Liaison Committee of national dialogue formed

SANA'A, May 06 (Saba) – The presidential decree No.(13) for 2012 was issued on Sunday forming a Liaison Committee and is hereby read as follows:

After the perusal of Yemeni constitution and according to the Gulf initiative and its executive mechanism signed on November 23, 2011and which stipulated to start procedures to hold the national dialogue conference with the beginning of the second transitional period, it is decided to:

• Article No.(1/a) : For involving all parties in the dialogue process, the liaison committee was formed and consisting the followed eight members :

1. Abdul Kareem Ali al-Eriani.

2. Abdul Wahab Ahmed al-Anisi.

3. Yasin Saeed No'man.

4. J'afar Saeed Ba Saleh.

5. Brigadier/ Hussain Mohammed Arab.

6. Brigadier/ Abdul Qahder Ali Hilal.

7. Lawyer/ Raqiah Abdul Qahder Homaidan.

8. Nadiah Abdul Aziz al-Saqaf.

• (1/b) :The committee members would elect a chairman for the this committee.

• Article No.(2) : The committee can take recourse of those who are regarded as useful to success the negotiation process and all parties have to cooperate in facilitating the committee's tasks in order to accelerate the formation of the national dialogue's preparatory committee for a period not exceeding June 30, 2012.

Article No.(3) : stipulated that the decree shall be effective from its issuance date and to be published in the official gazette.

Al-Qaeda leader killed in Yemen

By Fatik al-Rodaini

SANA'A, May 6, 2012- Ansar al-Sharea, an Islamic group linked to al-Qaeda militants in the Arabian Peninsula confirmed on Sunday in a statement posted on the Internet the death of top al-Qaeda leader in the Yemeni city of Shabwa.

The militants reported that al-Qaeda leader Fahd Al-Quso was killed in an airstrike in the eastern Yemeni province of Shabwa.

American airstrike took-out a vehicle believed to be carrying al-Qaeda leader in Rafdha valley of Shabwa, killing al-Quso and one his bodyguards.

Witnesses said the vehicle turned into a charred skeleton along with its passengers.

Al-Quso, 37, was on the FBI's most wanted list, with a $US5 million ($4.9 million) reward for information leading to his capture. He was indicted in the US for his role in the 2000 bombing in the USS Cole in Aden, Yemen, in which 17 American sailors were killed and 39 injured.

He served more than five years in a Yemeni prison for his role in the attack and was released in 2007.

Al-Quso was also one of the most senior al-Qaeda leaders publicly linked to the 2009 Christmas airliner attack. He has allegedly met with the suspected bomber, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, in Yemen before he left on his way to execute his failed bombing over Detroit.

In December 2010, al-Quso was designated a global terrorist by the State Department, an indication that his role in al-Qaeda's Yemen branch had grown more prominent.

More children dying from landmine explosions in Yemen

By Noora Faraj

Al Arabiya with Agencies

The United Nations Children’s Fund has recently reported that more children in Yemen are becoming victims of landmine explosions and other explosive devices in the country.

Children mistake the explosives for toys, not knowing the fatal purpose of the contraption.

UNICEF has connected the issue to the country’s uprising which began last year, leaving Yemen to experience a surge of violence. The organization reported 13 child deaths and 12 others who were severely injured in the first three months of 2012. In addition, 28 children were killed last year.

The majority of casualties were in the areas of Aden, Hajjah, and Saada.

Mansour M. Al-Azi, general director and program manager of the Yemen Executive Mine Action Center, also known as YEMAC, said that the plantation of mines has continued in recent years, and the minefields which have been identified, cover 923 square kilometers.

A survey by YEMAC shows the center has cleared the country of 280,000 landmines so far, but a large amount still remains in underground areas.

Ahmed Kharshi, chairman of SEYAJ Organization for Childhood Protection said that despite the mines being buried in sparsely populated areas, they are those areas that children go to, to play.

He said that mines no longer exist in military offensive areas, but can be found in school and residential areas. It was also reported that landmines were placed in dead bodies, exploding as the corpse was being transported for burial.

Yemen is contaminated with mines and unexploded ordnances from conflicts dating back to the early 1960s, according to the Landmine and Cluster Munitions Monitor. Most mines were placed along borders between the north and south of the country before its unification in 1990.

9 Yemeni soldiers wounded in al-Qaeda attack in Abyan

By Fatik al-Rodaini

SANA'A, May 5, 2012- At least 9 Yemeni soldiers were wounded, on Saturday night, most of them in critical condition, in an attack by al-Qaeda militants in Yemen's southern province of Abyan.

A tribal figure reported that al-Qaeda militants fired three mortar shells on a base of the Yemeni army forces, east of Zinjabar city of Abyan province, wounding 9 soldiers.

