Al-Qaida's al-Awlaki killed in airstrike

File - This October 2008 file photo by Muhammad ud-Deen
shows Imam Anwar al-Awlaki in Yemen. Yemen's Defense Ministry
said in a statement Friday Sept. 30, 2011 the U.S.-born al-Qaida cleric
Anwar al-Awlaki has been killed. (AP Photo/Muhammad ud-Deen, File)

SANAA, Yemen (AP) — The Yemeni government has released an official statement saying the U.S.-born al-Qaida cleric Anwar al-Awlaki has been killed. The government says al-Awlaki was targeted and killed 5 miles (8 kilometers) from the town of Khashef in the Province of al-Jawf. The town is located 87 miles (140 kilometers) east of the capital Sanaa. The statement says the operation was launched on Friday around 9:55 a.m. It gave no other details. If the death is confirmed, al-Awlaki would be the most prominent al-Qaida figure to be killed since Osama bin Laden's death in a U.S. raid in Pakistan in May. 

Copyright 2011 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

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Suicide bomber kills 9 Yemeni troops

ADEN — A suicide bomber Sunday detonated a truck packed with explosives at an army camp in Aden, killing nine soldiers, a military source said, amid raging battles between troops and Islamist militants.

The defence ministry blamed Al-Qaeda for the massive blast, which soldiers said tore through military vehicles as they were leaving the army camp.

The military source said that nine people were killed and 21 others wounded in the blast, and that some of the wounded were in serious condition, including four who were evacuated by helicopter to the capital Sanaa.

A text message from the defence ministry's news service received by AFP said that the bomber was from Al-Qaeda, but put the toll at four killed rather than nine.

The attack comes just days after another bombing in Aden, the main city in southern Yemen, in which British marine surveyor David Mockett was killed. A Yemeni intelligence officer said that bombing carried "the fingerprints of Al-Qaeda."

Yemen's volatile south has been wracked by fighting between troops and Islamist militants suspected of ties to Al-Qaeda, with at least 12 soldiers killed in the past week alone at Zinjibar, capital of Abyan province, northwest of Aden.

Those killings came after Ayad al-Shabwani, a leader of the Yemen-based Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, or AQAP, died during fighting near Zinjibar on Tuesday, a military official said, adding that dozens of soldiers had been wounded.

Soldiers told AFP that Sunday's blast occurred as troops prepared to leave the army camp for Abyan province.

One soldier said the attack was by a suicide bomber whose pickup truck exploded as two personnel carriers were exiting the facility, with the first military vehicle bearing the full brunt of the blast.

Another soldier said that troops were preparing to leave for Abyan when the vehicle had come "in front of the gate of the camp, and then there was a huge explosion".

A lieutenant colonel was among those killed, according to a medic.

Militants belonging to a group called the "Partisans of Sharia (Islamic law), which has been linked to Al-Qaeda, took over much of Zinjibar, the capital of Abyan province, in May.

Thousands of people have been displaced by fighting in Zinjibar between security forces and the militants.

Yemen's Deputy Information Minister Abdo al-Janadi said on Thursday that the United States had provided logistical support to the Yemen military's 25th Mechanised Brigade, which was until recently besieged by the militants in Zinjibar.

US commanders have repeatedly expressed concern that the jihadists have been taking advantage of a protracted power vacuum in Sanaa to expand their operations.

Since January, protesters have been demanding the ouster of veteran President Ali Abdullah Saleh, in hospital in Saudi Arabia since early June for wounds sustained in a blast at his palace.

Source: The RAW Story

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Blast at Yemen explosives factory kills 78

SANAA, Yemen (AP) — A powerful blast at a factory making explosives and weapons in southern Yemen killed at least 78 people on Monday after the facility was briefly taken over by Islamic militants and then looted by residents of the area, officials said.

Many women and children from the surrounding villages were killed in the explosion, which left bodies blackened and burned, said medical and security officials in Abyan province. The blast appeared to be accidental, and one factory worker said it was caused by a looter who dropped a lit cigarette that ignited a heap of gunpowder.

The tragedy was rooted in Yemen's rapidly deteriorating security under a surge of unprecedented protests that threatens to topple the autocratic president who has ruled the impoverished and divided nation for 32 years.




    

On Sunday, militants took over the factory and the nearby the town of Jaar, taking advantage of the growing lawlessness in a part of Yemen that was already largely beyond the government's reach. Like several other parts of Yemen, police and security forces there had melted away in the face of the political unrest.

