Yemen defense ministry denies news of mistakenly striking troopers

By Mohammed al-Kibsi

A Yemeni military source denied news that said government jetfighter mistakenly bombed an army position in southern Yemen, killing at least 30 soldiers and wounding others.

AP/ quoted an officials as saying that the bombing, which took place on Saturday evening in the southern Abyan province, targeted an abandoned school used as shelter by soldiers of the army's 119th Brigade. The school is located just east of Abyan's provincial capital Zinjubar, where militants linked to al-Qaeda have been in control since May.

The military source had said that the Yeeni forces of the southern region could clear large parts of Zinjubar last Saturday and that they killed scores of al-Qaeda.

The source said that the army in collaboration with the tribesmen of Abyan province could remove al-Qaeda fighters from Bagdar area and its suburbs adding that 3 troopers were killed and 8 others where sounded during the battles with al-Qaeda

AP said that the school  that was hit mistakenly by the Yemeni air force is in the Bagdar area, along the frontline between Yemeni forces and militants. On Saturday, fighting in Zinjibar killed at least 28 soldiers and militants.

Yemen presidential office welcomes White House's statement

Source: Yemen Observer

 An official source in the presidency office welcomed Saturday the statement of the White House on the significance of the cooperation between Yemen and the USA in the fight against terror.

Concerning what has been mentioned in the statement on the significance of starting transfer of power in Yemen immediately, the source said that was welcome in accordance with the Yemeni constitution, the Gulf-brokered initiative and its timeline executive mechanism.

"The one who kills Yemenis and resorts to violence against them is not the government. They are the outlaw elements who are allied with al-Qaeda," the source said.

The source concluded the statement with voicing his concern over the contents of some unstudied statements that encourage outlaws to perpetrate more sabotage and violence.

Inside Yemen: Hunger from Conflict, High Food Prices

News about Yemen is dominating the airwaves following the killing of the Al Qaeda leader there. Far less reported is the suffering of those displaced by the fighting between the government and Al Qaeda-linked militants.

Abeer Etefa of the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) just visited the southern port city of Aden and witnessed the terrible conditions in which displaced Yemenis are living.

WFP is bringing food assistance to around 90,000 people from southern Yemen who have been displaced by the ongoing conflict in Abyan governorate. Most of the families are now living in school buildings or with host families in the city of Aden. (World Food Programme video)

Relief for the displaced in Aden is part of WFP's larger operation to feed 2.5 million impoverished Yemenis impacted by high food prices. Even before this year's events unfolded, Yemenis struggled to afford food. Prices have gone up even further during the political unrest, forcing some families to skip meals. 

The WFP safety net mission is also providing food to malnourished children under five years of age and Food for Work projects to rehabilitate agriculture and infrastructure. There is one problem, though. WFP, which relies on voluntary donations, does not have enough funding to reach all those in need.

In addition, WFP needs more funding to feed over 400,000 displaced by years of fighting in Northern Yemen between the government and rebels. The fog is just lifting on the aftermath of this conflict as aid groups are starting to reach those previously cut off from humanitarian aid. Startling child malnutrition rates have been found.

Also, Food for Education programs which were previously cut because of the low funding need to be restarted and expanded to reach hundreds of thousands of more children.

The U.S. and its partners need to emphasize more of a food for peace approach when it comes to Yemen. Peace and stability are not founded upon empty stomachs, malnourished children, and the hopelessness that comes with hunger.

Yesterday there was also news that a shipment of plumpydoz, a food to treat malnourished children, was heading toward Yemen from the U.S. based company Edesia. WFP will distribute this food.

In a country with one of the highest child malnutrition rates, this is the best news they can get. But it's just a start. For there are many cases of child malnutrition remaining and plumpydoz and plumpynut foods will be needed in greater quantity. This takes on extra urgency with the state of conflict and political turmoil now ongoing in Yemen.

Father of slain terrorist wants to bury his son

Father of slain terrorist wants to bury his son
By Nasser Arrabyee

Yemeni father demanded the dead body of his son to bury him after he was killed in a US drone attack with three others as terrorists  in eastern Yemen, said tribal leaders on Saturday.

Dr Nasser Al Awlaki, father of the slain Anwar Al Awlaki,phone-called the tribal leaders of Al Jawaf, where his was killed,that he and  all Al Awlaki tribal leaders would come to take the remnants of their son.

However, tribal leaders said that the remnants of the four  slain terrorists were taken by Al Qaeda elements and not by the local tribesmen immediately after the drone attack of Friday in Al Jawf province.

" It's Al Qaeda elements who took the remnants and buried them not us, and they disappeared before the local tribesmen came to the site," said the tribal leader Abdullah Al Jamili,one of the tribal leaders who received phone calls from Al Awlaki's father.  

