Eighteen Kuwaiti activists detained by Israel returned home on Wednesday EPA

Officials in Israel say they have released about 700 activists seized from the Gaza aid flotilla and sent them for deportation.

The hundreds of activists detained on the boats and diverted to Israel have all been released for deportation, said Yron Zamir, a prisons authority
spokesman.

Zamir said all of the people had been taken to Ben Gurion airport or the Jordanian border.

Yehuda Weinstein, Israel’s attorney general, said Israel decided not to prosecute any of them, writing in an order on Wednesday that “keeping them here would do more damage to the country’s vital interests than good”.

Palestinian-Israelis detained

Ayman Mohyeldin, Al Jazeera’s correspondent in Jerusalem, said that four Palestinian-Israelis remained in prison.

Earlier on Wednesday, more than 100 of the activists, mostly from Arab countries, were driven by buses across the Allenby Bridge into Jordan.

Eighteen Kuwaiti activists detained by Israel returned home on Wednesday, accusing Israeli troops of having opened fire without warning.

The activists were flown home aboard a government plane from Jordan after crossing the border.

“Israeli commandos started shooting from the air without warning,” said Mubarak al-Mutawa, a lawyer who was on the main vessel, the Turkish-flagged Mavi Marmara.

“They killed a number of volunteers even before landing aboard the ship,” he said on arrival at Kuwait Airport.

Israel says its commandos opened fire in self defence when they encountered resistance from activists wielding metal rods and chairs, and released pictures which appeared to show a handful of soldiers being beaten and clubbed by dozens of activists.

‘Outrageous attack’

The UN Human Rights Council in Geneva, Switzerland, condemned Israel for its “outrageous attack”.

The 47-member body passed a resolution on Wednesday establishing a factfinding mission into possible international law violations.

Authorities said 682 people from more than 30 countries had been on board the six ships that tried to break Israel’s blockade of the Gaza Strip.

The activists included hundreds of Turks, four of whom were killed.

Turkey has warned it will cut off diplomatic ties with Israel if its citizens killed and injured in the Gaza flotilla raid are not returned by Wednesday night.

Ahmet Davutoglu, Turkey’s foreign minister, said 210 Turkish nationals were scheduled to be flown to Istanbul from Israel on Turkish planes, while it is believed around 20 injured people will return via Ankara, on ambulance planes.

Differing accounts

Sherine Tadros, Al Jazeera’s correspondent reporting from Beersheva in southern Israel, said that while nine people have been confirmed killed, no information had been made public about their identities.

The activists were killed when Israeli troops, using helicopters and dinghies, stormed the Mavi Marmara, the lead vessel of the six-ship convoy dubbed the Freedom Flotilla, on Monday.

Activists’ accounts of what happened contradict Israeli explanations of the raid.

Huseyin Tokalak, the captain of one of the seized ships who was freed on Tuesday, told a news conference in Istanbul that an Israeli navy ship threatened to sink his vessel before troops boarded and trained their guns on him and his crew.

“They pointed two guns to the head of each of us,” Tokalak said.

Others said that the soldiers had opened fire even after passengers had raised the white flag.

Al Jazeera’s Mohamed Vall, who was on board the Mavi Marmara and was released into Jordan on Wednesday morning, said the size of the Israeli attack surprised the ship’s passengers.

“The Israeli assault took those of us on the ship by complete surprise,” Vall said.

“We saw about 30 war vessels surrounding this ship, and helicopters attacking with very luminous bombs.

“More troops came and immediately opened fire, and killed people on the ship without any distinction.”

The UN Security Council has called for “a prompt, impartial, credible and transparent investigation conforming to international standards” into the Israeli raid.

Another vessel

As a new standoff with another aid ship loomed, David Cameron, the British prime minister, said Monday’s pre-dawn Israeli attack was “completely unacceptable”.

Israel remains defiant about the raid and says it is ready to intercept another aid ship, the Rachel Corrie, that organisers of the Freedom Flotilla planned to send to the Gaza Strip next week.

Accusing international critics of “hypocrisy,” Binyamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, defended the seizure of the aid ships on Wednesday.

In a televised address to the nation, he said he would continue to blockade Gaza, saying that to lift the embargo would turn it into a base for Iranian missiles that would threaten both Israel and Europe.

Amid the international condemnation, Egypt said it was opening the Rafah border it shares with Gaza, to allow in humanitarian aid after a request from the governing Hamas Palestinian faction.

Egypt, in co-ordination with Israel, has rarely opened the border since Hamas seized control of Gaza in 2007 from forces loyal to Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian president.

Abbas meanwhile criticised Israel’s actions as being “stupid, terrorist and ugly”.

Speaking in Bethlehem, Abbas said that “the way to seek peace has to start by Israel lifting the siege on Gaza, freezing all settlements without preconditions, and the recognition of international references”.

US relations

The bloodshed on Monday also put Israel’s tense ties with the US under further strain and placed under scrutiny the relationship between the allies.

Al Jazeera’s Anita McNaught, reporting from Istanbul, said Erdogan, in his speech, “mentioned the unmentionable, saying that Israel acts because it has powerful friends”.