Security and military officials said that Yemeni airstrikes killed five militants in the south. Residents in the scene mentioned that 4 Yemeni airstrikes hit al-Qaeda hideouts in Jabal Yesoof district, in the Yemeni city of Abay, killing five and wounding scores of them.

The residents said the airstrikes targeted a training camp for the militants in the district of jabal Yesoof in the southern province of Abyan destroying military equipments and vehicles.

Witnesses in Um Aen stated that they saw al-Qaeda militants fled the scene of the clashes carrying at least 8 bodies of their fighters.

Hundreds of soldiers and Ansar al-Sharea have been killed since last month in Lawder and Modiya towns in Abyan during ongoing battles between the Yemeni army and al-Qaeda militants.

More than 250 people have been killed since government forces intensified a crackdown on the militants who the authorities accused of attacking a military camp near Lawdar last month.

President Abdu Raboo Mansour Hadi, who took office promising to fight al-Qaeda, is also facing challenges from Shi'ite Muslim rebels in the north and secessionists in the south.

Yemen's president Hadi calls to stop media incitement campaigns

By Fatik al-Rodaini

SANA'A, May 5, 2012- Yemen's President Abdu Raboo Mansour Hadi called on Saturday the local media to stop the media incitement campaigns and to adopt the policy of the state and the government's policy.

In his a speech during the graduation ceremony of training courses in the Supreme Military Academy president Hadi urged the official of the local media to launch a policy based on the GCC proposal.

''The first step expected from the Gulf initiative' signatories is to stop the media incitement campaigns, and to launch media policy based on the consensus stipulated by the initiative to calm the crisis to begin the dialogue,'' president Hadi said.

Hadi stressed on the role of media to help to enroot the values of national unity and assist in detecting corruption if there is sufficient evidence.

President Hadi vowed to continue battles against al-Qaeda militants in Yemen's southern cities and return displaced people to their homes. "The battle has not started yet and will not end until cleansing all villages, then the displaced people can return homes,'' he said.

Hadi said his government would battle al-Qaeda and encourage "elements of the terror organization to give up their weapons and their ideas that are in contradiction to Islam".

The president also vowed to unify the Yemeni army, which was divided last year to pro-Saleh and anti Saleh units, saying that he will work to unify the divided army."I reiterate here that, by virtue of my authority and backed by the popular legitimacy of the constitution and laws, I will not allow the split in the armed forces to continue," Hadi stated.

President Abdu Raboo Mansour Hadi, who took office promising to fight al-Qaeda, is also facing challenges from Shi'ite Muslim rebels in the north and secessionists in the south.

Challenges facing Yemeni people

The real test will be their determination to achieve their goals peacefully

    Gulf News Editorial

May 5, 2012

Yemen today continues to be in a dangerous state as instability still reigns in the country. Yet the most important challenge is the fact that the country's future is alarmingly vague. Yemen should not be left to its fate and individuals who can only lead it into a state of chaos and disintegration.

It has been two months since a new president took power following protests and clashes with the former regime that left hundreds dead or wounded. That was a period of struggle as thousands of protesters risked their lives so that their voice for freedom and human rights could be heard.

But after so many deliberations between all the parties involved, the real question today is where the country stands. Is Yemen really on the path to development and nation-building that is inclusive? Or has it side-tracked on to the dangerous road of tribal fighting and political disunity?

There is no question that Yemenis understand how critical it is for the nation to move forward. Yet the ultimate test will be the determination of the people to attain their goals peacefully.

Ahmar gone, Ahmar remained; conflict of interest in Yemen

By Fatik al-Rodaini

SANA'A, May 5, 2012- After more than a year of political turmoil in Yemen, Yemenis started thanking deeply of their future after they forced ex-president Ali Abdullah Saleh to step down. But are the revolutionaries won their future especially after their dreams being hacked by the opposition coalition when they accepted to form an interim government with the General People's Congress, the former ruling party, opening the door wide to the ally of the former regime to stole and took all of their dreams. No doubt that al-Ahmar family and General Ali Mohssen al-Ahmar were the most beneficiary people of the youth revolution.

There is a say Yemenis always repeat that Sheikh Abdullah al-Ahmar before his death in 2007, he told the ex-president Ali Abdullah Saleh to take care of his sons after his death. However, the sons of Sheikh al-Ahmar deal with their father's will with careless replying to their father "you have to ask us to take care of Ali Saleh.''

Whether that the say was really or not, it reflected a reality that al-Ahmar's sons were look to Saleh's family with arrogance.

Former president of Yemen was also known as Ali Abdullah Saleh al-Ahmar.

