Roughly a dozen people were killed and several suspected militants escaped after an attack on the Aden office of the Political Security Organization, Yemen's main internal intelligence agency.
Gunmen used machine guns and rocket-propelled grenades during the hour-long assault. At least six of the victims were members of Yemen's security forces. It's unclear exactly how many people escaped, or who they were.
Back in December, American and Yemeni sources accused the US of taking part in a deadly air raid in Yemen's Abyan province. The attack was a major screwup: Local residents said it killed dozens of civilians; Yemeni newspapers called it the "Abyan massacre"; and Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula later used it as recruiting propaganda during a rally in Abyan.
US officials denied any involvement, though, and the Yemeni government -- always keen to publicly distance itself from Washington -- insisted that the whole operation was planned and conducted in Sana'a.
Another waypoint on the ceasefire between the Houthi rebels of the government of Yemen (via the National):
Yemen's plan to release nearly 300 al Houthi rebels and southern separatists is moving forward, a Yemeni security official said yesterday, in line with a promise the president made last week.
The British ambassador to Yemen, Timothy Torlot, survived an assassination attempt this morning, an attack which Yemeni authorities blame on Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula.
Torlot was riding in a convoy around 7:00 this morning when his car passed a complex called the Berlin Park, less than a half-mile from the embassy. A suicide bomber (wearing a tracksuit, according to witnesses) was standing in front of the park, and blew himself up as Torlot's convoy drove by.
Not much good news out of Yemen these last few days, where a gunfight in Saada province continues to threaten the already shaky cease-fire between the government and the Huthi rebels.
Huthi rebels shot and killed a Yemeni soldier in Saada late last night, then dumped his body in a well, according to Reuters, which in turn cites the government media office in Sana'a. The soldier, Namran Suleiman Jaber Hadshan, was reportedly a bodyguard to a member of parliament.
But the Huthis issued a statement (عربي) denying any connection with the soldier's killing. They also issued a separate statement yesterday denying responsibility for Thursday's shooting on a military plane flying over Saada.
"We are not responsible for any shot at a military airplane on Thursday morning, and we have not fired at any airplane since the beginning of the truce on February 12," the statement said.
The rebels promised to cooperate with any inquiry into the source of the anti-aircraft fire (which missed the plane). Journalists can't operate independently in Saada, so it's impossible to know who's telling the truth about either incident.
Reuters and Mareb Press (عربي) are both reporting that a Yemeni military plane came under anti-aircraft fire while flying over the city of Saada. The committee monitoring the cease-fire between the government and the Huthi rebels calls the incident a "serious violation" of the truce.
The aircraft -- an Antonov transport -- was not hit in the shooting. It was reportedly on a "routine" mission, according to Mareb Press, carrying government and military officials from Sana'a to Saada province.
The two-month-old cease-fire has shown several signs of strain in recent weeks. The monitoring committee said last week that the rebels aren't holding up their end of the truce; and a shootout on Tuesday between rebels and a school guard left two people dead.
Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula says it hasn't relocated its leadership to Somalia, despite last week's claims from the Transitional Federal Government that a dozen senior leaders had left Yemen for the Horn of Africa (h/t Harun al-Amriki).
The Yemen Post report linked above is sourced to a story in News Yemen, which in turn quotes this report (عربي) from the independent Al-Wasat weekly. The Al-Wasat article says AQAP plans to release a full statement in the coming days rebutting the "baseless" Somali claims.
Gregory Johnsen wades into the debate over whether the CIA should be allowed to murder Anwar al-Awlaqi -- the radical Yemeni cleric, Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula member, and U.S. citizen -- with an important op-ed in Newsweek. The whole thing is worth a read, but here's the key paragraph:
Killing Awlaki will do little to disrupt Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP). Inside that organization, he is a nobody--at best, a midlevel functionary in a local branch. There are dozens of men who could do more harm to the United States, and killing Awlaki would only embolden them and aid in recruitment.
There are other reasons not to assassinate Awlaqi (the Constitution, for example). But Johnsen makes a compelling argument, from a purely counterterrorism perspective, that killing Awlaqi will do far more harm than good.
A couple of other news items from northern Yemen (apart from the Amnesty International photos):
The Yemeni government released 161 rebels detained during the latest phase of the Huthi war. The release of prisoners (on both sides) was one of the conditions of the cease-fire signed back in February. A spokesman for the rebels called any prisoner release "a positive step."