The US has, thus far, refused to condemn the Israeli raid, with Hillary Clinton, the US secretary of state, telling reporters in Washington DC that “the situation from our perspective is very difficult and requires careful, thoughtful responses from all concerned”.

Clinton called on the Israeli government to ease the blockade of Gaza, saying that the “situation in Gaza is unsustainable and unacceptable”.

“Israel’s legitimate security needs must be met just as the Palestinian’s legitimate needs for sustained humanitarian assistance and regular access to reconstruction materials must also be assured,” she said.

]]> http://www.awakensource.com/2010/06/02/israel-deports-gaza-aid-activists/feed/ 0 http://www.awakensource.com/2010/01/08/egypt-deports-uk-mp-george-galloway/ http://www.awakensource.com/2010/01/08/egypt-deports-uk-mp-george-galloway/#comments Fri, 08 Jan 2010 19:49:40 +0000 Khattab http://www.awakensource.com/?p=979

Clashes broke out between the activists and police in El-Arish on Tuesday night

George Galloway, the British MP leading the Viva Palestina international aid convoy to the Gaza Strip, has been declared ‘person non grata’ by the Egyptian government and deported from the country.

The politician was picked up by Egyptian officials at the Rafah border crossing on Friday and driven to Cairo, the capital, where he was placed on a flight back to London.

On arriving at Heathrow airport, in the UK capital, Galloway said: “It’s always been a badge of honour to be deported by a tin-pot dictator and that’s what happened this morning.

“Having crossed the border from Gaza into Egypt … my friend and I were bundled into a car, 25 officers, accepting no dissuasion, drove us straight to the airport, basically forced us onto the plane.”

‘Incitement’

Galloway said that at the steps of the plane a representative of the foreign ministry in Egypt had told him he had been declared ‘persona non grata,’ was being deported and was not welcome to return to Egypt.

The Respect Party MP has been vocal in his criticism of Egyptian authorities in recent days after their decision not to allow the convoy of about 200 vehicles to arrive in Egypt through the port at Nuweiba.

Cairo insisted that the aid be sent back through Syria and then by ferry to the port of El-Arish on the Mediterranean.

Egypt’s foreign ministry later issued a statement on Friday confirming Galloway had been declared ‘persona non grata’ and would not be allowed to return to the country, accusing him of incitement over his criticism of the government.

An Egyptian police officer maintained that security personnel had only escorted Galloway for his own protection.

Arrests ordered

Seven other members of the Viva Palestinian convoy have also been ordered arrested after being accused of inciting riots in El-Arish.

The decision by the attorney-general in North Sinai means the activists could be detained after passing through the Rafah border crossing from Gaza.

It was not clear if they were in Egyptian custody on Friday.

Late on Tuesday, more than 50 people were wounded during a clash between Egyptian authorities and international members of the convoy.

The protests were sparked by an Egyptian decision to allow 139 vehicles to enter Gaza through the Rafah crossing, but requiring a remaining 59 vehicles to pass via Israel.

Afterwards, clashes between Egyptian security forces and Palestinians waiting for the aid convoy led to the death of one Egyptian policeman.

Israel and Egypt have severely restricted travel to and from the Gaza Strip since Hamas seized power there in June 2007, after winning Palestinian legislative elections in 2006.

The blockade currently allows only very basic supplies into Gaza.

The siege has severely restricted essential supplies and placed Gazans in a dire situation, made worse by Israel’s military assault last winter that reduced much of the territory to ruins.

Protests were held against the overturning of the ban on using the 'Allah' word in Christian literature

Four Christian churches in Malaysia have been attacked amid tensions over the use of the word “Allah” by non-Muslims in the country.

Attackers threw a molotov cocktail which failed to ignite at a church in the state of Selangor on Friday afternoon, media reports said.

The incident comes hours after a petrol bomb was thrown at a church in the capital, Kuala Lumpur, as well as attackers trying to set another two ablaze in a nearby suburb.

Police also recieved reports of cars displaying Christian symbols having their windscreens smashed in the suburb of Bangsar.

Hishammuddin Hussein, the home minister, appealed for calm and moved to assure religious groups in the country that “they are safe”.

“I take the events that happened last night very seriously,” he said.

“We want to assure the public that this was not a co-ordinated and well-planned action.”

Ruling suspended

A Malaysian court had last week overturned a government ban on non-Muslims using the word “Allah” in their literature, allowing Roman Catholic newsletter, the Herald, to use the term to refer to God in the Malay language.

The judge has since suspended the implementation of the ruling, after the government appealed and the Roman Catholic church agreed to the suspension.

Muslim groups held protests after prayers on Friday against the court overturning the “Allah” ban, despite a warning from Musa Hassan, the country’s police chief, advising organisers to “let this be handled by the court” and that he “will take action against anyone who acts to jeopardise national security”.

Muslims in Malaysia argue that the “Allah” is exclusive to Islam, and its use by Christians would confuse Muslims.

But Catholic church officials say that for Christian indigenous tribes in East Malaysia, who are the main readers of the Herald’s Malay-language edition, “Allah” is the only word they have known for God for decades.

