Free Republic

At least three foreign women, thought to be part of a group which was kidnapped in Yemen, have been found dead, local officials have said. The group of nine foreign hostages - mostly women and children - was kidnapped by Shia rebels in a mountainous area in the north. It included seven Germans, a British engineer and a Korean female teacher. One unconfirmed report citing unnamed security officials said the bodies of more of the foreigners had been found. Yemen's Interior Ministry earlier said the foreigners were kidnapped while on a picnic on Friday in the north-western province of Saada....

SAN'A, Yemen — A Yemeni security official says three German women hostages have been found dead, their bodies mutilated.

Yemeni authorities have arrested the financier of Al-Qaeda operations in the country and in neighbouring Saudi Arabia, an official said Sunday, as cited on the defence ministry news website. "The arrested man is named Hassan Hussein bin Alwan, a Saudi national, and he is the financier for attacks launched by Al-Qaeda organisation in Yemen and Saudi Arabia," the unnamed security official told September Net website. "He is considered one of the most dangerous members of Al-Qaeda," he added.

Mayur Pahilajani - AHN News Writer Sanaa, Yemen (AHN) - Armed rebels have kidnapped nine foreigners, including women and children, in a mountainous region of northern Yemen on Sunday. Seven Germans, a British engineer and a South Korean female teacher were taken hostage by Shiite rebels in volatile province of Saada recently, Saba Net news agency reported. The abducted group belongs to an international aid organization that was working at the Jumhori Hospital in the province. However, the Huithi Zaidi rebels have reportedly dismissed the claims of kidnapping the group. The Shiite militants have been fighting the government for several...

A couple of notable articles today.... one from ERIC SCHMITT and DAVID E. SANGER in the NYT's today, documenting the migration of many AQ leaders and fighters from Pakistan to friendlier digs in Somalia or Yemen. In communications that are being watched carefully at the Pentagon, the White House and the Central Intelligence Agency, the terrorist groups in all three locations are now communicating more frequently, and apparently trying to coordinate their actions, the officials said. ~~~Somalia is now a failed state that bears some resemblance to Afghanistan before the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, while Yemen’s weak government is ineffectually...

A Yemeni tribesman says he and fellow gunmen have kidnapped 24 local and foreign medics working at a Saudi hospital in northern Yemen. Sheik Hezam told The Associated Press he wants the government to release two fellow tribesman in exchange for the group, which includes medics from Egypt, India, Sudan and the Philippines. He said gunmen on Thursday stopped a bus carrying the medics from the capital, San'a, to northern Sada province. The tribesman then took the bus to a mountainous area in Amran province, 50 miles (80 kilometers) north of San'a. He said the hostages are safe and in...

The day before he died, U.S. Army Pvt. William Andrew “Andy” Long floated the Buffalo River with his sister, Vanessa Rice. If he had his way, she said, the pair would have gone skydiving. “I’m so blessed to have had that day with Andy,” Rice tearfully told guests at her brother’s funeral Monday at Harlan Park Baptist Church in Conway. “My brother meant the world to me. Andy loved to be outdoors, to travel, and he couldn’t wait to get to Korea to serve his country.” The service was followed by a burial with full military honors Monday at the...

NORTH LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (AP) — The man accused of fatally shooting a soldier outside a recruiting center begged for FBI agents to free him from a Yemeni jail where he was "radicalized" by Islamic terrorists, his lawyer told The Associated Press on Thursday. Lawyer Jim Hensley described Abdulhakim Muhammad as an impressionable youth driven to public service in an impoverished Middle Eastern country. But teachings by "hardened" terrorists in Yemen and experiences with Afghan child refugees who were missing limbs drove him to become someone his parents didn't recognize, Hensley said. "Here comes the FBI, who may be able...

