Yemeni Report Explores Al-Qa'ida's 'New Strategy' in Southern Yemen

In another development, at least two soldiers were killed and seven others were wounded in Lawdar District in Abyan Governorate as an armored personnel carrier overturned on the road near Al-Ayn checkpoint in Al-Surrah area after it was hit by a shell fired by Al-Qa'ida gunmen. The gunmen had set up an ambush during operations by army units that were pursuing terrorists who attacked a military checkpoint in the area the day before yesterday where 13 soldiers were killed and at least four others were wounded.

In Lahj Governorate, four soldiers were killed and three others were wounded in an attack by gunmen believed to be affiliated with the SMM at a military position at Al-Habilayn area. Two gunmen were wounded in the attack. Sources said that a large number of SMM gunmen flocked to Al-Habilayn area and that fierce clashes erupted between them and Army units lasting for several hours. Armored vehicles were seen withdrawing from the area. The highway between Aden and Sanaa was blocked as a result of the clashes.

[Description of Source: London Al-Hayah Online in Arabic -- Website of influential Saudi-owned London pan-Arab daily. URL: http://www.daralhayat.com]

Kuwaiti Report: Al-Qa'ida in Yemen Promoting Islamic Caliphate After Salih Rule

GMP20110223155001 Kuwait Al-Ra'y Online in Arabic 23 Feb 11

[Report by Tahir Haydar: "'Al-Qa'ida in Yemen' For an Islamic Caliphate After Ali Salih and Washington Is Reserved on the Opposition's Demands For the Resignation of Salih's Relatives"]

Al-Ra'y learned that a number of members from the Al-Qa'ida Organization in the governorates of Shabwah, Ma'rib, Sanaa, Abyan, and Al-Jawf have started promoting the [idea of] establishing an Islamic caliphate, since the emergence of demands calling for the departure of President Ali Abdallah Salih, the onset of the unrest that has been going on for nearly a month in some cities, and the killing of five persons, including three soldiers, in a confrontation with Al-Qa'ida members at a security checkpoint on the Hurayb line in southern Ma'rib Governorate during the arrest of an Al-Qa'ida leader called Muhammad Abdallah Mu'awwadah after an exchange of fire with gunmen on 21 February.

Tribal sources have said that "voices of youths - believed to be Al-Qa'ida recruits who seek to take the chance away from the Zionists and Americans - are beginning to emerge in a number of tribal areas and to call for [the establishment of] an Islamic caliphate after Ali Salih."

For his part, a security source in the Ministry of Interior told Al-Ra'y that "Al-Qa'ida took advantage of the security unrest to implement its criminal plans against foreign and military posts, out of belief that it will establish an Islamic caliphate state. The source added that "the security apparatuses are on high alert to protect these facilities and pursue the wanted persons, who are being inserted into places witnessing unrest."

On another hand, informed sources told Al-Ra'y that "Washington asked Ali Salih to focus on pursuing Al-Qa'ida [members] and not to pay attention to the demands of the opposition, which refused his initiative - that included the same demands called for by the opposition, namely postponing the elections, abolishing hereditary succession and mandate renewal, reestablishing the electoral committee, and abandoning the constitutional amendments," adding that there is a US reservation over the opposition's new demand that the president's relatives, particularly those holding military posts, be discharged."

The sources added that "the US Embassy [in Yemen] expressed reservation over the opposition's latest demand that Ali Salih discharge his relatives from the army, for fear that any disagreement will weaken the Yemeni Army at a time when Al-Qa'ida is still terrifyingly active."

[Omitted passage on previous clashes between the Yemeni Army and Al-Qa'ida in Ma'rib]

Yemen: Tribes Reportedly Save Security Forces From Al-Qa'ida, Seize Weapons

GMP20110326141001 Sanaa Akhbar al-Yawm Online in Arabic 26 Mar 11

[Unattributed "exclusive" report: "It Was Announced That Committees Were Formed To Protect Public and Private Properties. Mudiyah Shaykhs Get Hold of Central Security Forces Weapons and Al-Qa'ida Elements Besiege a Battalion in Lawdar.]