Al Jazeera’s Harry Fawcett, reporting outside a mosque in the suburb of Kampung Baru, said that protests were held within the mosque compound.

“There was a lively crowd, but not a huge one. Some of the protest organisers filed complaints to local officials over the use of the word Allah in Christian literature,” he said.

Government powerless

Najib Abdul Razak, Malaysia’s prime minister, earlier said his government was powerless to stop the planned protests as long as protesters did not leave their mosques.

Marina Mahathir, a board member of the Sisters in Islam organisation and the daughter of the former prime minister Mahathir Mohamad, told Al Jazeera that many Malaysians are “deeply disappointed as to how this issue has been manipulated”.

“This issue goes beyond words and debate. I think many do not understand aspects of this religion, which is why there has been a lot of misinformation going around,” she said.

Fire in Friday’s first incident gutted the administrative office on the first floor of the three-storey Metro Tabernacle church, shortly after midnight.

Mohamad Sabtu Osman, the Kuala Lumpur police chief, said a witness saw four people on two motorcycles breaking the glass front of the church and throwing an incendiary object inside before fleeing.

Molotov cocktails were believed to be thrown into the compounds of two other churches in Petaling Jaya, just outside Kuala Lumpur, before dawn on Friday.

The attacks on the Assumption church and the Life Chapel caused minor damage, officials said.

Osman said there were no fatalities in the attacks and police were investigating, but added that it was premature to link the attacks on the churches to protests by Muslim groups over last week’s court ruling.

Heightened security

Lawrence Andrew, editor of the Herald, said many churches had employed extra security guards amid protest threats as a precaution for fear that matters “may just blow up”.

And police say they have stepped up security at churches nationwide following the attacks.

Musa, the police chief, said he had “instructed all patrol cars to patrol all church areas – we are monitoring all churches”.

Najib, the prime minister, condemned the attacks “because they will destroy our country’s harmony”.

“The government will take whatever steps it can to prevent such acts,” he said.

Salahuddin Ayub, a leader from the Islamic opposition party PAS, also condemned the attack, saying Islam does not allow followers to destroy houses of worship belonging to non-Muslims.

“Even during war, those who seek sanctuary in houses of worship cannot be killed or the buildings itself destroyed,” he was quoted as saying by the Malaysian Insider website.

Azmi Sharom, a columnist and law professor at Universiti Malaya, told Al Jazeera that “the unrest is not surprising because of the fact that the government has been pandering to these kinds of people for a long time”.

He said the government allowed some groups to protest when others were banned because the main ruling Umno party - which depends on the Malay/Muslim demographic to remain in power - was “unwilling to do anything which would seem to go against what they think is the Malay/Muslim desire”.

“This is a noisy demographic and it is potentially dangerous for Umno to alienate them, so this will be a real test for Najib’s administration,” he said.

Umar Abdulmutallab was on a 'no-fly' list but still managed to board a trans-Atlantic fight

A Nigerian man accused of trying to blow up a US plane on Christmas Day has entered a plea of not guilty during his first appearance in a US court.

Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, 23, made his first court appearance on Friday in the city of Detroit, to hear six charges over his botched attempt to set off a bomb stitched into his underwear on board a Northwest Airlines trans-Atlantic flight.

The 23-year remained mute during his brief appearance in the Detroit court, in which Mark Randon, a US magistrate, entered the not guilty plea on his behalf.

Tom Ackerman, Al Jazeera’s correspondent, said Abdulmutallab was indicted for attempted murder of the 290 people on board the plane.

“But this charge does not carry the longest sentence. Rather, the most serious of the six charges is trying to use a weapon of mass destruction”, he said.

Ackerman added that he may also be detained indefinitely for illegal alien entry to the US.

Security concerns

Allegedly linked to al-Qaeda, Abdulmutallab’s failed attack on a flight from Amsterdam to Detroit has triggered worldwide security alarm.

In particular, it has led the United States to adopt stringent new screening and security measures at airports. Dozens of names have also been added to no-fly lists.

Barack Obama, the US president, on Thursday ordered a sweeping overhaul of flawed intelligence services but said “ultimately the buck stops with me”.

Obama said intelligence agencies had the necessary information to prevent the bomb attempt but failed to connect and understand the disparate pieces of data.

The measures outlined at the White House included wider and quicker distribution of intelligence reports and stronger analysis of them, as well as tightened passenger screening and expanded watch lists.

But he warned that “there is, of course, no foolproof solution”.

‘Systemic failure’

The White House also released a report on Thursday of how the alleged bomber in the December 25 failed attack managed to elude the authorities and board the Detroit-bound plane with explosives.

The six-page summary of the report given to Obama stated that US intelligence officials had received unspecified “discreet pieces of intelligence” as early as October to identify the 23-year-old Nigerian as an al-Qaeda operative and keep him off the plane.

But officials did not increase their focus on the threat and did not pull together fragments of data needed to foil the scheme, said the summary.

Obama said the “incident was not the fault of a single individual or organisation, but rather a systemic failure across organisations and agencies”.