"Dr Nasser Al Awlaki called us today saying he is coming with all his tribesmen to take the remnants of his son," said Al Jamili.

"he said he wants to bury his son on his way," he added.

On Friday September 30th, 2011, An American drone strike in Yemen killed al-Qaeda's leading propagandist and other top leaders of its Arabian operations  dealing a massive blow to the branch of the terror organisation regarded as the greatest threat to Western security.

The deaths of Anwar al-Awlaki, Samir Khan and three senior associates were hailed by Barack Obama as a "major blow" to al-Qaeda's most active affiliate since the killing of Osama bin Laden and several other figures in the group's core.

"This is another significant milestone in the broader effort to defeat al-Qaeda," he said.

Awlaki "repeatedly called on individuals in the United States and around the globe to kill innocent men, women and children to advance a murderous agenda", he claimed.

The US president said America had worked with Yemen for a long time tracking Awlaki, but declined to comment on his role in the killing of the American-born militant.

Five bodies were recovered from the site and Western officials believe al-Qaeda's master bombmaker in the Arabian Peninsula may also have been killed.

Awlaki, 40, was the first American citizen targeted by his own government in the absence of criminal charges.

As a charismatic spokesman for the terrorists, who spoke fluent English, he inspired attacks against the West by inspiring "lone wolf" operators.

He was killed by a Hellfire missile fired from an unmanned drone while travelling with fellow terrorists near Khasaf, a desert town in Jawf province, 87 miles east of the capital Sana'a.

Samir Khan, an American citizen of Pakistani origin who edited al-Qaeda's online magazine Inspire, was described as "irreplaceable" in the short term.

Reports last night said the bomb maker Ibrahim Hassan al-Asiri was also killed in the vehicle. If confirmed, it would mean the foreign operations of al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) had been wiped out.

American officials said the strike was the product of a "joint intelligence operation" with the Yemeni government, which exerts only partial control over the tribal hinterland outside Sana'a.

There were suggestions that Awlaki had moved to a new region and informants provided the crucial intelligence.

Officials in Washington said there had been a round-the-clock surveillance operation on Awlaki since a drone strike missed its target recently.

After his vehicle "drove through" a strike in September, a team drawn up from the CIA and the Joint Special Operations Command had followed him.

The same officials that planned and carried out the attack on Osama bin Laden in Abbottabad, Pakistan, were involved in tracking and closing in on the AQAP leadership. One tribal chief in the area said US aircraft had been patrolling Marib for the past few days.

One witness said Awlaki and his associates had been eating dates on a break in the journey just before the attack.

"US planes have been overhead for days now," a resident said. "Then this morning at about 9:30 what appeared to be a US aircraft fired on the two cars Awlaki and his fellow operatives are believed to have been travelling in."

President Ali Abdullah Saleh, of Yemen, returned to Sana'a after a lengthy stay in Saudi Arabia for medical treatment.

American politicians united to celebrate the death of the "American jihadist" who posed a unique challenge to the place of his birth.

"For the past several years, Awlaki has been more dangerous even than Osama bin Laden had been," said Peter King, Republican House of Representatives Homeland Security Committee Chairman. "The killing of Awlaki is a tremendous tribute to President Obama and the men and women of our intelligence community,"

Mr Obama authorised the US military to target Awlaki last year, a controversial and legally fraught move in light of his US citizenship.

Awlaki inspired several attacks, including the 2009 Christmas underwear bomber, an attack in Fort Hood military base by a US army major and the stabbing of Stephen Timms, the MP for East Ham.

Members of his former mosque in Virginia said Awlaki appeared to have embraced al Qaeda while he lived in Britain between 2003 and 2006 before moving to Yemen.

Ron Paul, a Republican presidential candidate, said the execution of an American citizen on the battlefield set a bad precedent.

One official said Awlaki was involved in the printer bomb packages found at East Midlands airport last year.

The Yemeni outfit had developed bombs that contained no metal and were so hard to detect that police missed the material on first inspection.

To distract police, Awlaki put a copy of Great Expectations in the packages. His finger prints were found on the book.

Nigel Inkster, a former deputy head of MI6, said Awlaki "was the ideologue of al-Qaeda".

"He was very influential because he able to groom and animate so many," he said. "While everyone else in al-Qaeda was dumbstruck by the Arab Spring, he was the one person able to embrace the tsunami that hit the region."

Awlaki's family is well-known in Yemen and his father is a former agriculture minister. Lawyers for Nasser al-Awlaki last year petitioned an American judge for an injunction against the kill order but the case was dismissed.

Awlaki is a former imam of mosques frequented by September 11 hijackers in Denver, San Diego and Virginia.