Yesterday, Shaykh Al-Khudr Husayn al-Fuqayriah, a shaykh of Al Salih tribe in Mudiyah District in Abyan Governorate, got hold of the military vehicles and the weapons of the Central Security Forces battalion of the district. This took place after elements, suspected to be affiliated to the so-called Al-Qa'ida, besieged the battalion with the aim of seizing the weapons. Al Salih and Al Faraj tribes confronted those elements, secured the battalion members and their commander, got them out of the camp, and let them leave. Shaykh Al-Khudr seized the weapons and kept them in his village until they are handed over to the government after the situation calms down.

As per the sources, those elements, suspected to be from Al-Qa'ida, headed towards an unknown destination. Meanwhile, one of the tribes took over the land where the Central Security Forces members were centralized under the pretense that this land is theirs.

Eye witnesses have told Akhbar al-Yawm that two military aircrafts, the kind of which remained unknown, were seen yesterday, for the second day in a row, hovering over Mudiyah.

Moreover, at noon yesterday, Zinjibar District witnessed a demonstration where hundreds of Change Youths participated, hoisting slogans demanding the fall of the regime. They announced that popular committees were formed in the district to protect the public and private properties in the capital of Abyan Governorate, Zinjibar that witnessed, also yesterday, a heavy security presence; vehicle and tanks were spread in different parts of the city to protect the government institutions and installations.

Akhbar al-Yawm / Exclusive

On Saturday, 26 March 2011

[Description of Source: Sanaa Akhbar al-Yawm Online in Arabic -- Website of independent daily newspaper featuring frequent reporting on Yemeni tribal affairs; URL: www.akhbaralyom.net/]

Yemeni Official: Al-Qa'ida Operatives Besiege Republican Palace in Abyan

GMP20110326085002 Sanaa News Yemen in Arabic 26 Mar 11

[Unattributed "exclusive" report: "Al-Qa'ida Besieges the Republican Palace and the Local Radio Station in Khanfar District"]

The official added that 10 security personnel are guarding the place.

News Yemen called Ja'ar District Director Ahmad Ghalib al-Rahwi but was unable to speak to him.

[Description of Source: Sanaa News Yemen in Arabic -- Independent news website focusing on local affairs; URL: http://www.newsyemen.net/]

Yemen: Al-Qa ida Men Briefly Control Ja ar City, 7 Soldiers Killed in Attack

GMP20110328825001 London Al-Hayah Online in Arabic 28 Mar 11

[Report from Sanaa by Faysal Makram: Yemen: Intermittent Clashes Between the Army and Al-Qa ida in Abyan ]

Violent clashes took place between the two sides after the Al-Qa'ida gunmen occupied a number of government buildings in the center of the city. Eyewitnesses told Al-Hayah that a number of people were killed and wounded on both sides as a result of the confrontations, in which large- and medium-caliber weapons and rockets were used.

The eyewitnesses added that the gunmen seized two army vehicles, weapons, and ammunition at a time when army and security forces units deployed around the city before launching attacks on the gunmen's positions.

Local sources in the Governorate of Ma'rib said that gunmen, believed to be members of Al-Qa'ida, attacked a military police checkpoint on the main road between the capital Sanaa and the Ma'rib Governorate, killing seven soldiers and wounding six others. Most of the wounded are in a serious condition, the sources noted.

The sources said that the attackers burned a military vehicle and seized two others in an operation that was led by Gha'id al-Shabwani, Al-Qa'ida official in Ma'rib, who the Yemeni authorities tried to arrest or kill several times in the past.

Last week, six soldiers were killed in an ambush laid by the Al-Qa'ida fighters in the City of Ludar in Abyan. The Yemeni authorities said three members of Al-Qa'ida were killed and six others arrested in the attack.

The Al-Qa'ida attacks come at a time when tension prevails in many Yemeni governorates where large sit-ins and protests are calling for the downfall of the regime.

In a television interview on the night of Saturday/Sunday, Yemeni President Ali Abdallah Salih asserted that he is ready to hand over power on the condition that the process takes place in an "honorable" way and through ballot boxes. But the Yemeni opposition parties considered this a political maneuver to hold on to power.

An aide to Major General Ali Muhsin Salih al-Ahmar said that the negotiations on the handover of power ceased and are not expected to resume immediately. He said: "They ceased Saturday evening." When asked if he expected them to be resumed, he said: "Thus far, this is absolutely out of the question." Meanwhile, a spokesman for the main opposition alliance in Yemen affirmed that the talks came to a halt.