“I am less interested in passing out blame than I am in learning from and correcting these mistakes to make us safer. For ultimately the buck stops with me,” he added.

“As president I have a solemn responsibility to protect our nation and our people, and when the system fails, it is my responsibility.”

Paramilitary soldiers stand guard outside the US Consulate in Karachi.

Pakistani security forces have arrested five US citizens in the province of Balochistan near the country’s border with Iran.

Pakistani police said on Thursday that the Americans were carrying out suspicious activities along the border. They were driving in a car with fake license plates, police added.

The five Americans were freed after the US consulate in Karachi intervened and demanded their release. The US consulate apparently told police that the Americans enjoyed diplomatic immunity.

A number of US citizens, most of them armed, have recently been arrested in several Pakistani cities. But they were freed following interventions by the US embassy.

Blackwater's role in the Iraq war has been highly controversal

Seven lawsuits concerning alleged illegal activities that led to deaths in Iraq filed against the firm formerly known as Blackwater have been settled out of court in the US.

The company, now known as Xe, said in a statement that they were “pleased” with the settlement, which came after months of negotiations.

Susan Burke, the lawyer for the firm, filed for the cases to be dismissed in court late on Wednesday.

“This enables Xe’s new management to move the company forward free of the costs and distraction of ongoing litigation, and provides some compensation to Iraqi families,” the company said.

Further details of the settlement were not released by the court or Xe.

Dozens of Iraqis had accused the company of behaviour that led to a culture of recklessness and illegality, including the deaths of several people, and sought compensation through the courts.

“[Blackwater founder, Erik] Prince personally directed and permitted a heavily-armed private army … to roam the streets of Baghdad killing innocent civilians,” one civil lawsuits asserted.

‘Victory’

In one cited case, 17 Iraqis were left dead in 2007 in Nasoor Square in Baghdad, the capital, after alleged shooting by personnel from the security contractor.

“I feel like I achieved victory against the Blackwater firm,” Hassan Jabir, a lawyer who was injured in the Nasoor Square incident, said.

Jabir added that the victims’ families and those wounded in that shooting met lawyers in a Baghdad hotel about a week ago.

The lawsuits also included the killings of three people guarding the Iraqi Media Network in February 2007 and the 2006 killing of an Iraqi guard, amongst others.

The firm has faced intense scrutiny in the US and Iraqi chambers of government in past years.

Last week, a US federal court dropped the charges against the five contractors accused for the 2007 shooting deaths.

Nouri al-Maliki, the prime minister, has said that Baghdad will still bring them to account, but many Iraqi’s see that decision as a further indication that foreign contractors in the country have been allowed to act above the law.

Afghan arrests

Meanwhile, two former Blackwater contractors have been arrested on murder charges following the killings of two Afghans in 2009.

An indictment charges 27-year-old Justin Cannon and 29-year-old Chris Drotleff with second-degree murder, attempted murder and weapons charges. Both of them are in custody.

Both Cannon and Drotleff have said in recent interviews that they were justified when they opened fire on a threatening vehicle last year. Blackwater fired both men after the shooting for failing to comply with the terms of their contract.

Abbas reiterated that a total freeze on settlements was necessary for talks to progress

Israeli officials have pushed forward a project to build four new apartment blocks in occupied East Jerusalem, a move likely to heighten tensions with Palestinians amid US efforts to restart peace talks.

Meir Margalit, a Municipal councilman, confirmed on Tuesday that a local planning committee had approved the project, saying final approval could be granted in a matter of weeks.

The project is being developed by Irving Moskowitz, an American Jew who has funded Jewish settlers determined to cement Israel’s hold on the city.

Annexed by Israel in 1967, East Jerusalem is a major stumbling block in peace negotiations with the Palestinians, who want East Jerusalem as the capital of a future state.

Partial suspension

Israel’s settlement building has also stalled the peace process as Palestinians have demanded a complete settlement freeze before negotiations can continue.

“Our main demand before we return to negotiations is a complete halt to settlement,” Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian president, told Al Jazeera.

The Palestinian leader’s comments follow talks in Egypt with Binyamin Netanyahu, Israel’s prime minister, and Hosni Mubarak, the Egyptian president who is mediating the talks.

In November, Netanyahu announced a 10-month suspension on settlement building in the West Bank, but excluded East Jerusalem.

Israeli media reported officials in Netanyahu’s office as saying the Israeli prime minister was “encouraged” by the three-way meeting in the Egyptian resort city of Sharm el-Sheikh, but the continued settlement building makes progress on peace talks unlikely.

In his comments to Al Jazeera, Abbas reiterated the Palestinian position that Netanyahu’s temporary suspension of settlement building was inadequate.

“The agreement with the US administration and Netanyahu was a partial one; meaning there is halt for a temporary time – a ten-month period of time – and it excludes Jerusalem and excludes around 3,000 residential units in the West Bank and others,” he said.

“We have rejected this, and we still reject it.

“We want the Israeli government to completely halt settlement [building] in Jerusalem and in other areas, and, second, to recognise the international reference – or the roadmap plan – and the return to the 1967 border.”