Nuradin Abdi was convicted in 2007 of planning to blow up an Ohio shopping mall. Iyman Faris was convicted in 2003 of planning to blow up the Brooklyn Bridge. Christopher Paul was convicted in 2008 of conspiring to use explosives against targets in the U.S. and Europe. All three terrorists worshiped and socialized at a small mosque in Columbus, Ohio, and, according to David B. Smith, an attorney for Faris, were part of a larger group of jihadists and extremists who frequented the mosque. The FBI now is investigating reports of links to that same mosque by Muslim-convert Abdulhakim Muhammad...

Jeddah // Saudi Arabia’s religious police have been forced to issue a rare apology after a member of one of the country’s most influential tribes said he was beaten by police for allegedly kissing his wife in public. Mohammed al Qahtani, of the Qahtan tribe – the largest in Saudi Arabia – had threatened to present his case to King Abdullah after the police spokesman issued a statement eight days ago accusing Mr al Qahtani of lying about the incident. Damaging the reputation of a tribal member in Saudi is considered an insult to the entire tribe, and releasing personal...

A senior U.S. official tells FOX News that more targets were found on computer of a man charged in the fatal shooting Monday at a military recruiting center in Arkansas — suggesting that the shooter may have been part of a larger plot to attack military targets and may not have been acting alone. It wasn't immediately clear, however, how extensive that plot was or what evidence authorities have that suggests that more suspects were involved. The U.S. official's information contradicted a local police official's denial earlier Tuesday that the shooting was part of a larger conspiracy. Abdulhakim Mujahid Muhammad,...

The suspect arrested in the fatal shooting of one soldier and the critical injury of another at a Little Rock, Ark., Army recruiting booth today was under investigation by the FBI's Joint Terrorist Task Force since his return from Yemen, ABC News has learned. The investigation was in its preliminary stages, authorities said, and was based on the suspect's travel to Yemen and his arrest there for using a Somali passport. The suspect, Abdulhakim Mujahid Muhammad, 24, had changed his name from Carlos Leon Bledsoe after converting to the Muslim faith. Law enforcement sources said he offered no resistance when...

The jihadist, back from Yemen I have learned from a well-placed source that Abdulhakim Mujahid Muhammad, who killed one soldier and wounded another at a a Little Rock military recruiting center today, and who faces charges of terrorism as well as first-degree murder, has recently returned from Yemen, where he studied jihad with an Islamic scholar there. Apparently the Islamic scholar under whom this American convert to Islam studied was yet another misunderstander of Islam's true, peaceful teachings. More on this as it develops.

<p>Latest Video:Little Rock - One person is in custody, and two others have been transported to a local hospital in serious condition following a double-shooting in west Little Rock Monday morning.</p> <p>Authorities say the incident occurred around 10:00 a.m. at the U.S. Army Navy Career Center inside the Ashley Square Shopping Center at 9112 North Rodney Parham Road. According to Lt. Terry Hastings with the Little Rock Police Department, two recruiting officers standing outside the office were hit when the unidentified suspect drove up in a black SUV and began shooting.</p>

Cannot post on FR.

The CIA deputy director coordinated with Yemen's president Thursday on fighting al-Qaida and also discussed the fate of some 100 Yemeni detainees locked up in Guantanamo Bay. Stephen Kappes made an unannounced visit to the country to meet President Ali Abdullah Saleh in the southern city of Taiz, about 170 miles south of the capital San'a. Saleh's office said they discussed security cooperation and combatting terrorism. The impoverished country on the tip of the Arabian peninsula, a U.S. partner in the fight against terrorism, has re-emerged as a potential base for al-Qaida. Two Saudi former Guantanamo detainees are believed to...

In a speech during celebrations of his country's reunification, Yemen's President called for a national dialogue between the north and the south. Deadly clashes errupted in the port city of Aden, highlighting the explosive mood in the South...