Actually, there is a hidden conflict between al-Ahmar's family and Saleh's family, each one thinks that he is only the one who deserve to have the presidency in Yemen more than the other. The father of Sheikh Sadeq al-Ahmar, the eldest of 10 sons of the late Sheikh Abdullah al-Ahmar (who was the speaker of Parliament, leader of the Islah party, and paramount sheikh in Yemen prior to his death in 2007), was looking to Saleh as a strategic ally.

While you are the president, I still your Sheikh, as a matter of fact Sheikh al-Ahmar was the Sheikh of the president. For that reason al-Ahmar family dominated the power as same as the President Saleh.

So both of them retain enough power to the control the country, sometimes al-Ahmar family have more power than president Saleh himself and his family.

We can say that the country or (the pie) was divided between three families, al-Ahmar family, General Ali Mohssen, and the last one is the Saleh family. The three families keep the power and wealth for almost 33 years, but the equation is changed in 2007.

After the death of the Sheikh al-Ahmar in 2007, his sons tried keep the same power that they had had before at the time of their father life, but with the presence of Ahmed Ali who started cutting their wing throughout stopping a lot of economic projects belonged to al-Ahmar family specially the deal of oil and the company of cell phone and different projects which al-Ahmar family thought that they have the right to won, especially Hamid al-Ahmar, who according to one report, he is the chairman of Yemen’s main cell phone company, SabaFon; owns Saba Bank and Al-Nas press institute; and is the proprietor of local Kentucky Fried Chicken and Baskin-Robbins franchises.

The real conflict between the two families intensified after the election of 2006 when Hamid al-Ahmar, the longtime Saleh critic and member of the prominent al-Ahmar family supported another candidate to the presidential vote. That was for the first time when one of al-Ahmar family supported another candidate and not the family close allied president Ali Abdullah Saleh.

For years Hamid al-Ahmar has condemned Saleh’s ruling style, saying “We believe that power should be distributed, not continue [to be run] as a one-man show.” Unlike other opposition figures, Hamid al-Ahmar has sided with Yemeni protestors since the beginning of the unrest. He is a wealthy businessman who has benefited from his family’s prominence in Yemeni society and its good relations with neighboring Saudi Arabia.

Interestingly, despite the unlimited support of Hamid to another candidate the final result of the election was in favor of president Saleh, who won the vote with 67%.

When Hamid al-Ahmar lost the election battle with president Saleh he resorted to spreading the chaos across the country, according to a document published by Wikileaks website in 2009 said that Hamid al-Ahmar, Islah Party leader, prominent businessman, and de facto leader of Yemen’s largest tribal confederation, claimed that he would organize popular demonstrations throughout Yemen aimed at removing President Saleh from power unless the president "guarantees" the fairness of the 2011 parliamentary elections, forms a unity government with leaders from the Southern Movement, and removes his relatives from positions of power by December 2009. .

Ahmar told the American ambassador to Yemn on August 27 that Saleh is now more politically isolated than ever, deprived of the counsel and support of former allies, and beleagured by more threats to regime stability than he can handle. Ahmar said he would work hard in the coming months to convince Northwest Regional Commander Major General Ali Muhsin al-Ahmar, as well as the Saudi government, to support the opposition. By his own admission, however, Ahmar still lacks the necessary support, even within his own opposition Dialogue Committee, to launch broad-based anti-Saleh demonstrations.

Another problem intensified the conflict between the two families was the desire of president Saleh to succeed his son Ahmad Ali to lead the country after his father retired or at the end of his presidential in 2013, thus Hamid resorted to spreading chaos all over the country. When the Arab Spring came he exploited the climate and supported the youth, who most of them refused his presence as a political figure and some one of the leader of the youth revolution commented saying that “Someone like Hamid al-Ahmar wants to get rid of Saleh so he can have a larger piece of the pie. We will either oust a dictator to get another dictator. Or there will be civil war in Yemen.”

At the end of 2011 after the singing of president Saleh on the GCC proposal, Saleh left the political scene, therefore Hamid al-Ahmar and his family started depended on other personnel who guaranteed to them more interest on the ground.

After the formation of Yemeni government by Mohammed Salem Basndowa, the latest started carrying out the order of Hamid al-Ahmar, Basndowa first decision was stopping the ban of cell phone international and local call.

Not for that only al-Ahmar family started ordering the prime minister to have interest for them and for their allies; for example, Sheikh Hossen al-Ahmar, brother of Hamid, ordered prime ministers to allow one of his close friends to establish an electricity project in Yemen, exploiting Mohammed Salem Basndowa post as prime ministers to facilitate for al-Ahmar family what they want.

With having a person in the Yemeni government who is able to carry out al-Ahmar's interest, at this time they actually won the battle against Saleh and Yemeni revolutionaries lost their demands and their dreams.

I don't have any comment for that except what have been saying by an activist in Taiz city, after the joining of General Ali Mohssen to the protest last year, when he said bye –bye to another revolution.