(Updated, fixed my sloppy and incorrect translation) The Independent published another batch of Amnesty International's photos from Sa'ada province in northern Yemen. The images show widespread destruction: Shattered homes, the skeletal remains of schools and power plants, rubble strewn everywhere.
Several show angry graffiti scrawled on the walls of damaged buildings. In this one, for example, the Arabic graffiti reads "This is the destruction made by American and Saudi Arabian planes."
One point worth emphasizing: In these images of the last war, you see the possible seeds of the next war. The Huthi conflict has evolved a lot over the last six years, and it would be reductive to say it's fueled by local grievances; the underlying issue is really Zaidi fear of growing Wahhabi influence.
But underdevelopment and poor government services in Sa'ada certainly create resentment towards Sana'a. The government flattened much of the province during the latest phase of the war; if it doesn't make a serious effort to rebuild, public anger will flare up again.
Omar Osman, the treasury minister from Somalia's Transitional Federal Government, says a dozen senior figures from Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula have crossed from Yemen into Somalia over the last two weeks.
This story has been bubbling up through the Saudi and Yemeni press for a few days -- the Saudi newspaper Okaz reported it on Monday (عربي), for example, claiming that the AQAP leadership left Yemen via the eastern port city of Mukalla. The Saudi Gazette reported the same thing in English.
Amnesty International released a handful of photos of Yemen's Sa'ada province from a batch of hundreds it says it received from an "independent source."
Sa'ada -- the site of the recently-paused Yemeni-Huthi conflict -- has been a virtual no-go zone for years. Journalists are simply barred from the province; NGOs are allowed to work in Sa'ada, but strictly forbidden to talk with the press. Amnesty International's photos are the first independent images I've seen from Sa'ada in some time.
We won't reproduce any of them here; go take a look on Amnesty's Web site. Only three of the photos are posted right now, but we've contacted Amnesty to see if they plan to release more.
Two leading members of Yemen's southern separatist movement were sentenced to lengthy jail sentences yesterday by a court in Sana'a.
Hussein Muthanna al-Akil, a professor at Aden University, was sentenced to three years; Fadi Hassan Ba'oum, the son of a senior separatist leader, was sentenced to five years. Ba'oum's sentence is longer because he's charged (عربي) with "inciting sectarian division," not just supporting the separatist movement.
The international community continues to be very good at promising money to Yemen, and not very good at actually delivering those funds.
Yemen's deputy minister for planning, Hisham Sharaf Abdullah, represented the country this week (عربي) at the inaugural Friends of Yemen conference in Abu Dhabi. Abdullah told reporters that his government needs $44 billion for development work over the next five years.
The Yemeni-Huthi truce, signed more than a month ago, is still holding on -- and a couple of recent developments suggest the Huthis are serious about implementing its terms.
The Huthis released 178 prisoners today, according to the cease-fire monitoring committee, a government body that oversees implementation of the truce. The prisoners include both soldiers and civilians; they've been transported from Saada to Sana'a.
An airstrike in Yemen's Abyan province killed two alleged al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula members -- at least according to Yemen's interior ministry. But there are reports in the Yemeni press (عربي) that the bombing actually targeted members of the Southern Movement.
The interior ministry says the attack was carried out by the Yemeni air force (it's probably keen to dispel any rumors of U.S. involvement). Security officials say the victims were AQAP members, plotting to attack targets on the Arabian Sea (a claim we've heard before).
Earlier this week, Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh extended an offer of negotiation to southern separatists who have grown increasingly strident about their grievances with Sana'a, but he also sounded a warning.
"I am certain the flags of separation will burn in the days and weeks ahead," Saleh said.
With thousands gathering across southern Yemen to protest today, Saleh got his chance to demonstrate the hard side of the government's carrot-and-stick approach.
Decent article on Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula in the latest edition of the Jamestown Foundation's Terrorism Monitor. It reinforces the point that AQAP has found fertile recruiting ground in southern Yemen because of the south's political unrest and poor economic and social conditions.
There are no linkages between the southern separatist movement and AQAP, and it's unclear whether the tribes of southern Yemen truly support AQAP's ideology or simply share its antipathy for the central government in Sana'a. But there's common cause, nonetheless.
Jeffrey Feltman, the U.S. undersecretary of state for Near Eastern Affairs, is in Yemen this week meeting with officials from the Yemeni government. Feltman delivered a letter from President Obama to Yemeni president Ali Abdullah Saleh. The text of the letter isn't public, but it reportedly pledged continued financial and military aid for the Saleh government.