Al-Shabab fighters and their allies control much of southern and central Somalia

The UN food agency has suspended aid distribution to about one million people in southern Somalia following threats of violence against its staff, officials said.

World Food Programme (WFP) officials said on Tuesday that attacks on aid operations and demands imposed by armed groups have made it “virtually impossible” to continue delivering food to people in the region.

“WFP’s humanitarian operations in southern Somalia have been under escalating attacks from armed groups, leading to this virtual suspension of humanitarian food distribution in much of southern Somalia,” the agency said in a statement.

“Staff safety is a key concern for WFP and recent attacks, threats, harassment and demands for payments by armed groups have decimated the humanitarian food lifeline.”

‘Threats and harassment’

Peter Smerdon, a WFP spokesman, said the agency hopes to resume operations as soon as possible.

“We are the biggest humanitarian agency operating in Somalia and we’ve been doing so for many years, but finally the threats and attacks on our operations and harassment of our staff was getting too much,” he told Al Jazeera.

“We are obviously deeply concerned about the welfare of the people of Somalia but the security of our staff is critical and thats why we’ve taken this step, which is very unfortunate.”

Somalia has not had an effective government since 1991, when Mohamed Siad Barre was overthrown by armed groups who then turned on each other.

Members of Somalia’s al-Shabab group and its allies, who are fighting to topple the UN-backed government, control much of southern and central Somalia.

Smerdon said al-Shabab fighters control 95 per cent of the territory where aid operations are now suspended.

“In November of last year, they set out 11 conditions for aid agencies to work in southern Somalia and these included such things as removing women from their jobs … and demands for payment of $20,000 every six months for security.

“So there have been these unacceptable demands and at the same time we’ve had an escalating series of threats, which has forced us to pull out.”

Geopolitical Chokepoint to Eurasia

On December 25 US authorities arrested a Nigerian named Abdulmutallab aboard a a Northwest Airlines flight from Amsterdam to Detroit on charges of having tried to blow up the plane with smuggled explosives. Since then reports have been broadcast from CNN to the New York Times that he was “suspected” to have been trained on his terror mission in Yemen. What the world has been subjected to since is the emergence of a new target for the US “War on Terror,” namely a desolate state on the Arabian peninsula, Yemen. A closer look at the background suggests the Pentagon and US intelligence have a hidden agenda in Yemen.

For some months the world has seen a steady escalation of US military involvement in Yemen, a dismally poor land adjacent to Saudi Arabia on its north, the Red Sea on its west, the Gulf of Aden on its south to the Arabian Sea, overlooking another desolate land that has been in the headlines of late, Somalia. The evidence suggests that the Pentagon and US intelligence are moving to militarize a strategic chokepoint for the world oil flows, Bab el-Mandab, and using the Somalia piracy together with claims of a new Al Qaeda threat arising from Yemen to militarize one of the world’s most important oil transport routes. As well, undeveloped petroleum reserves in the territory between Yemen and Saudi Arabia are reportedly among the world’s largest.

The 23-year-old Nigerian man charged with the failed bomb attempt, Abdulmutallab, reportedly has been talking, claiming he was sent on his mission by Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), based in Yemen. This has conveniently turned the world’s attention on Yemen as a new center of the alleged Al Qaeda terror organization.

Notably, Bruce Riedel, a 30-year CIA veteran who advised President Obama on the policy leading to the Afghan troop surge, wrote in his blog of the alleghed ties of the Detroit bomber to Yemen, “The attempt to destroy Northwest Airlines Flight 253 en route from Amsterdam to Detroit on Christmas Day underscores the growing ambition of al Qaedas Yemen franchise, which has grown from a largely Yemeni agenda to become a player in the global Islamic jihad in the last year…The weak Yemeni government of President Ali Abdallah Salih, which has never fully controlled the country and now faces a host of growing problems, will need significant American support to defeat AQAP.”i

Some basic Yemen geopolitics

Before we can say much about the latest incident, it is useful to look more closely at the Yemen situation. Here several things stand out as peculiar when stacked against Washington claims about a resurgent Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula organization.

In early 2009 the chess pieces on the Yemeni board began to move. Tariq al-Fadhli, a former jihadist leader originally from South Yemen, broke a 15 year alliance with the Yemeni government of President Ali Abdullah Saleh, and announced he was joining the broad-based opposition coalition known as the Southern Movement (SM). Al-Fadhli had been a member of the Mujahideen movement in Afghanistan in the late 1980’s. His break with the government was reported in Arab and Yemeni media in April 2009. Al-Fadhli’s break with the Yemen dictatorship gave new power to the Southern Movement (SM). He has since become a leading figure in the alliance.

Yemen itself is a synthetic amalgam created after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1990, when the southern Peoples’ Democratic Republic of Yemen (PDRY) lost its main foreign sponsor. Unification of the north, Yemen Arab Republic, and the southern PDRY state led to a short-lived optimism that ended in a brief civil war in 1994, as southern army factions organized a revolt against what they saw as the corrupt crony state rule of northern President Ali Abdullah Saleh, who has held a one-man rule since 1978, first as President of North Yemen or the Yemen Arab Republic and since 1990 as President of the unified new Yemen. That revolt failed as Saleh enlisted al-Fadhli and other Yemeni conservative Islam Salafists and jihadists to fight the formerly Marxist forces of the Yemen Socialist Party in the south.