SNIPPET: "SANAA, May 19 (KUNA) -- A senior Yemeni official warned on Tuesday of acts of sabotage that could be jointly launched by Al-Qaeda Organization in the Arabian Peninsula and the local militant group of Al-Hawthis." SNIPPET: ""The organization could join hands with Al-Hawthis in wreaking havoc on Yemen and use the country as a launch pad for their terrorist acts regionally and internationally," he warned. Al-Alimi made the remarks after Al-Qaeda leader Abu Basir Nasser Al-Wahayshi approved in an audio tape on Wednesday the militant activities in southern part of the Arabian Peninsula in a clear reference to Yemen....

Blog Note: The following blog entry is a quote: Larijani In Yemen On Reassurance Visit The London daily Al-Sharq Al-Awsat reports that Iranian Majlis speaker Ali Larijani is visiting Yemen to reassure it regarding fears of Iranian involvement in rebel activity in southern Yemen, and regarding activity by the Houthis in the Sa'ada district in northern Yemen. Senior Yemeni officials have accused Iran of supporting the Houthis (see Yemeni Official: Iran Clearly Involved In Al-Houthi Rebellion). According to the report, Larijani told Yemen President Ali Abdallah Saleh that his country supported Yemen's stability and security. Source: Al-Sharq Al-Awsat, London, May...

Special Dispatch - No. 2357 May 14, 2009 Library Named After Palestinian Suicide Bomber Wafa Idris Inaugurated at a Yemen Children's Hospital According to the Yemeni news website www.yemenportal.net, a library and conference hall named after Palestinian suicide bomber Wafa Idris have been inaugurated at a children's hospital in the province of Ibb in southern Yemen. [1] The inauguration ceremony was attended by Yemeni officials, and launched by Samir Al-Kuntar, of the Palestinian Liberation Front, who carried out a deadly attack in Nahariyya in 1974, and was recently released from Israeli prison. At the ceremony, speakers extolled the resistance and...

The Somali pirates in the Gulf of Aden and Indian Ocean are directed to their targets by a "consultant" team in London, according to European military intelligence. Pirate groups have "well-placed informers" in London who are in regular contact with control centres in Somalia where decisions on which vessels to attack are made. These London-based "consultants" help the pirates select targets, providing information on the ships' cargoes and courses. In at least one case the pirates have remained in contact with their London informants from the hijacked ship, according to one targeted shipping company. The pirates' information network extends to...

Fugitive ex-aide to bin Laden cites 'corrupt practices of the regime' in tapeAn al-Qaida leader urged divided Yemenis to unite and fight the country's government, and called its president an "infidel agent" in an audio message released Thursday. The recording, purportedly of Naser Abdel Karim al-Wahishi — Yemen's most wanted fugitive and the leader of al-Qaida in Yemen and Saudi Arabia — called on northerners and southerners to put their differences aside and focus on battling the government. Impoverished Yemen, on the tip of the Arabian Peninsula, has re-emerged as a potential base for al-Qaida, though its government has cooperated...

The editor of Yemen's most popular daily newspaper said that police have opened fire on his office, wounding three workers as the government escalates a crackdown on the media it blames for stoking unrest in the country's south. Hesham Bashrahel said Wednesday that police surrounded his Al-Ayyam newspaper office and neighboring home. Last week, the government suspended eight publications for allegedly inciting southern residents to call for a separation from the north. Southerners accuse the government of discrimination.

ABOARD USS GETTYSBURG AT SEA, May 14, 2009 – Ships from Combined Task Force 151 prevented a piracy attack in the Gulf of Aden, which resulted in the apprehension of more than a dozen suspected pirates aboard an alleged "mothership" yesterday. The South Korean destroyer ROKS Munmu the Great and guided missile cruiser USS Gettysburg responded to a distress call from the Egyptian-flagged motor vessel Amira, which reported being attacked about 75 nautical miles south of Mukalla, Yemen. Several assault rifle rounds and a rocket-propelled grenade round struck the Amira, causing little or no damage. A rope was thrown from...

