Pakistani authorities, reluctant for the Abbottabad house to become a shrine to the dead terror leader, used bulldozers to raze the building to the ground.

The continued detention of bin Laden's wives led to accusations that Pakistan was attempting to muzzle them to stop them from providing details that could embarrass Islamabad or add to suspicions it knew where bin Laden was.

Pakistan, allied to Washington in the "war on terror", was humiliated by the covert American operation that killed the al-Qaida leader in the early hours of May 2.

Saudi: Al-Qaida behind kidnapping in Yemen

ABDULLAH AL-SHIHRI, Associated Press

Tuesday, April 17, 2012

RIYADH, Saudi Arabia (AP) — Saudi Arabia claimed Tuesday that Al-Qaida has taken responsibility for the kidnapping of a Saudi diplomat in Yemen last month and is demanding release of prisoners and a ransom payment.

Saudi Interior Ministry spokesman Maj. Gen. Mansour al-Turki said a Saudi citizen who is on the kingdom's most-wanted list of terror suspects relayed the demands by telephone to the Saudi embassy in Yemen, adding a threat to kill the captive.

Diplomat Abdullah al-Khaldi, the deputy consul at the Saudi consulate in Aden, was abducted in the Yemeni port city of Aden on March 28.

Abductions are frequent in Yemen, where armed tribesmen and militants take hostages to swap for prisoners or cash. The kidnappings are usually resolved peacefully.

Al-Turki said a Saudi terror suspect, Mashaal Rasheed al-Shawdakhi, has been in contact with the Saudi embassy in Sanaa for a number of times.

The Saudi official held the kidnappers responsible for the safety of the diplomat, urging them to release him.

This is the second incident of kidnapping of a Saudi diplomat in Yemen. Last year, tribesmen released a Saudi diplomat after 10 days over a financial dispute between a Saudi businessmen and the tribe.

Saudi Arabia and the rest of Gulf Cooperation Council countries have been heavily involved in a power transfer deal that forced Yemen's longtime president, Ali Abdullah Saleh, to relinquish power after a year of mass protests against his rule. Saleh stepped down in February and handed power to his deputy.

Yemen's political turmoil has caused a security vacuum in the country, which al-Qaida has used to seize large swaths of territory in the south. In recent weeks, fighting between the militants and Yemen's military has intensified.

According to a transcript provided by the Saudi Interior Ministry, al-Shawdakhi asked first to meet with Saudi diplomats but then agreed to relay the demands over the phone.

The Islamic militant group is demanding release of top al-Qaida prisoners, both Saudi and Yemeni, currently in Saudi jails, as well as half a dozen women prisoners held there, in return for the diplomat, he said, adding that the leader of al-Qaida in Yemen, Nasser al-Wahishi, appointed him to make the contacts.

Al-Shawdakhi identified the prisoners by name and said the group is also demanding a ransom payment. He did not say how much. He warned that the diplomat could be killed if the demands are not met.

Suicide bomber kills three Yemeni soldiers

Apr 18 2012

A suicide bomber has killed three Yemeni soldiers in southern Yemen, a military official says, a day after a suspected US drone strike killed five al-Qaeda affiliated militants.

The official said the bomber drove a car packed with explosives into a military checkpoint on a hill between the southern provinces of Bayda and Abyan, mostly lawless regions where al-Qaeda militants have strengthened their presence.

At least five other soldiers were wounded in the attack, which the official said was likely carried out by al-Qaeda or its local affiliates.

In a separate incident late on Monday, a suspected US drone strike in Shabwa province killed five al-Qaeda militants, a local government official said.

The strike was in the Kharama area between the towns of Azzan and Huta.

The deadly raid comes just days after three local al-Qaeda leaders were killed in an air strike on their car in Bayda, about 210 kilometres southeast of Sanaa.

The defence ministry said on Saturday's raid was conducted by Yemeni warplanes, but a security official told AFP a US drone was responsible.

The United States has never formally acknowledged the use of drones against al-Qaeda in Yemen, considered by Washington to be the most active and deadly branch of the global terror network and a major focus of its "war on terror."

In other violence on Tuesday, 10 soldiers were wounded in repeated mortar attacks by al-Qaeda militants on a military base south of Loder, in Abyan, where fierce clashes last week left more than 200 people dead.

Al-Qaeda has exploited a decline in central government control that accompanied Arab Spring-inspired protests that eventually forced president Ali Abdullah Saleh to resign.

Since last May, the extremist group's Yemeni branch, known as the Partisans of Sharia (Islamic law), has seized several towns in the lawless south and east, including Zinjibar, capital of Abyan province.

US Predators strike again in southern Yemen

By Bill Roggio

April 16, 2012

US drones killed five al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula fighters in a strike today in an area that is currently under the terror group's control.

The unmanned and heavily armed Predators or the more deadly Reapers targeted an AQAP vehicle as it was traveling near the town of Karma in the Azzan district in Shabwa province, according to The Yemen Post. Five AQAP fighters, but no senior leaders, are said to have been killed in the strike.

Azzan is one of several cities under AQAP control. The city was one of the first to fall to AQAP in early June 2011 after the terror group seized control of Zinjibar in neighboring Abyan province in late May 2011.

The family of slain AQAP ideologue and operational commander Anwar al Awlaki is from Azzan. Anwar's son, Abdul Rahman al Awlaki, was killed in October 2011 in Azzan. One month earlier, Anwar al Awlaki had been killed in a drone strike in Al Jawf province.

