Activists, conflict area residents cite concerns with defected military protection

By Shuaib M. al-Mosawa

Source: Yemen Observer

Political activists and supporters of the youth protesters voiced concerned over the deteriorating security situation in the most battled areas in the capital Sana’a.

Political activist and journalist Muhammed Al-Makaleh said that both the defected military and the government forces are “sharing the citizen their privacy and personal lives.” Al-Makaleh who is living in the conflict area of Hayel Street said:

“Both [the defected military and government forces] are battling over the heads of Yemenis.” Rivals have been battling since late September around the change Square areas- in Kentucky Roundabout, Hayel Street, and Al-Qa’a area.

General Ali Muhsin al-Ahmar has since March cast his lot with the youth protesters against the regime. He has pledged to protect the youth protesters, deploying loyal troops around the Change Squares. “You cannot just say there is a military that support the peaceful revolution,” al-Makaleh said, “ it [the defected military] is the Islah party’s army that wants the revolutionaries to carry it on their shoulders… , which serves the defected military’s interests and not the revolutionaries’…”

Al-Makaleh said that the defected military has recruited militants in every war launched against the al-Houthi rebels up in the north province in Sa’adah, where the Yemeni forces, led by the General al-Ahmar, fought the al-Houthis of the Shiite Islam form 2004-2011.

I have no personal hostility with the defected General al-Ahmar, Al-Makaleh said; rather, all people have expressed their refusal to him.

Nazeeh Al-Emad, the Ruling Party Legal Advisor who sided with the youth protest in March, said that there is ongoing fighting in his area, Hayel, the site of the most areas affected by the recent fighting between government troops and defected General’s loyalists. Al-Emad cited similar sentiment over the General Al-Ahmar’s role in the youth protest. “The problem is that Ali Muhsin has not sided with the revolution; he has stripped the revolution of its peacefulness. The revolution has achieved nothing since March 21 [the day on which the defected general sided with the protesters].”

There are other roles the youth activists have attacked. Al-Makaleh criticized the way the opposition media outlets have been exposing the protesters corpses. “Exposing the protesters corpses day and night is an insult for their dignity. It’s rather an emotional blackmail in order to seek money…”

Now the security situation around the Change Square area seemed to have escalated again. Al-Emad, who was speaking from the Hayel Street, said that armed confrontations were taking place. Al-Emad said: “The defected military have made our houses shields to protect their armored vehicles. We demand now they leave our areas. We should be able to protect ourselves and revolution.”