Yemen tribesmen clash with northern rebels, 10 dead

SANAA, Feb 8 (Reuters) - At least 10 tribesmen were killed in northern Yemen during clashes with Shi'ite rebels, the Defence Ministry said on Wednesday, less than two weeks before a presidential election aimed at ending a year of unrest.

An uprising against outgoing President Ali Abdullah Saleh has severely weakened central government control over swathes of Yemen, allowing the rebels, known as Houthis, to seize the governorate of Saada, which borders oil-exporter Saudi Arabia.

The latest clashes took place in Hajja province, which neighbours Saada, after tribesmen accused the Houthis of trying to grab more territory.

"Security reports say there was fierce fighting between the two sides ... The clashes between the Houthis and the tribesmen took place in and around a technical college and other areas," said a statement on the Defence Ministry's website.

The number of Houthis killed was not known.

Saudi Arabia briefly fought the Houthis in Saada after they seized Saudi territory in 2009.

The Houthis have said they will boycott an election later this month to pick a successor to Saleh, who is in the United States receiving medical treatment for injuries sustained during an assassination attempt last year.

Saudi Arabia and the United States fear protracted political upheaval in the impoverished state is giving al Qaeda's regional wing room to gain a foothold near oil shipping routes through the Red Sea.

Report: Yemen killed 120 in Arab Spring protest

By PETER JAMES SPIELMANN

The Associated Press

NEW YORK, February 8, 2012 — Yemen's president, who is in New York protected by diplomatic immunity while he receives medical treatment, ordered a crackdown on Arab Spring protesters last year that killed at least 120 people just in one city, Human Rights Watch said in a new report Wednesday.

The report, based on interviews with more than 170 Yemeni experts and witnesses, provides more detail than the sketchy reports of deaths that trickled out of Yemen last year.

People in Yemen have been protesting President Ali Abdullah Saleh's 33-year dictatorship as part of the broader anti-authoritarian wave that swept the Mideast and North Africa last year, bringing down regimes from Tunisia to Egypt.

Yemen's second largest city, Taiz, became a hotbed of protest. Saleh's security forces beat and shot demonstrators, shelled neighborhoods, bulldozed a public square occupied by protesters and stormed into hospitals, evicting patients and attacking medical officials, the New York-based Human Rights Watch said.

"They had tanks and bulldozers. They were throwing petrol bombs into the tents and firing from many directions," the new report quoted 32-year-old protester Arif Abd al-Salam as saying. "I saw with my own eyes a man with a loudspeaker calling on the security forces to stop attacking and killing their brothers. He was shot dead with a bullet."

Human Rights Watch said its interviews confirmed 120 killings just in Taiz, with 57 protesters and bystanders killed in attacks on rallies and 63 civilians killed in shellings and other attacks on opposition tribal fighters. At least 22 of the dead were children, the group said.

It said it counted at least 270 deaths nationwide in Yemen last year but said the true total might be far higher.

Saleh has blamed the violence in Yemen on terrorists. After months of protests demanding his ouster and mounting international pressure, he signed a deal in November brokered by Gulf neighbors and backed by the U.S. to pass power to his vice president. That was the first step in a process meant to give the country a new constitution, president and elected parliament.

To persuade Saleh to sign, a clause protecting him and those associated with his government from prosecution was added.

"Saleh is entitled to medical treatment, but he and his aides have no right to immunity from prosecution for international crimes," said Letta Tayler, Yemen researcher at Human Rights Watch.

An election is scheduled for Feb. 21 to select Saleh's successor. As a head of state, Saleh has diplomatic immunity until then.

While Saleh has been an anti-terrorism ally of Washington, allowing U.S. air strikes on al-Qaida militants, the United States has not officially welcomed him. President Barack Obama's administration allowed him in only after internal debate about whether his exile would help advance democracy in Yemen.

Saleh is now staying in New York.

Human Rights Watch called on Washington, Europe and the Gulf states to encourage Yemen's caretaker government to revoke Saleh's immunity in his own country.