The leader of Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula Nasser Al-Wuhaishi declared on Wednesday his support for what he called "the rejection of oppression", referring to the protests which have been taking place since April in the southern cities. At least eight Yemenis, including four soldiers, have been killed in a week of unrest in Abyan, Lahj and Aldhala'a, where witnessed clashes between the government and groups of locals who complained that northerners have abused a unity agreement to grab their resources and discriminate against them, and raised slogans call for separating their governorates from Yemen, which was united in 1990....

The bravest 13 year old girl in the world. Directed by Khadija Al-Salami. Yemen. 2005 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PAkPFZQA6EM

Yemenite Jews face daily discrimination amidst a Muslim population. The Media Line takes a look at some Yemini Jewish families, their move from small villages to luxurious housing compounds and their integration into society. Sasa, 12, and 40 other boys of the Jewish minority in Raida, Yemen have stopped going to school. Sasa no longer plays as he used to, though he has never really played like other children. Sasa, his three brothers and five sisters lost their father and teacher Masha Ya’ish last December when he was shot dead by a former pilot and military officer. Last February, a...

Yemen's navy released on Monday an oil tanker hijacked earlier by Somali pirates in the pirate-plagued Gulf of Aden, naval source said. Early on Monday, naval forces carried out a release operation which resulted in recovering the tanker, releasing the crew and the arrest of 11 pirates. 3 marines were injured during the operation. The tanker was returning to the southern port city of Aden from Mukalla province where it had unloaded its cargo. On Sunday, two pirates were killed, one injured and four arrested as Yemeni naval forces freed three ships which Somali pirates hijacked off Aden. Troops used...

KHARIF, Yemen – In this village in northern Yemen, where a kosher butcher slaughters chickens and the school bus carries young boys in side curls along a dirt track to their Hebrew studies, one of the oldest Jewish communities in the Arab world is fighting for its survival. Yemen's Jews, here and elsewhere in the country, are thought to have roots dating back nearly 3,000 years to King Solomon. The community used to number 60,000 but shrank dramatically when most left for the newborn state of Israel. Those remaining, variously estimated to number 250 to 400, are feeling new and...

Men and women wade out to smugglers' boats near Bossaso, Somalia, for the voyage across the Gulf of Aden 23 April 2009 – Thirty-five people drowned after one of two smugglers’ boats carrying more than 220 passengers across the Gulf of Aden from Somalia capsized off the coast of Yemen, the United Nations refugee agency said today. “This is one of the worst incidents to occur in the Gulf of Aden in recent months,” said Leila Nassif, who heads the Aden office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). “Unfortunately, more and more people are so desperate in their...

SAN'A, Yemen—The two young sons of a Yemeni detainee at Guantanamo died when a grenade they were playing with accidentally detonated inside their home, a human rights lawyer and the detainee's brother said Thursday. The two boys were the sons of Guantanamo prisoner #1463, Abdelsalam al-Hilah, a businessman who was captured in Cairo in 2002 and sent to Guantanamo on charges of terrorism, said Ahmed Irman of the Hood Organization for Defending Human Rights, an organization that advocates for Guantanamo detainees in Yemen. The children, Youssef, 11, and Omar, 10, were playing unsupervised with the grenade in a room in...

A Yemeni woman has been executed by firing squad for killing her husband, whom she accused of molesting their daughter. The woman's lawyer, Abdel-Alim al-Wafi, says she was executed Sunday in a province north of the capital, San'a. SNIP She was sentenced to death in 2003. Under Yemeni law, she could have been pardoned if one of her children had agreed. But the lawyer says none of her children did because of pressure from the father's family.

SNIPPET: "In recent days Egypt has been disclosing details about uncovering a major Hezbollah espionage ring on its soil. AP cites a cabinet minister saying 25 of its 49 members have been arrested so far. The arrests began back in November, but the disclosures have started only now. The leader of the espionage ring—who is among those detained—was a Hezbollah agent named Sami Shehab, and the group he recruited included Lebanese, Syrians, Sudanese, and Palestinians along with 12 Egyptian Shiites. Not surprisingly, they planned attacks on Israeli vacationers in the Sinai, apparently as revenge for the February 2008 killing of...