Earlier, the Yemeni president held three rounds of negotiations with opposition leaders, who operate under the Joint Meeting group, in the home of Vice President of the Republic Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi. But the two sides failed to reach a definitive agreement on the handover of power and running a transitional phase.

Informed sources told Al-Hayah that President Ali Salih did not back down on his initiative to give up power at any time but he wants the process to take place on sound bases without submitting to the agenda of coups against constitutional legitimacy and in a way that Yemen will avoid sliding into chaos and civil war. However, the sources added, the opposition parties insist that the president go immediately.

The same sources said Washington continues to be cautious in taking a clear and definitive stand on options to extricate Yemen from the current crisis after it encouraged President Ali Abdallah Salih to accept the principle of quitting power with guarantees for an honorable exit through negotiations with the opposition parties. The sources noted that the opposition parties continue to justify their call for the immediate departure of Salih by saying that they fully side with the demands of protesters who are holding sit-ins in Sanaa and other governorates.

The sources said the one-million-strong demonstration that was held in Sanaa on Friday in support of the president complicated the crisis further, especially because the opposition parties did not expect this large crowd to show up.

In Washington, meanwhile, US Defense Secretary Robert Gates announced on Sunday that Yemeni President Ali Abdallah Salih's downfall and his replacement by a weaker government would pose "a real problem" for the United States in the fight against the Al-Qa'ida Organization.

Speaking on the American ABC Television Network, Gates said: "If this government falls and is replaced by a weaker government, then we will face additional challenges in Yemen. There is no question about it. It is a real problem."

He added: "The most active and perhaps the most aggressive branch of Al-Qa'ida operates out of Yemen, and we cooperate with President Salih and Yemeni security services in fighting terrorism."

[Description of Source: London Al-Hayah Online in Arabic -- Website of influential Saudi-owned London pan-Arab daily. URL: http://www.daralhayat.com]

Yemen: Local Source Says Al-Qa'ida Controls Abyan Radio; Governor Criticized

GMP20110330088009 Ma'rib Ma'rib Press in Arabic 30 Mar 11

On 30 March, Ma'rib Press in Arabic -- Independent news website focusing on Yemeni affairs, carries a report on a statement by Abyan's governor regarding the explosion that took place at the 7 October ammunition factory and in which he accuses Al-Qa'ida of standing behind the incident.

The report says that on 30 March, Abyan's local authority called for an expanded popular meeting in the presence of Abyan Governor Salih Husayn al-Zaw'ari and a number of local council leaders to denounce the heinous crime that took place on 28 March at the 7 October ammunition factory in Al-Hisn city, Khanfar District, resulting in many casualties.

In his statement, Al-Zaw'ari stated that "the so-called Al-Qa'ida and terrorist groups are responsible for the heinous crime that shook the governorate's citizens." The report says that Al-Zaw'ari's statement caused "a wave of protests" among the attendees who accused the governor and the regime's leaders of turning a deaf ear to the citizens' points of views regarding the disaster in particular, and the overall situation that the governorate is witnessing in general."

The report adds that some attendees wondered about "the odd contradiction" between the governor's call for a neutral legal committee to investigate the Abyan explosion and his statement in which he held Al-Qa'ida responsible for the attack. The report says: "The attendees wondered how can the governor call for the establishment of a committee to investigate while in fact, according to the statement, Al-Qa'ida is responsible? And what is the point of conducting an investigation when the accused is known?"

The report says that a "state of resentment" has prevailed among the citizens of Abyan over the central authority's "weak and shameful stand" on the incident. The report cites citizens as wondering "whether they are regarded as 10th degree citizens," and as mocking the state for not being able to send a fire truck to the scene of the explosion in fear of the armed elements stationed there.

[Description of Source: Ma'rib Ma'rib Press in Arabic -- Independent news website focusing on Yemeni affairs; URL: http://www.marebpress.net/]

Amid region's unrest, al-Qaeda makes inroads in Yemen

By Iona Craig Special for USA TODAY

Updated 2d 11h ago |

SANAA, Yemen — The withdrawal of security forces from some provinces has left a power vacuum that al-Qaeda is trying to fill, threatening the U.S.-backed fight against the country's terrorist network.