The US has carried out four drone strikes in Azzan. The two other strikes took place on March 30 this year, when drones targeted a vehicle and a compound in separate attacks that killed nine AQAP fighters and one civilian.

US strikes in Yemen

The US has carried out at least four airstrikes in Yemen this month; the last strike took place on April 14 in Baydah province. The US launched at least six strikes against AQAP in Yemen in March.

The CIA and the US military's Joint Special Operations Command are known to have carried out at least 27 air and missile strikes inside Yemen since December 2009, including today's strike in Azzan. Other recent airstrikes are believed to have been carried out by the US also, but little evidence has emerged to directly link the attacks to the US. [For more information on the US airstrikes in Yemen, see LWJ report, Charting the data for US air strikes in Yemen, 2002 - 2012.]

Charting the data for US air strikes in Yemen, 2002 - 2012

Created by Bill Roggio and Bob Barry

Since 2002, the US has been conducting a covert program to target and kill al Qaeda commanders based in Yemen. Reports show that strikes have numbered 28 since 2002, with enemy deaths numbering 198 and civilian deaths numbering 48.

This page was last updated on Monday, April 16, 2012, 6:54 pm  GMT. This will be updated when information about prior or new strikes comes to light

Since the beginning of May 2011, the US is known to have carried out 21 airstrikes in Yemen. Eleven of those strikes have taken place so far in 2012. This year, the US appears to be targeting AQAP foot soldiers in an effort to support Yemeni military operations against the terror group. AQAP has taken control of vast areas in southern Yemen and has been expanding operations against the government with raids on military bases in locations previously thought to be outside the terror group's control.

Only one of this year's 10 strikes has killed a senior AQAP operative in Yemen. On Jan. 31, US drones killed Abdul Mun'im Salim al Fatahani near the city of Lawdar in Abyan province. Fatahani was involved in the October 2000 suicide attack on the USS Cole in the port of Aden that killed 17 US sailors, as well as the bombing that damaged the Limburg oil tanker in 2002. AQAP said that Fatahani had fought in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The pace of the US airstrikes has increased as AQAP and its political front, Ansar al Sharia, have taken control of vast areas of southern Yemen. AQAP controls the cities of Zinjibar, Al Koud, Ja'ar, and Shaqra in Abyan province. The terror group also controls Azzan in Shabwa province. AQAP seized control of Rada'a in Baydah province in January but later withdrew after negotiating a peace agreement with the local government.

US intelligence officials believe that al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula poses a direct threat to the homeland. The terror group has plotted multiple attacks against targets in the US. A strike in Yemen last year killed Anwar al Awlaki, the radical, US-born cleric who plotted attacks against the US, and Samir Khan, another American who served as a senior AQAP propagandist. Abdul Rahman al Awlaki, Anwar's son, was killed in a separate strike in the country.

Parliament approves 2012 general budget

SANA'A, April 16 (Saba) - The parliament approved on Monday the State's general budget for the fiscal year 2012.

In its session chaired by parliament speaker Yhaya al-Rae'i and in the presence of the prime minister and government's members, the parliament voted in favor of the 2012 general budget of over YR 2.1 trillion.

The parliament made various recommendations, which the government has committed to implement.

The government finalized budget's draft and submitted to the parliament on March 06.

The approved general budget estimated at YR 2,111,129,453,000, with a deficit expected to reach over YR 0.5 trillion (nearly YR 561,611,320,000).

Yemen's general budget for 2011 was amounting to over YR 1.5 trillion with a deficit estimated at YR 316.4 billion.

Moreover, the parliament agreed to form a joint committee form the parliament and the government to study the diesel price.

The government announced on April 04 new prices for oil derivatives in the Yemeni local market, increasing the diesel and kerosene's prices up to YR 100 per liter, while the gasoline liter price was cut to YR 175.

35 Al-Qaeda militants killed in Yemen

By Fatik al-Rodaini

SANA'A, April 16, 2012- At least 35 people were killed, including militants and causalities, while several scores were wounded on Sunday evening in Yemeni and American air strikes in the Yemeni city of Abyan where fierce clashes took place against a Yemeni Islamist group linked to Al-Qaeda.

Close sources said that the air strikes targeted hideouts of al-Qaeda militants in southern district of Umm Ain killing at least five al-Qaeda militants.

Meanwhile Yemen elite forces which were deployed lately to Abyan as military reinforcements to fight alongside Yemeni troops backed by tribesmen against al-Qaeda militants mistakenly fired towards civilian houses while they were trying to fire on an army tank that had been captured by the militants on Monday. There were no immediate reports of casualties or damage there.

According to witnesses, 28 people were killed during an air strike conducted by a US drone strike along with heavy artillery targeted al-Qaeda militant hideouts in Sahan district of Abyan province, bringing the six-day death toll in the fighting to 257, most of them from the militants.

Moreover, sources mentioned that at least one army soldier and seven al-Qaida militants were killed in overnight clashes between government forces and the ansar al-Shareah militants in Yemen's province of Abyan.

Yemeni military officials say al-Qaida fighters trying to take control of a key southern town launched two attacks on residents, leaving a total of seven people dead.

Officials said that clashes in the city of Lawder killed two al-Qaeda militants and an armed civilian fighting back.

Also on Sunday, a suicide bomber drove his car through a civilian checkpoint west of Lawder, killing three people manning it.

The militants want control of Lawder, a town of about 30,000 people, which lies on a key road linking three provinces. Clashes over the past week have left more than 222 militants and 20 civilians dead.

Many of the civilians in Lawder took up arms to protect their town against al-Qaida.