Who are the jihadists in Yemen?

Fatik Al-Rodaini

 13 March 2012

SANA’A: Last Friday Yemen and the US carried out airstrikes against AQAP hideouts in Abyan and Al-Baidha provinces, killing and wounding scores of civilians alongside alleged terrorists militants. Yemen Interior Ministers said in a statement that 2 Pakistanis, 2 Saudi nationals, 1 Syrian and 1 Iraqi were among the dead in the raid.

The question here is: “are there foreign jihadists in Yemen—if so, where do they come from?”

Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula depends very much on foreign fighters alongside Yemeni locals as it needs to maintain a global element to its movement. After AQAP was formed in January 2009 from a merger of the Saudi and Yemeni terror cells the organization realized it needed to internationalize its support system and launch a recruiting campaign. This is when the foreign jihadist movement was formed.

For the first time AQAP allowed Saudi militants to participate as active partners in the organization not only as normal members but also as leaders.

AQAP declared in 2009 that 2 Saudi militants were among its leaders, Said Ali al-Shihri became the deputy commander of the group and Ibrahim Hassan al-Asiri, the bomb maker.

The group in Yemen recruited foreign elements to carry out some targeted attacks against local government facilities, as well as recruiting foreign elements to pursue a similar policy abroad, such as the failed bombing of Northwest Flight 253 over Detroit, which took place on December 25, 2009 with Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, a Nigerian national being the main perpetrator.

In an interview with the American ambassador to Yemen, published last year, the official revealed that there were several jihadists in Yemen, alongside Yemeni fighters, most of whom came from Saudi Arabia, Somalia, Egypt, Syria, Jordan, Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Southern Asia.

Aish Awas, a Yemeni research in AQAP affairs added that some fighters were from America, Britain, Iraq, Sudan, and the United Emirates but in a far lesser numbers.

Moreover, Wikileaks site released last year a US diplomatic cable, which bore the names of some 6 women living in Australia as potential targets of an al-Qaeda plot to recruit women for terror attacks.

The women 4 Australians, 1 Briton and 1 Filipino are among 23 people based in Australia, alleged by Australian Security Intelligence Organization (ASIO) and the US State Department to be connected to al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP).

The latest batch of confidential and secret cables written by the US embassy in Canberra in January last year, was sent to US intelligence agencies and 15 American diplomatic stations around the world.

Many of these foreign fighters traveled to countries like Yemen for terrorism training. AQAP opened a training camp in the district of Mudiyah in the southern province of Abyan. The camp highlights Yemen’s value to al Qaeda in waging its global terror campaign.

According to residents in Abyan province, that camp sheltered more than 800 local and foreign fighters. Yemenis, Saudis, and Somalis make up the vast majority of the fighters.

YEMEN: Tortured for ransom

HAJJAH, 12 March 2012 (IRIN) - The discovery of 70 battered men and women held captive in a remote area of Yemen’s Hajjah Governorate near the Saudi Arabian border has sparked an investigation into the torture and extortion of African immigrants by criminal gangs, say local authorities.

The men and women, Oromos and ethnic Somalis from Ethiopia’s Somali Region, had been held for some time in a house in the Sharqia area of Haradh city, and were found wearing just their underwear. Two men who managed to escape by jumping over the wall of the house, alerted the authorities. Their captors, they said, had beaten them with pipes, burned them with cigarettes and poured liniment in their eyes, making them scream in pain.

"We are really shocked," said Ali Ibrahim, a criminal investigator in Haradh. "I have been in the department for 15 years and I don't remember anything like this… It's unbelievable that this was going on in our own back yard.”

Another government official who preferred anonymity told IRIN: "This problem is unique. No one could imagine that the people were kept in a smuggler’s house for such a long period of time. We don’t know how many were killed.”

Many of the victims, according to head of Haradh Security Department Mohammed Najad, were trying to find their way to Saudi Arabia to get work, but had ended up in the hands of criminals who demanded thousands of dollars in ransom for their release.

The immigrants are tortured until their families send ransom money, or until enough new immigrants arrive, as there is simply not enough space to keep all the migrants, said Berhane Taklu-Nagga, head of the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) office in Haradh.

On 6 March, the local independent news website Al-Masdaronline.net published pictures of some of the victims.

According to a recent Interior Ministry report, 170 Africans were held captive, tortured and mistreated by criminals in Haradh between January 2011 and February 2012.

 “The victims include 91 young men, 10 women, 50 children and 19 elderly men,” the report said, adding that most had been beaten, scalded or punched in the face, leaving some with visual and hearing problems.

In February, the ministry said, police in Haradh had arrested two suspects. One was holding 49 and the other 79 Ethiopian illegal immigrants.

The authorities are still searching for another 20 Ethiopian female immigrants whom they believe are at risk of being tortured and raped, said Hamoud Haidar, head of Haradh Local Authority.

Rape

One common method of torture is rape. “According to the testimonies collected, it appears that the majority of the approximately 3,000 women held by smugglers in Haradh over the past year were raped, many of them repeatedly,” said UNHCR’s Taklu-Nagga.

In a sample of 24 interviewees, 17 said that they had been raped, according to Taklu-Nagga. “The figure is expected to be much higher, considering that rape victims are typically very reluctant to come forward, particularly those from conservative African societies where victims of sexual assault are often ostracized by their communities,” he told IRIN.

Some of the rape victims got pregnant. “Only after eight months when my father was able to send the smugglers US$5,000, did they release me,” recounted one of the rape victims, who requested anonymity. “I must have an abortion. My husband should not know what happened to me in Haradh, and I must not give birth to this child.”

One of the male victims told IRIN that several men were raped as well - as punishment for trying to prevent the rape of the women.