An anti-government protestor is lifted by others, holds his national flag and shouting slogans during a demonstration demanding the resignation of Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh, in Sanaa,Yemen, Monday, March 28, 2011. Yemen's president, clinging to power despite weeks of protests, scrapped an offer to step down by year's end on Sunday, as Islamic militants taking advantage of the deteriorating security took control of another southern town. Arabic reads on the demonstrator's chest, "Leave for the sake of Yemen's future". (AP Photo/Muhammed Muheisen)

The militants are adherents of the ultraconservative Islamic movement known as Salafism. The allegiance of their particular group is bought by Yemen's government, while other Salafis agitate for the its overthrow and the establishment of Islamic rule. Nonetheless, seeing an opening to seize weaponry, the group took what they wanted and left.

They made off with two armored cars, a tank, several pickup trucks mounted with machine guns and ammunition, said 28-year-old factory worker Hakim Mohammed.

Later, dozens of locals entered the facility and looted whatever they could find, including cables, doors and vehicle fuel, Mohammed said.

The factory makes munitions, Kalashnikov assault rifles and explosives used in road construction in the mountainous area.

Some of the looters emptied large barrels of gunpowder because they wanted to use the containers for storing water, Mohammed said. A cigarette ignited what he said were massive piles of the explosive.

Among the wounded, 27 people were in critical condition, said officials at al-Razi hospital in Jaar. They spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to journalists.

Chinese specialists working at the factory left several days ago because of the political turmoil and the absence of security in the area, said resident Walid Mohammed Muqbil.

Another resident, Seif Mohammed, said the blast could be heard 10 miles (15 kilometers) from the factory.

Yemen has been hit by weeks of unrest and unraveling security as protesters throughout the country demand the president's ouster and the introduction of political freedoms. A government crackdown has killed 92 protesters, according to the Shiqayiq Forum for Human Rights.

As the situation has escalated, police and security forces have withdrawn from some towns and cities in Yemen, chased out by protesters in some cases.

The area around the weapons factory was one of the places where units abandoned their posts.

The deputy governor of Abyan province, Saleh al-Samty, blamed the national government for the tragedy, saying it was a result of the lack of order resulting from the security pullback.

Copyright 2011 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

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Yemeni leader says he'll step down by year's end

SANAA, Yemen (AP) — Yemen's embattled U.S.-backed president pledged to step down more than a year early but refused to immediately resign on Tuesday, infuriating tens of thousands of demonstrators demanding his ouster.

The opposition said it would not accept President Ali Abdullah Saleh's offer to resign by year's end in response to nationwide anti-government protests, which have swelled dramatically since security forces opened fatally shot more than 40 demonstrators on Friday.

"The president's statements are just another political maneuver," said chief opposition spokesman Mohammed al-Sabri. "What was acceptable yesterday is not acceptable for us today."

Anti-government protestors shout slogans and raise banners during a demonstration demanding the resignation of Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh, in Sanaa, Yemen, Tuesday, March 22, 2011. Yemen's embattled U.S.-backed president said Tuesday that a military coup would lead to civil war and pledged to step down by year's end but not hand power to army commanders who have joined the opposition. (AP Photo/Muhammed Muheisen)

The standoff pushed Yemen closer to open confrontation between the two sides, fueling Western fears that Saleh's 32-year-old regime could be replaced by chaos, or a leadership less likely to cooperate with U.S. military operations against the local branch of al-Qaida.

Anger at Friday's shootings splintered Saleh's remaining support among the country's most powerful institutions, and influential clerics, tribal leaders and military commanders all began calling for his departure. Some of the country's most senior army officials declared their loyalty to the opposition on Monday.

Saleh responded with a concession, pledging in a meeting with senior officials, military commanders and tribal leaders on Monday evening that he would to step down by the end of the year. He tried to placate demonstrators by promising this month not to run again, or let his son replace him, when his term ends in September 2013.

A presidential spokesman, Ahmed al-Sufi, said Salah also pledged not to hand power to the military.

The president hardened his position on Tuesday, saying the defection of commanders including his chief military adviser, Maj. Gen. Ali Mohsen al-Ahmar, was a "mutiny and a coup against constitutional legitimacy."