"The US, and EU and Gulf states should make loud and clear that the immunity is no good abroad and should be revoked at home," Tayler said. "No one responsible for grave international crimes should get a free pass."

Yemen says Eritrea holds Yemeni boats in fishing row

Tue Feb 7, 2012
SANAA (Reuters) - Eritrea's navy has seized five Yemeni fishing boats in the Red Sea in an area where the two countries have had a territorial dispute, a Yemeni official said on Tuesday.
The incident is part of a dispute between Yemen and Eritrea over water rights around the Red Sea's Hanish Islands, which the two countries briefly fought over in 1995.
An international court gave Yemen sovereignty over some of the archipelago's islands, but the two countries have disagreed on interpretations of the ruling regarding fishing rights.
Eritrea has repeatedly captured Yemeni fishing boats that it says were fishing in its territorial waters, Fisheries Ministry Undersecretary Nabil Sajam told Reuters.
"Eritrean forces captured these boats. They do this regularly and accuse the Yemeni fishermen of entering Eritrean waters," Sajam said.
Eritrean officials could not be immediately contacted to comment.
Yemen says both countries' territorial waters are open to Eritrean and Yemeni fisherman, while Eritrea says that Yemenis are not allowed to fish in its waters.
Yemeni fishing boats caught by Eritrean forces are usually confiscated, while the fishermen on board are given jail sentences lasting for a few months before being returned to their home country, Sajam said.

Yemen's Incoming Leader Promises Reconciliation

February 7, 2012

By MARGARET COKER

Yemeni Vice President Abdu Rabu Mansour Hadi told his divided nation on Tuesday that his priority as the country's next head of state will be to foster national reconciliation among separatists in the south and insurgents in the north and usher in more democratic political reforms.

Mr. Hadi is set to officially take over as Yemen's new leader after Feb. 21, a date outlined in the internationally negotiated power transfer agreement that ousted President Ali Abdullah Saleh, created a new coalition government between opposition and former ruling party members and named the vice president as the agreed successor to the longtime leader.

Yemen's new government and the international community want to add a legal veneer to the handover of power with a referendum scheduled for Feb. 21. All Yemenis over the age of 18 will have a chance to select Mr. Hadi for a two-year term, a duration stipulated by the power-transfer agreement. His name will be the only one on the ballot.

Yemeni officials and international diplomats concede that Mr. Hadi's candidacy won't be affected by a low turnout, leaving many in the country questioning why the government is spending the nation's scarce financial resources on organizing and staging the referendum in the security-challenged country.

Outside the capital, Sana', the government has little control in the outlying provinces, where armed separatists and other insurgents, as well as a fearsome branch of the al Qaeda terrorist network, hold sway. Some of the domestic insurgents have called on their supporters to boycott the poll on Feb. 21.

The United Nations Development Program, which is helping Yemen organize the poll, says that ballots will be distributed to all provinces, despite security concerns.

Yemeni Leader Faces Protests At The Ritz

By Hunter Walker

February 6, 2012

Former Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh faced off with protesters yesterday outside his hotel, the Ritz Carlton on Central Park South. Mr. Saleh came to the United States last month to seek medical treatment after signing a deal in November allowing him immunity from prosecution if he transferred power to his vice president in the wake of months of bloody protests against his regime.

Protesters gathered outside the Ritz yesterday afternoon and greeted Mr. Saleh with photos of some of the hundreds of people killed during the demonstrations against his administration that began during last year’s “Arab Spring.” Police fended off one man who attempted to “charge” Mr. Saleh. Another protester threw a shoe at the former head of state as he departed the hotel. The shoe-thrower was arrested for disorderly conduct.

Mr. Saleh responded to the protests by waving and blowing kisses. His motorcade eventually took him off to an undisclosed location. Mr. Saleh is being treated for injuries he suffered in a rocket attack during the protests preceding his decision to step down.

Mr. Saleh’s reign in Yemen lasted over three decades. Yemeni diplomats say he will return home after a new president is elected next month. Under the agreement that gave him immunity, Mr. Saleh remains Yemen’s “honorary president” until a new leader is sworn in.

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.