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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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).
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.
I've got a piece over on Foreign Policy looking at Yemen's near-total disappearance from the headlines over the last few weeks. There's a lot of important news happening in Yemen -- the Huthi cease-fires, the Riyadh conference, the growing unrest in the south -- and almost none of it is getting covered.
If I can paraphrase the latest statement (عربي) from Ali Mohamed Mujawar, Yemen's prime minister: We're not looking to start a sixth civil war with the Huthis, but we're not averse to it, either!
Mujawar warned today that the government would resume its fight against the Huthis unless they quickly implement the six terms of the cease-fire. The rebels say they're already well on their way to implementing the terms: The Huthis say they withdrew from Sa'ada province earlier today; they've returned all of their (living) Saudi prisoners; they've reportedly started dismantling roadblocks.
The Yemeni interior ministry has pledged to fight al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula "around the clock," according to AFP, because of the group's recent threats against U.S. interests.
It's a fanciful statement -- the Yemeni government doesn't really have the resources to prosecute a 'round-the-clock war against AQAP. It's also incorrect: AFP didn't translate the ministry's statement correctly.
Anwar al-Awlaqi, the Muslim spiritual leader who leaped into the news following revelations of his contact with Ford Hood shooter Nidal Malik Hasan, gave a rare interview to Al-Jazeera over the weekend in which he laid out his support for attempted Christmas Day airline bomber Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab but said he did not personally order Abdulmutallab's attack.
Meanwhile, an audiotape posted on a jihadi forum, purportedly from the deputy commander of Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), Sa'id al-Shihri, called on Muslims in the region to "attack and eliminate" American and "Crusader" interests everywhere, according to the BBC.
Dennis Blair, the U.S. director of national intelligence, delivered his annual "threat assessment" to Congress (pdf) this afternoon.
The 70-word executive summary -- from the Middle East/South Asia sections, at least: Al-Qaeda and its offshoots still want to attack the U.S. (big surprise); Hizballah does not want to attack the U.S. (more on that to come); Iran wants "the option" to develop a nuclear weapon (note the cautious wording); Iraq is hopeful, and its challenges are mainly political and economic; Afghanistan will be a tough slog; Pakistan still hasn't figured out counterinsurgency.
(Updated below) The U.S. Defense Department is considering a counterterrorism fund (عربي) for Yemen, modeled off a similar fund for Pakistan.
The Pakistani fund, known as the Coalition Support Fund, reimburses the Pakistani government for its support of U.S. counterterrorism activities. The U.S. has provided about $7.6 billion under the CSF since 2002. Yemen's fund would be similar: The army and security services would receive annual payments for operations against al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula.
Via the British foreign office, here's the final communique from yesterday's London conference on Yemen. The Yemeni government committed to a "reform agenda"; the GCC announced a meeting of Gulf countries in Riyadh on Feb. 27-28; and participants announced a "Friends of Yemen" organization, which will hold its first meeting in late March.
Abdul Malik al-Huthi, the leader of Yemen's Huthi rebels, has reportedly announced a cease-fire with Saudi Arabia, according to the Saudi-owned Al-Arabiya (عربي).
The rebels reportedly agreed to stop fighting the Saudi army, and to withdraw completely from Saudi territory. The army and the Huthis have traded control of a number of villages and border regions in recent months, particularly around the area of Jebel Dokhan.
Update: Here's a link to the memo on HRW's Web site.
Original post: I'm not sure if it's available online yet, but Human Rights Watch sent us an advance copy (pdf) of a new memo, Seven Principles for Effective International Engagement in Yemen, which they're releasing ahead of next week's London conference on Yemen. We're posting it here as a PDF file.
The memo covers everything from development aid to the importance of closing Guantanamo Bay, but the most important section -- from my perspective -- deals with the human rights abuses committed by the Yemeni government in its conflicts with Huthi rebels in the north and separatists in the south.
If you're planning to summer in Sana'a, take note: The Yemeni government will no longer issue visas at the airport, an effort to halt what it calls "terrorist infiltration." Visas will only be issued through Yemeni embassies abroad.
The move will probably please the United States and other Western countries. But it's also likely to hurt Yemen's tourism industry, already reeling from several high-profile kidnappings of foreign tourists and from the general perception of insecurity in Yemen. Tourism would be an important source of foreign currency for a country whose oil reserves are rapidly being depleted.
The Yemeni army is conducting what sounds like a very large operation in the al-Shabwan district of Marib province, and tribal leaders in the area are complaining about civilian casualties resulting from "indiscriminate shelling."
AFP reports that bombers carried out three raids on the home of Ayed al-Shabwani, the al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula commander in the province. They also bombed an orange grove where Shabwani reportedly built a safe house.