"Any dissent within the military institution will negatively affect the whole nation," Saleh said in a nationally televised warning to a meeting of Yemen's Supreme Council of the Armed Forces. "The nation is far greater than the ambition of individuals who want to seize power."

Protesters massed by the tens of thousands Tuesday afternoon in the downtown Sanaa plaza they have dubbed "Taghyeer," or "Change" square. Crowds ululated, chanted and painted each other's faces in the red, white and black colors of the national flag. Conservative tribesmen bought their wives to the protest, and the women bought their children, all basking in a carnival atmosphere.

"The revolution has crossed its most difficult period," said activist Bashir al-Sid, smiling. "All that remains is the easy part."

Demonstrators began demanding Saleh's ouster more than a month ago, inspired by the wave of people power sweeping through the Middle East. His troops and loyalists have killed more than 80 demonstrators throughout Yemeni cities, according to an Associated Press tally of eyewitness, opposition and official accounts.

Al-Ahmar's defection was followed by a flurry of resignations by army commanders, ambassadors, lawmakers and provincial governors.

Al-Ahmar, commander of the army's powerful 1st Armored Division, deployed tanks and armored vehicles at the Defense Ministry, the TV building, the Central Bank and Taghyeer square, the demonstrator's epicenter.

In response, the Republican Guards, an elite force led by one of Saleh's sons, deployed troops backed by armor outside the presidential palace on the capital's southern outskirts.

Calling Al-Ahmar's defection "a turning point," Edmund J. Hull, U.S. ambassador to Yemen from 2001 to 2004, said it showed "the military overall ... no longer ties its fate to that of the president."

"I'd say he's going sooner rather than later," Hull said.

The Qatar-based Al-Jazeera network said its Yemen offices were broken into late Monday by 20 armed men who used a mechanical drill to open the door before seizing its main satellite uplink equipment, computers, TV cameras and closed-circuit surveillance cameras.

Jazeera said it had asked the Yemeni interior ministry three days ago to protect the bureau and its staff the network's journalists were threatened. The ministry did not respond, the network said.

In a sign of the Obama administration's growing alarm over the regime's crackdown on demonstrators, State Department spokesman Mark Toner called for "a cessation of all violence against demonstrators," saying Saleh should "take the necessary steps to promote a meaningful dialogue that addresses the concerns of his people."

The 65-year-old president and his government have faced down many serious challenges in the past, often forging fragile alliances with restive tribes to extend power beyond the capital. Most recently, he has battled a seven-year armed rebellion in the north, a secessionist movement in the south and an al-Qaida offshoot that is of great concern to the U.S.

Al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula, formed in 2009, has moved beyond regional aims and attacked the West, including sending a suicide bomber who tried to down a Detroit-bound airliner on Christmas Day with a bomb sewn into his underwear. The device failed to detonate properly.

Yemen is also home to U.S.-born radical cleric Anwar al-Awlaki, who is believed to have offered inspiration to those attacking the U.S., including Army Maj. Nidal Hasan, who is accused of killing 13 people and wounding dozens in a 2009 shootout at Fort Hood, Texas.

Copyright 2011 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

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Yemeni president's own tribe demands he step down

SANAA, Yemen (AP) — Tens of thousands of people joined a funeral procession Sunday for protesters killed by government gunmen and the Yemeni president's own tribe called on him to step down, robbing the embattled U.S.-backed leader of vital support.

Yemen's ambassador to the United Nations and its human rights minister resigned to protest the crackdown, further undermining President Ali Abdullah Saleh. Experts said the president's dwindling influence was likely to either accelerate his departure or force him to resort to greater violence to retain power.

Saleh appeared to shy away from more force for the moment, disbanding police and special forces around Sanaa University, which has been the center of the deadly crackdown, and replacing them with a largely unarmed force.

Anti-government protestors pray around the bodies of the demonstrators who were killed on Friday's clashes with Yemeni security forces, during their funeral procession in Sanaa,Yemen, Sunday, March 20, 2011. The Yemeni president's own tribe has called on him to step down after a deadly crackdown on protesters, robbing the embattled U.S.-backed leader of vital support in a society dominated by blood ties. (AP Photo/Muhammed Muheisen)

"From now on, we will be controlling the entrances and exits of the square by orders from the supreme military command," said Lt. Col. Mohammed Hussein.

Friday was the bloodiest day of the monthlong uprising against Saleh, and government snipers killed more than 40 protesters. The violence drew condemnation from the U.N. and the United States, which backs his government with hundreds of millions of dollars in military aid to battle a potent al-Qaida offshoot based in Yemen's mountainous hinterlands.