The chaos that President Ali Abdullah Saleh has repeatedly warned was imminent because of an uprising against his rule has taken hold in at least four of the country's provinces.

In the southern province of Abyan, the stronghold of al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, Islamist militants have seized several towns after the Yemen army and its U.S.-trained counterterrorism unit was called back to help defend areas closer to the capital. On jihadist websites, the region is being referred to now as the "Islamic Emirate of Abyan."

Abyan's capture follows that of the capture of Jaar by al-Qaeda, according to Saleh. The looting of an arms factory that left 150 people dead on Tuesday, according to the army, has turned the area into a lawless province. Whether the militants can hold onto it is another matter, they say.

"Al-Qaeda is not well-equipped enough to take over these towns in a direct battle with Yemen's security forces," said Yemeni political analyst Abdul Ghani al-Iryani. "But without a security presence in these areas, al-Qaeda will make gains."

Anwar al-Awlaki, a radical Yemeni cleric born in the U.S., said in a new article that violent Islamist groups will be able to take advantage of the Arab world's wave of popular unrest even if it leads to secular governments in Egypt, Tunisia and Libya.

"Even if the upcoming governments wanted to continue with a policy of appeasing the West and Israel, they would not have the strength and depth of power that the previous governments had developed over the past three decades," al-Awlaki writes in al-Qaeda's online magazine.

Whatever the outcome of the revolts, "our mujahedin brothers in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya ... will get a chance to breathe again after three decades of suffocation," he writes.

Prior to the recent civil uprising, initially led by students calling for an end to Saleh's 32-year rule, the long-standing president was already battling a separatist movement in the south and a northern Houthi rebellion, as well as an ongoing al-Qaeda insurgency.

The U.S. has invested heavily in Yemen, providing Saleh with $155 million in military aid last year, in addition to training the elite counterterrorism unit headed by the president's nephew Yahya Saleh.

Abyan has been the focus of U.S. counterterrorism strategy in the Arab world's poorest nation. U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates has described Yemen's Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula as "the most active and at this point perhaps the most aggressive branch of al-Qaeda."

Saleh's focus has switched to stalling negotiations with an opposition movement in the capital of Sanaa. Since the mass defection of a dozen military commanders last week, three-way negotiations have taken place between Saleh, the coalition of opposition parties and the most senior of the defected army leaders, Ali Mohsen Saleh Al-Ahmar.

Amid the growing fear of civil war between the two sides of the now divided army, the presence of the military has been centered in and around the northern capital, leaving a void across large parts of the country.

Al Qaeda Has Gained Control of Yemeni Town, Source Says

By Catherine Herridge

Published April 01, 2011

| FoxNews.com

Terrorists aligned with Al Qaeda are in control of Jaar, the historical capital of the Yemen province of Abyan, a Yemeni official briefed on the intelligence data told Fox News.

Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, the terrorist group's branch in Yemen, has taken hold of the town, along with former elements of a group known as Aden-Abyan Islamic Army. The Yemeni military is actively negotiating with the groups, who have yet to gain control of the entire province, the official says.

Abyan has been a focus of U.S. and Yemeni government counterterrorism activities because it is believed to be the main foothold for the Al Qaeda affiliate, which -- with the American cleric Anwar al-Awlaki playing a key role -- is now considered a greater threat to U.S. national security than Usama bin Laden and the remnants of his network in Pakistan.

These advances come as longtime Yemen ruler Ali Abdullah Saleh faces increased pressure to step down amid an intensifying protest movement. Saleh, a partner of the Obama administration in targeting Al Qaeda, has offered to step down at the end of the year, but protesters have rejected that and other offers short of his immediate exit.

Yemeni Source Claims Armed Jihadist Groups Stole Two Tons of Explosives

GMP20110405103001 Al-Dali: Gateway to the South in Arabic 04 Apr 11

[Post by forum participant: "Important news-- Looting Huge Amount of Explosives From Jaar Plant Before Explosion."]

A source in the popular civil committees that administer the Directorate of Khanfar, Abyan Governorate, who preferred to remain anonymous, said the committees have accurate information that there were explosives stored at an ammunition plant called the 7th of October in Al-Hisn area in Jaar.

The source said: "Many people in the area know these huge amounts of explosives belong to the company working on the Batis-Rasd road project in Yafi. These explosives are used in building roads in mountainous areas."