Before 1990 Washington and the Saudi Kingdom backed and supported Saleh and his policy of Islamization as a bid to contain the communist south.ii Since then Saleh has relied on a strong Salafist-jihadi movement to retain a one-man dictatorial rule. The break with Saleh by al-Fadhli and his joining the southern opposition group with his former socialist foes marked a major setback for Saleh.

Soon after al-Fadhli’s joining the Southern Movement coalition, on April 28, 2009 protests in the southern Yemeni provinces of Lahj, Dalea and Hadramout intensified. There were demonstrations by tens of thousands of dismissed military personnel and civil servants demanding better pay and benefits, demonstrations that had been taking place in growing numbers since 2006. The April demonstrations included for the first time a public appearance by al-Fadhli. That served to change a long moribund southern socialist movement into a broader nationalist campaign. It also galvanized President Saleh, who then called on Saudi Arabia and other Gulf Cooperation Council states for help, warning that the entire Arabian Peninsula suffer the consequences.

Complicating the picture in what some call a failed state, in the north Saleh faces an al-Houthi Zaydi Shi’ite rebellion. In September 2009, Saleh accused Iran and Iraq’s Shi’ite opposition leader, Muqtada al-Sadr, of backing the north Yemen Shi’ite Houthist rebels in an Al-Jazeera TV interview, significantly on September 11. Yemen’s Saleh declared, “We cannot accuse the Iranian official side, but the Iranians are contacting us, saying that they are prepared for a mediation. This means that the Iranians have contacts with them [the Houthists], given that they want to mediate between the Yemeni government and them. Also, Muqtada al-Sadr in al-Najaf in Iraq is asking that he be accepted as a mediator. This means they have a link.”iii

Yemen authorities claim they have seized caches of weapons made in Iran, while the Houthists claim to have captured Yemeni equipment with Saudi Arabian markings, accusing Sana’a of acting as a Saudi proxy. Iran has rejected claims that Iranian weapons were found in north Yemen, calling claims of support to the rebels as baseless. iv

What about al-Qaeda?

The picture that emerges is one of a desperate US-backed dictator, Yemen’s President Saleh, increasingly losing control after two decades as despotic ruler of the unified Yemen. Economic conditions in the country took a drastic downward slide in 2008 when world oil prices collapsed. Some 70% of the state revenues derive from Yemen’s oil sales. The central government of Saleh sits in former North Yemen in Sanaa, while the oil is in former South Yemen. Yet Saleh controls the oil revenue flows. Lack of oil revenue has made Saleh’s usual option of buying off opposition groups all but impossible.

Into this chaotic domestic picture comes the January 2009 announcement, prominently featured in select Internet websites, that al-Qaeda, the alleged global terrorist organization created by the late CIA-trained Saudi, Osama bin Laden, has opened a major new branch in Yemen for both Yemen and Saudi operations.

Al Qaeda in Yemen released a statement on online jihadist forums Jan. 20, 2009 from the group’s leader Nasir al-Wahayshi, announcing formation of a single al Qaeda group for the Arabian Peninsula under his command. According to al-Wahayshi, the new group, al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, would consist of his former al Qaeda in Yemen as well as members of the defunct Saudi al Qaeda group. The press release claimed, interestingly enough, that a Saudi national, a former Guantanamo detainee, Abu-Sayyaf al-Shihri, would serve as al-Wahayshi’s deputy.

Days later an online video from al-Wahayshi appeared under the alarming title, “We Start from Here and We Will Meet at al-Aqsa.” Al-Aqsa refers to the al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem on what Jews know as Temple Mount, the site of the destroyed Temple of Solomon, which Muslims call Al Haram Al Sharif. The video threatens Muslim leaders including Yemeni’s President Saleh, the Saudi royal family, and Egyptian President Mubarak, and promised to take the jihad from Yemen to Israel, to “liberate” Muslim holy sites and Gaza, something that would likely detonate World War III if anyone were mad enough to do it.

In that video, in addition to al-Shihri who, according to the video was Guantanamo detainee 372, the video has a statement from Abu-al-Harith Muhammad al-Awfi, who was identified as a field commander in the video, and allegedly former Guantanamo detainee 333. As it is well-established that torture methods are worthless to obtain truthful confessions, some have speculated that the true task of CIA and Pentagon interrogators at Guantanamo prison since September 2001, has been to use aversive techniques to train sleeper or Manchurian candidate-type terrorists who can be activated on demand by US intelligence, a charge difficult to prove or disprove. The presence of two such high-ranking Guantanamo graduates in the new Yemen-based al Qaeda is certainly ground for questioning.

Al Qaeda in Yemen is apparently anathema to al-Fadhli and the enlarged mass-based Southern Movement. In an interview, al-Fadhli declared, “I have strong relations with all of the jihadists in the north and the south and everywhere, but not with al-Qaeda.”v That has not hindered Saleh from claiming the Southern Movement and Al-Qaeda are one and the same, a convenient way to insure backing from Washington.