Some of the country's most important religious leaders joined in the call for Saleh's resignation.

"This is definitely in my view now entering into some form of an end game," said Salman Shaikh, director of the Brookings Doha Center.

Yemen's most powerful tribe, its opposition parties and masses of young protesters have now united in calls for Saleh's departure, Shaikh said, calling that a dire sign for the president's ability to retain power.

"The disparate elements of what can be called the oppsiton have now coalesced around the demand for him to step down," Shaikh said. "This is now a very powerful, irrestible coalition."

Mohammad al-Sabri, an opposition spokesman, told The Associated Press that the opposition will under no circumstances agree to a dialogue with Saleh after the crimes his regime has committed.

"The president must understand that the only way to avoid more bloodshed and strife in this country is for him to leave. Nobody will have any regrets about him," he said.

People living in apartment buildings around the square tossed down flowers at Sunday's funeral procession. Electricity was cut off for about three hours in Yemen's major cities, and activists accused the government of trying to block people from seeing television coverage of the march. Cell service was also interrupted.

Massive crowds flooded into the Sanaa University square and solidarity demonstrations were held across the country in regions including Aden, Hadramawt, Ibb, Al-Hudaydah, Dhamar and Taiz.

"We hail with all respect and observance, the position of the people at the (Sanaa University) square," Sheik Sadiq al-Ahmar, head of Saleh's Hashed tribe, said in a joint statement with the religious leaders issued after a meeting at his home late Saturday.

Opposition parties taking part in the procession said they had have changed their position from demands for political reforms to calls for Saleh's removal.

"Our only choice now is the removal of the regime soon. We stand by the people's demand," opposition leader Yassin Said Numan told The Associated Press.

Human Rights Minister Huda al-Ban said she was stepping down to protest the government's "horrible, coward and perfidious crime." And a Foreign Ministry official told The Associated Press that UN Ambassador Abdullah Alsaidi had sent in his letter of resignation.

Health Minister Abdul-Karim Rafi told reporters the killing of protesters was "a crime unacceptable by logic or could be justified."

He said 44 protesters were killed and 192 wounded, 21 critically.

Prosecutor-General Abdullah al-Ulty said that 693 protesters were hurt and some bodies have not yet been identified.

Mohammed Naji Allaw, a lawyer and activist, said the government offering money to victims' families to not cooperate with the investigation, and was pressuring them not to participate in the funeral procession.

Copyright 2011 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

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Witnesses: Army kills 4 in northern Yemen protest

SANAA, Yemen (AP) — Soldiers opened fire at anti-government protesters Friday in northern Yemen, killing four people and wounding seven as demonstrations against longtime President Ali Abdullah Saleh again turned deadly.

Yemen has been rocked by weeks of daily anti-government protests, inspired by the uprisings in Egypt and Tunisia, and tens of thousands turned out in cities across the country calling for the ouster of Saleh, a key U.S. ally in the campaign against the al-Qaida terror network. He has promised to step down after national elections in 2013, an offer rejected by protesters.

Witnesses said the shootings in the town of Harf Sofyan occurred as soldiers tried to disperse thousands who took to the main street for Friday prayers.

Soldiers in an army post opened fire with heavy machine guns, believing the protesters were trying to attack the post, according to the witnesses, who spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of government reprisal.

Protesters threw rocks at the troops and called for Saleh to step down, shouting: "Leave! Leave!"

The town, located in Amran province, is a significant base for the Hawthi Shiite tribesmens who have waged an on-and-off struggle against the government for the last six years.

In the capital of Sanaa, tens of thousands assembled near Sanaa University to urge Saleh's ouster. Security forces watched the gathering closely, but it was not violent.

For the first time, the protesters included hundreds of women, filling a square and nearby streets.

In the southern city of Aden, tens of thousands of people carried the coffins of three people killed last week. Speakers at Friday prayers focused on the fall of the regime.

The main speaker during prayers at Sanaa University, Yahia Hussein al-Deilami, told the gathering that "deposing a tyrant is a religious duty."

Al-Deilami, a leader of the Shiite Hawthis, was sentenced to death three years ago but was pardoned by Saleh after the government reached agreement with the Hawthi rebels.