Dar Al-Hijrah Islamic Centre in Virginia where he preached condemned Awlaki's death.

"We have rejected the use of extrajudicial assassination of any human being and especially an American citizen which includes al-Awlaqi," it said.

President Saleh: We are ready to sign the GCC initiative as a whole

Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh has sat down for a interview with The Washington Post and Time Magazine in Sana’a.

Q: We would like to inquire about your health. Do you have any indications of who might have been behind the terrorist attack that nearly killed you on June 2?

SALEH: Thank you for asking about my health. About the incident, there has been an exchange of information between us and the United States. And they promised us they would analyze the subject by the end of September. So we are still waiting for the analysis from Washington.

Q: You have authorized your deputy, Abdo Rabbo Mansour Hadi, to sign the GCC initiative. Why don’t you do it yourself, now that you are here? And if you could explain to me what is holding up the agreement, and how close is the government to signing it?

SALEH: First of all, the vice president was delegated according to a Republican declaration. And there isn’t any reason for it not to go through, whether I am in the country or out of it. There is nothing that would stop this declaration from going through.

Q: How close is the vice president to signing the agreement?

SALEH: The vice president is waiting for the other side. We are ready to sign the GCC initiative as it is. However, the Joint Meetings Parties say that they want from this initiative one point: that the president or the vice president signs and that within 30 days the president leaves power. And then the 60 days that the GCC has mentioned — they say that is not enough for elections. What is important to the JMP is to remove the president from power, and the country would then go through chaos. We are ready and willing to sign at any time. But we need to sign the GCC initiative as a whole, and we need timelines for the mechanism of executing it. We are not holding onto power, we are willing to leave power as stated in the agreement, within the days and hours that will be agreed upon.

Q: Yet many say you are stalling to sign the Gulf initiative.

SALEH: This is a misunderstanding. We are willing within the next hours and next days to sign it, if the JMP comes closer. We don’t want to prolong it. And we don’t want this crisis to continue. We want this country to get out of this crisis.

Q: And you are still committed to not running again when there are elections?

SALEH: As for me, I will retire — since the opposition has helped bring the president closer to retirement through the criminal act that happened at the presidential mosque.

Q: In recent days there has been heavy public criticism of you by Maj. Gen. Ali Mohsen as well as the Ahmar clan. What is your response to this public criticism, and given the violence and mistrust that is unfolding, is it possible for all of you to remain in Yemen and work together?

SALEH: What kind of criticism?

Q: General Ali Mohsen put out a statement just the other day saying that you were driving the country to civil war.

SALEH: They make such statements every day. They are the ones who attack the military bases, the civilians and the protesters — the protesters who are moving around the city with the protection of Ali Mohsen and the Ahmars, using armed people. And they assassinate protesters from behind so they can blame the state. And I believe that the American intelligence is following this up and keeping a close eye on it and that they know exactly what is going on.

Q: So can you live together with them in the future?

SALEH: To be able to live with the other political powers, yes, there is no problem. But whoever was involved in the presidential attack and the incident two weeks ago that happened in Zubeiri Street ... that resulted in casualties of both soldiers and civilians — regardless of who they are or what their positions are, we have to bring them before the law.

Q: There are international condemnation for using violent against protesters. Why has the state resorted to such measures?

SALEH: This kind of action is not possible in Yemen. The constitution has given the right to Yemenis to gather and protest and to express their views through the media. But these actions . . . these actions were performed by a group of people that wanted the blame to end up falling on the state. They claimed that they are protecting the protesters and ended up shooting them and using these actions. There is a sort of trend, a media trend, by some of the media to call for the toppling of regimes and their replacement by nationalists, socialists and various other movements. And now they are moving toward Islamists, and a big evidence for that is they are making propaganda about the regime in Sanaa. They are saying that the government is the one that is oppressing the protesters, whereas the protesters are the ones who are oppressing the state itself by their actions. We are fighting the al-Qaeda organization in Abyan in coordination with the Americans and Saudis. At the same time, American intelligence has knowledge that al-Qaeda is in contact with both the Muslim Brotherhood and the military officers who are outlaws. And they told the vice president, “Give us Abyan, and we will stop the war in Abyan and the al-Qaeda network there.”

Q: Do you think Gen. Ali Mohsen and the Ahmars should be prosecuted?

SALEH: This depends on the results of investigation and analysis that are coming from Washington.

Q: And will you transfer power if they are still in positions of influence?

SALEH: The GCC initiative is clear. It says to remove all the elements causing tensions. If we transfer power and they are there, this will mean that we have given in to a coup. If we transfer power and they are in their positions and are still decision makers, this will be very dangerous. This will lead to civil war.