According to US intelligence reports, there are a grand total of perhaps 200 al Qaeda members in southern Yemen. vi

Al-Fadhli gave an interview distancing himself from Al Qaeda in May, 2009, declaring, “We [in South Yemen] have been invaded 15 years ago and we are under a vicious occupation. So we are busy with our cause and we do not look at any other cause in the world. We want our independence and to put an end to this occupation.”vii Conveniently, the same day Al Qaeda made a large profile declaring its support for southern Yemen’s cause.

On May 14, in an audiotape released on the internet, al-Wahayshi, leader of al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, expressed sympathy with the people of the southern provinces and their attempt to defend themselves against their “oppression,” declaring, “What is happening in Lahaj, Dhali, Abyan and Hadramaut and the other southern provinces cannot be approved. We have to support and help [the southerners].” He promised retaliation: “The oppression against you will not pass without punishment… the killing of Muslims in the streets is an unjustified major crime.” viii

The curious emergence of a tiny but well-publicized al Qaeda in southern Yemen amid what observers call a broad-based popular-based Southern Movement front that eschews the radical global agenda of al Qaeda, serves to give the Pentagon a kind of casus belli to escalate US military operations in the strategic region.

Indeed, after declaring that the Yemen internal strife was Yemen’s own affair, President Obama ordered air strikes in Yemen. The Pentagon claimed its attacks on December 17 and 24 killed three key al Qaeda leaders but no evidence has yet proven this. Now the Christmas Day Detriot bomber drama gives new life to Washington’s “War on Terror” campaign in Yemen. Obama has now offered military assistance to the Saleh Yemen government.

Somali Pirates escalate as if on cue

As if on cue, at the same time CNN headlines broadcast new terror threats from Yemen, the long-running Somalia pirate attacks on commercial shipping in the same Gulf of Aden and Arabian Sea across from southern Yemen, escalated dramatically after having been reduced by multinational ship patrols.

On December 29, Moscow’s RAI Novosti reported that Somali pirates seized a Greek cargo vessel in the Gulf of Aden off Somalias coast. Earlier the same day a British-flagged chemical tanker and its 26 crew was also seized in the Gulf of Aden. In a sign of sophisticated skills in using western media, pirate commander Mohamed Shakir told the British newspaper The Times by phone, “We have hijacked a ship with [a] British flag in the Gulf of Aden late yesterday.” The US intelligence brief, Stratfor, reports that The Times, owned by neo-conservative financial backer, Rupert Murdoch, is sometimes used by Israeli intelligence to plant useful stories.

The two latest events brought a record number of attacks and hijackings for 2009. As of December 22, attacks by Somali pirates in the Gulf of Aden and the east coast of Somalia numbered 174, with 35 vessels hijacked and 587 crew taken hostage so far in 2009, almost all successful pirate activity, according to the International Maritime Bureaus Piracy Reporting Center. The open question is who is providing the Somali “pirates” with arms and logistics sufficient to elude international patrols from numerous nations?

Notably, on January 3, President Saleh got a phone call from Somali president Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed in which he briefed president Saleh on latest developments in Somalia. Sheikh Sharif, whose own base in Mogadishu is so weak he is sometimes referred to as President of Mogadishu Airport, told Saleh he would share information with Saleh about any terror activities might be launched from Somali territories targeting stability and security of Yemen and the region.

The Oil chokepoint and other oily affairs

The strategic significance of the region between Yemen and Somalia becomes the point of geopolitical interest. It is the site of Bab el-Mandab, one of what the US Government lists as seven strategic world oil shipping chokepoints. The US Government Energy Information Agency states that “closure of the Bab el-Mandab could keep tankers from the Persian Gulf from reaching the Suez Canal/Sumed pipeline complex, diverting them around the southern tip of Africa. The Strait of Bab el-Mandab is a chokepoint between the horn of Africa and the Middle East, and a strategic link between the Mediterranean Sea and Indian Ocean.” ix

Bab el-Mandab, between Yemen, Djibouti, and Eritrea connects the Red Sea with the Gulf of Aden and the Arabian Sea. Oil and other exports from the Persian Gulf must pass through Bab el-Mandab before entering the Suez Canal. In 2006, the Energy Department in Washington reported that an estimated 3.3 million barrels a day of oil flowed through this narrow waterway to Europe, the United States, and Asia. Most oil oil or some 2.1 million barrels a day goes north through the Bab el-Mandab to the Suez/Sumed complex into the Mediterranean.

An excuse for a US or NATO militarization of the waters around Bab el-Mandab would give Washington another major link in its pursuit of control of the seven major oil chokepoints around the world, a major part of any future US strategy of denial of oil flows to China, the EU or any region or country that opposes US policy. Given that significant flows of Saudi oil pass through Bab el-Mandab, a US military control there would serve to warn Riyadh were the Saudi Kingdom to become serious about future oil sales with China or others becoming priced no longer in dollars, as was recently reported by UK Independent journalist Robert Fisk.