Screaming at night

Other victims lost body parts. Adeemi Abdullahi lost his left eye after being tortured for two months in Abs District, Hajjah Governorate. He showed IRIN marks from the lashings he had received on his back and legs, and scratches on his face and head.

 “They had been beating me up mercilessly for more than 50 days… They didn’t give me even a paper tissue to wipe blood from my eye,” the 30-year-old Ethiopian said.

When he was captured he was given five days to contact any person he knew to transfer money to his captors. He failed. “From day six began my hardest ordeal,” he said.

A resident of the Sharqia area said he and his neighbours could hear screaming at night but feared reporting it to the police. In mid-February, the authorities approached a suspected detention house, but were confronted by gunmen. “They fired at us and damaged our cars,” said Haradh local authority head Haidar.

So far, Haradh Security Department has identified 19 owners of properties with yards and high walls in villages outside the city suspected of being used as detention centres.

Despite widespread unrest in Yemen in the past year, there has been close to a 100 percent increase in the number of Ethiopians arriving in Yemen from the Horn of Africa: more than 65,000 Ethiopians have arrived, compared to 34,422 in 2010, said the International Organization of Migration (IOM) in December.

According to UNHCR’s Taklu-Nagga, 10,000-15,000 Ethiopian immigrants annually enter Haradh illegally along Yemen’s western coast.

Yemenis go to Riyadh to seek funds

Tom Arnold

Mar 13, 2012

The new regime hopes the cash will flow after Ali Abdullah Saleh abided by a GCC-inspired transition plan to step down as president. This followed a year of violence and protests against his rule that brought the economy close to collapse.

"For the GCC this is an opportunity to show they're committed to ensuring political stability and helping Yemen return to growth," said Jarmo Kotilaine, the chief economist of NCB in Saudi Arabia.

"It's a country that needs help and I think finally that's been recognised by the GCC with the long-standing plan to bring Yemen into the fold and pursue a EU-style cohesive plan to accelerate its economic development."

Yemen has only a fraction of the wealth of its richer GCC cousins as its oil reserves dwindle. This month, the government unveiled a draft budget for the year that included a US$2.6bn (Dh9.5bn) budget deficit.

The officials going to Riyadh are seeking $3bn of $5.5bn that was previously pledged to Yemen by the GCC in 2006. That cash had been withheld because of the outbreak last year of violence and instability.

According to the UN, Yemen ranks 151st out of 177 countries on its Human Development Index, which gauges life expectancy, education and standard of living

Yemen tightens security to foil al-Qaeda suicide attacks

Mohammed al-Kibsi

Mar 12, 2012

The Yemeni ministry of interior announced on Monday of tightening security measures after uncovering plans for al-Qaeda to launch suicide attacks targeting vital facilities in Sana’a and other provinces.

A statement issued by the ministry of interior said that al-Qaeda plans to use car bombs for attacking Yemeni and foreign facilities in different parts of the country, particularly in Sana’a, the capital of Yemen.

Al-Qaeda had sat up a 10 days ultimatum for the Yemeni army to withdraw its forces from Abyan province otherwise al-Qaeda would implement the Flooding River Operation.

Sources affirmed that al-Qaeda had deployed over 400 fighters and suicide bombers to Sana’a.

The Yemeni authorities had announced that over 300 Somali Shabab had entered the country to support al-Qaeda.

They also announced of capturing 4 of the Somali Shabab in Taiz province. 

Over 36 al-Qaeda militants were killed in air strikes launched by Yemeni air force and US drones on Friday night, said local and official sources from al-Baidha province.

The governor of al-Baidha affirmed that over 36 al-Qaeda militants were killed in the air strikes however he did not mention whther the strikes were launched by Yemeni airforce or by US drones.

Local sources from al-Baidha and Abyan provinces said that US drones were heard minutes before the raid. 

Air strikes on suspected positions of al Qaeda-linked fighters in southern Yemen killed several militants, a Yemeni military official said on Saturday.

Other local sources said that fighter planes late on Friday raided western outskirts of al-Baidha town, where the Ansar al-Sharia militants have been converging and making new hide outs.

A military official source said that the attack targeted a gathering of al Qaeda elements and a number of them were killed.

Al Arabiya television said Friday's raid was believed to have been carried out by U.S. drones, but there has been no immediate confirmation of this.

The United States has repeatedly used drones in different parts of Yemen to attack militants of al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP).

The air raids came several days after al-Qaeda attacked Yemeni military positions in Dawfas valley in Abyan province, killing over 120 soldiers and arresting dozens of them.

Deadly clashes between Yemen separatists, police

 (AFP) March 12, 2012

ADEN — Yemen police and southern separatists clashed on Monday in the country's mostly lawless southeast province of Hadramawt, with one person killed in the fighting, a medical official told AFP.

At least six other southern activists were injured in the clashes, three of them with gunshot wounds, said the medic, adding that all of the injured were being treated at a local hospital in the provincial capital of Mukalla.

According to a southern activist, who also spoke to AFP on condition of anonymity, the violence began after police used tear gas and live bullets to stop youths who were attacking shops for refusing to close down for the funeral of a fellow separatist.

Late last month, two Yemeni soldiers were killed in a gun battle that erupted when troops moved in to dismantle a tent camp of southern militants in the southern port city of Aden.

Soldiers met stiff resistance from the southerners, who have been camped in the square for months, and the fighting lasted for several hours before the troops managed to break up the camp.

Aden is a stronghold of southern militants demanding either autonomy or outright independence for the south, which was a separate country until 1990.

Southern activists seriously disrupted the single-candidate presidential poll in February which ended Ali Abdullah Saleh's 33-year rule over Yemen and made his deputy, Abdrabuh Mansur Hadi the first new president in Sanaa since 1978.