Q: I want to ask you about Yemeni-U.S. relations.

SALEH: The Yemeni-American relationship is good. In fact, it has not been affected during the past 33 years. And we have relationships with many political powers in Washington, both in the Democratic Party and the Republican Party. There have been some differences during the last Gulf war because of the Yemeni stance, but then the Americans realized that we were right and that we were not just defending the Iraqi regime. and these were accusations by analysts, diplomats and so on that turned out not to be true. I am addressing the American public. I want to ask a question: Are you still keeping your commitment to continue operations against the Taliban and al-Qaeda? If Washington is still with the international community in fighting the Taliban and al-Qaeda, who have disturbed the world peace, that will be good. But what we see is that we are pressed by America and the international community to speed up the process of handing over power. And we know where power is going to go. It is going to al-Qaeda, which is directly and completely linked to the Muslim Brotherhood.
Source: Saba news agency

Government Reforms Enhance Economic Opportunities for Women

 Source: Yemen Observer

A new report from the World Bank and IFC released today finds that women still face legal and regulatory hurdles to fully participating in the economy.

Women, Business and the Law 2012: Removing Barriers to Economic Inclusion finds that while 36 economies reduced legal differences between men and women, 103 out of 141 economies studied still impose legal differences on the basis of gender in at least one of the report’s key indicators. The report also identifies 41 law and regulatory reforms enacted between June 2009 and March 2011 that could enhance women’s economic opportunities.

Globally, women represent 49.6 percent of the population but only 40.8 percent of the workforce in the formal sector. Legal differences between men and women may explain this gap. The report shows that economies with greater legal differentiation between men and women have, on average, lower female participation in the formal labor force.

“Competitiveness and productivity have much to do with the efficient allocation of resources, including human resources,” said Augusto Lopez-Claros, Director, Global Indicators and Analysis, World Bank Group. “The economy suffers when half of the world’s population is prevented from fully participating. It is certainly no surprise that the world’s most competitive economies are those where the opportunity gap between women and men is the narrowest.” 

The report measures such things as a woman’s ability to sign a contract, travel abroad, manage property, and interact with public authorities and the private sector. In all economies, married women face more legal differentiations than unmarried women. In 23 economies, married women cannot legally choose where to live, and in 29 they cannot be legally recognized as head of household.

Every region includes economies with unequal rules for men and women, although the extent of the inequality varies widely. On average, high-income economies have fewer differences than middle- and low-income economies. The Middle East and North Africa have the most legal differences between men and women, followed by South Asia and Africa. In Africa, a notable exception is Kenya, which leads globally with the most gender-parity reforms during the past two years. Regionally, the most improvements in gender parity occurred in Latin America and the Caribbean, Europe and Central Asia.

About the Women, Business and the Law Project:

The project measures how regulations and institutions differentiate between women and men in ways that may affect women’s incentives or capacity to work or to set up and run a business. Women, Business and the Law objectively measures such legal differentiations on the basis of gender in 141 economies around the world, covering six areas: accessing institutions, using property, getting a job, providing incentives to work, building credit, and going to court. While the project provides a clear picture of gender gaps based on legal differences in each economy, it is a simple snapshot measuring only legal differentiation. It does not capture the full extent of the gender gap, nor does it indicate the relative importance of each aspect covered. For a collection of national legal provisions impacting women's economic status in 183 economies.

Yemeni boy dies after al-Qaeda cut off his hand

Source: AFP

A 15-year-old boy died in Yemen overnight after al-Qaeda militants severed his right hand as punishment for allegedly stealing electric cables, a medic said.

Maher Ali's hand had been severed by sword on Saturday by the militants in front of dozens of residents of Ja’ar,  town in Abyan province, witnesses and medics said.

Ali had "died of wounds he sustained when al-Qaeda militants cut off his hand, after losing "too much blood," the medical official told AFP on condition of anonymity.

The teenager was one of two Yemenis to have had their hands cut off by Qaeda militants for stealing in recent days. The second, a 26-year-old man, had his hand cut off on Sunday.

"They brought in the accused with a doctor who drugged him and cut off his right hand," one witness told AFP.

In both cases, militants paraded the limbs to residents of Jaar, demonstrating their fate if they were caught stealing.

Under a very strict interpretation of Islamic law, theft is punishable by cutting off the thief's hand.

Since May, al-Qaeda linked militants known as the Partisans of Sharia (Islamic Law) have taken control of several towns in Abyan, including the province's capital Zinjibar.

On September 10, the Yemeni government announced its troops had regained control over Zinjubar but officials later told AFP parts of the city remained in militant hands.

The town of Ja’ar is the stronghold of AQAP in south Yemen.