"This regime, a handful of corrupt officials, have encouraged bribes, corruption and plundering of the nation's wealth," he said.

Al-Deilami praised the youth revolution in Libya "against the tyrant Moammar Gadhafi" while crowds chanted for Saleh to resign — just like former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak.

"Ali, Ali before (the fall of) Moammar! Ali, Ali after Mubarak's fall!"

Hundreds of thousands of protesters also demonstrated in Taiz, Hadramawt, Ibb and Hudaydah in what was dubbed as the "Friday of the national cohesion."

In downtown Sanaa, several thousand government supporters carried pictures of Saleh and urged the opposition to respond to the president's call for dialogue.

In Egypt, the Yemeni Embassy said the ambassador was attacked Tuesday by armed men while traveling to the southern province of Assiut but he escaped unharmed.

The embassy said in a statement that Ambassador Abdel-Wali al-Shimiri, headed to Assiut to meet Yemeni students, was attacked while stopped in a car at a checkpoint on the outskirts of Assiut. Armed men tried to pull him from the car, but he was unhurt, the statement said.

Several guards were in another car, and they scuffled with the armed men, who were supported by others in three cars and managed to seize the guards' personal weapons, laptops and briefcases before they fled. One of the bullets fired by the gunmen hit the car.

Al-Shimiri continued on to Assiut, the statement added.

Copyright 2011 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

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Yemenis trying to oust leader protest for 5th day

SANAA, Yemen (AP) -- Thousands of people marching for the ouster of Yemen's U.S.-allied president clashed Tuesday with police and government supporters, and at least three demonstrators were injured in a fifth straight day of Egypt-inspired protests.

Police tried to disperse the demonstrators using tear gas, batons and stun guns, but about 3,000 protesters defiantly continued their march from Sanaa University toward the city center, chanting slogans against President Ali Abdullah Saleh, including "Down with the president's thugs!"

The procession gained momentum with hundreds of students and rights activists joining along the way.

AP Photo/Hani Mohammed

The unrest comes as ties between the U.S. and Saleh have been growing recently over rising alarm in Washington about the activities of al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula. The U.S. military has embarked on a plan to deepen its involvement in training Yemen's counterterrorism force to counteract a local affiliate of al-Qaida that has mounted several attacks against the U.S.

Saleh, who has been in office for more than 30 years, has tried to blunt recent unrest by promising not to seek re-election when his term ends in 2013.

He has been contacting powerful tribal leaders in a bid to enlist their support as he attempts to defuse the protests, according to officials familiar with the president's moves. They said that since Saturday, he had personally visited leaders of the powerful Hashed tribe in a number of regions around the capital to solicit their support.

The officials said Saleh feared that his rule would not withstand the pressure of a tribal decision to join the protesters in seeking his ouster, especially since many of them are heavily armed.

For now, said the officials, Saleh was counting on the security forces and armed backers who support his rule in dealing with the protesters.

They spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the subject.

On Tuesday, riot police blocked the main road leading to the city center and clashed with protesters throwing stones. Three protesters were injured and taken to the hospital in ambulances. About 2,000 government supporters staging a counterdemonstration joined the police in battling the protesters.

"We will not back off, whatever the government thugs do," said Tawakul Karman, a senior member of the opposition Islamic fundamentalist Islah Party, She was briefly arrested last month for leading anti-government protests.

"We will retain the dignity of the people and their rights by bringing down the regime," she added.

Rights activist Fathi Abu al-Nassr called the demonstrations "the people's uprising."

"We will not be intimidated by the thugs' attacks," he said, adding that the government funded the demonstrations by supporters, some of whom included senior party members.

Independent lawmaker Ahmed Hashid appealed to international human rights groups to intervene and end the government's harsh treatment of peaceful demonstrators.

By midafternoon, the protesters had dispersed.

In Yemen's southern province of Taiz, more than 5,000 protesters demonstrated for a second day in a main street downtown, and they engaged in an exchange of stone-throwing with police and government supporters. A large number of the protesters had spent the night in the streets, with many others joining them early Tuesday.

Police arrested 120 protesters Monday, but later released 75.

Impoverished Yemen is one of several countries in the Middle East feeling the aftershocks of pro-reform uprisings in Egypt and Tunisia. The protests in Yemen have mushroomed since Friday's ouster of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak after an 18-day revolt fueled by grievances similar to those in Yemen - poverty, unemployment and corruption.

Source: AP

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