It would also be in a position to threaten China oil flows from Port Sudan on the Red Sea just north of Bab el-Mandab, a major lifeline in China’s national energy needs.

In addition to its geopolitical position as a major global oil transit chokepoint, Yemen is reported to hold some of the world’s greatest untapped oil reserves. Yemen’s Masila Basin and Shabwa Basin are reported by international oil companies to contain “world class discoveries.”x France’s Total and several smaller international oil companies are engaged in developing Yemen oil production. Some fifteen years ago I was told in a private meeting with a well-informed Washington insider that Yemen contained “enough undeveloped oil to fill the oil demand of the entire world for the next fifty years.” Perhaps there is more to Washington’s recent Yemen concern than a rag-tag al Qaeda whose very existence as a global terror organization has been doubted by seasoned Islamic experts.

Endnotes:

Hillary Clinton said instability in Yemen could have 'global implications'

The US has offered to support the Yemeni government’s fight against al-Qaeda, saying instability in the country could have “global implications”.

Hillary Clinton, the US secretary of state, said on Monday that the US sees “global implications from the war in Yemen and the ongoing efforts by al-Qaeda in Yemen to use it as a base for terrorist attacks far beyond the region”.

But Yemen’s foreign minister ruled out direct US military intervention to tackle al-Qaeda fighters operating in his country.

“Yemen is going to deal with terrorism in its own way, out of its own interests and therefore I don’t think it will counter fire,” Abu Baker al-Qirbi told Al Jazeera on Monday.

Al-Qirbi said Yemen was happy to receive “development assistance” but not military intervention, adding: “The negative impact on Yemen is if there is direct intervention of the US and this is not the case.”

‘Not satisfied’

In her first comments since the attempted attack, she said the US administration was “not satisfied” with the Christmas Day incident.

Clinton told reporters after a meeting with Hamad bin Jassem al-Thani, the visiting Qatar prime minister, that she would discuss additional steps with other US administration members this week.

“[We] will be meeting with the president tomorrow to go over our international reviews, to hear what others in our government also have concluded and to take whatever additional steps are necessary.”

She said a meeting on Yemen planned to be held in London this month would give the international community a chance to assess both the threat in the Middle East country and the world’s response.

Clinton also said the US embassy in Yemen – which closed on Sunday along with the British, Spanish and French embassies due to unspecified al-Qaeda threats – would only reopen when security conditions permit.

Yemen is battling to control an al-Qaeda movement estimated to have hundreds of fighters in the country, as well as so-called Houthi rebels in the north of the country and a secessionist movement in the south.

Economic aid

Al-Qirbi told Al Jazeera that Yemen needed development aid to improve social conditions in the country.

“Economic growth is a necessity for Yemen because one of the main challenges facing Yemen is to improve the standards of living, create jobs and fight poverty because these are the elements that contribute to extremism in Yemen.

“Our first priority is development assistance and then we need also assistance to build and expand our counter-terrorism units,” he said.

“I know the Americans have committed more money for our counter-terrorism units and that is one area we need support in.”

Detroit attack

Over the weekend, Barack Obama, the US president, accused al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula of arming and training a Nigerian man accused of trying to blow up a US airliner bound for the city of Detroit on Christmas Day.

The Yemen-based group, which claims to be affiliated with Osama bin Laden’s organisation, had earlier claimed responsibility for the failed attack and called for strikes on embassies in Yemen.

Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula said the failed attack was in response to a series of raids in western Yemen, which the group says were carried out by US warplanes.

Washington and Sanaa have denied the claims.

The intensification of security efforts in Sanaa comes just days after the British government announced plans to join the US in funding an “anti-terrorist” force in Yemen.

Gordon Brown, the British prime minister, has said he would hold a meeting in London on January 28 to discuss how to counter radicalisation in Yemen.

On Monday at least two suspected al-Qaeda members were killed during a raid near Sanaa, and up to three other suspects wounded during the operation in the Arhab district, around 30km northeast of the capital.

Security concerns

Security officials told The Associated Press news agency the raid was not connected to the threats that prompted the Western embassy closures.

The Japanese embassy has also suspended consular activities and Yemeni authorities have increased security in the city.

John Brennan, the US president’s assistant for homeland security and counter-terrorism, warned on Sunday that “there are indications that al-Qaeda is planning an attack against a target in Sanaa”.

Hillary Mann-Leverett, a former US diplomat who worked at the national security council, told Al Jazeera that Yemen had long been a troubled state plagued by poverty and violence.

“The most important thing here for geopolitics globally and within the region, is that Yemen has been a fractured, desperately poor and deeply fractious country that all the countries in the region and the superpowers have used as a battleground,” she said.

But she also said the Obama administration’s policies towards the region were partially to blame for threats against Washington and its allies.

“We have given the Saudis a green light to militarily intervene in Yemen and to characterise what is happening in Yemen as a Sunni-Shia war [with] the Saudis there to defend the Sunnis against craven Shia,” she said.

“We’re paying the price today of outsourcing our policy to the Saudis.”