Perhaps purely motivated by profit, Somalian pirates are shuttling weapons and terrorists in and out of the country and sharing up to fifty-percent of the ransoms with al-Shabab, what it reaps from hijacking ships. Formed as the Islamic Courts Union's (ICU) military wing, al-Shabab announced in March its affiliation with al Qaeda after regaining control of most of southern Somalia earlier this year when Ethiopia withdrew its forces. Southern Somalia is now under the control of Shabaab and other Islamist groups. Click image to enlarge. Map used with permission. Read the story at The Long War JournalThe Weekly Standard's Thomas...

The Yemeni al-Qaida in the Arab Peninsula is reportedly claiming responsibility for a March suicide attack on South Korean officials investigating an earlier bombing that killed four South Korean tourists and a Yemeni driver. In an announcement posted on various Islamic militant Web sites Sunday, the group said a suicide bomber named Shamel al-Sanani carried out the March 18 attack in an effort to highlight the inability of Yemeni security to protect the South Koreans. Yemeni officials said no one was hurt in the attack on the investigators, who were looking into the March 15 attack against the tourists. The...

A Yemeni court on Sunday put on trial a group of 10 Shiite alleged rebels accused of belonging to an armed gang and plotting a series of bombings in the capital. The group is accused of conspiring to carry out "terrorist" attacks and killing a number of police officers in May 2008 on the outskirts of Sanaa. The defendants denied the charges and instead demanded that Yemen's President Ali Abdullah Saleh be tried for destroying their homes and burning their fields. "Death to America, death to Israel and victory to Islam," they shouted from the dock. According to the charges,...

Seven African migrants drowned and a further seven are missing and presumed dead after smugglers forced passengers off a boat in deep sea off Yemen, the U.N. refugee agency said. Survivors told the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees that the boat, carrying 72 Somalis and Ethiopians, was far from the Yemeni coast when smugglers started to force them off, the agency said in a statement dated Saturday. "I owe my life to my brother who helped me swim ashore," one of the 58 survivors told UNHCR staff at a transit camp. Last year 50,000 people, mostly from Somalia and Ethiopia,...

BARACK OBAMA PIRATE SONG

Terrorism and rebellion were behind the slow economic growth in Yemen over 2006-2008 said the Yemeni Deputy Prime Minister, Minister of Planning and International Cooperation, Abdul Kareem Al Arhabi on Sunday. "The slowness of the economic growth was because of the drop in oil production, terrorism, the Al Houthi rebellion in the north," Al Arahabi said in a conference to assess achievements of a socio-economic plan to reduce the poverty in Yemen. The socio-economic plan of 2006-2010, was supported by $ US 5.5 billion by the GCC and international donors in a GCC-sponsored conference in November 2006, in London. About...

Negotiations for the release of a Dutch couple kidnapped by Yemeni tribesmen on Tuesday have stalled, mediators said. The talks broke down over demands by the kidnappers for security officers to be brought to justice over an alleged attack last year, tribal mediators said on Saturday. Negotiations began on Tuesday with tribal chief Ali Nasser al-Siraji, leader of the kidnap, with a view to securing the couple's release in return for compensation for an incident in which a convoy headed by Siraji came under fire from a security check point, according to the mediators. The attack allegedly took place last...

April 2, 2009 Italian authorities carry out raids against "Islamist radicals" across country SNIPPET: "Rome, 2 April (AKI) - Twenty-six foreigners suspected of links to international terrorism as well as aiding and abetting illegal immigration are being investigated by Italian police, after raids carried out on Thursday in various Italian cities. The raids were carried out in properties around the northern cities of Vicenza, Venice, Padova, Brescia, Como, Cuneo and Trento, the central city of Florence and the southern city of Caserta. The anti-terrorism and organised crime investigators in March 2007 began probing alleged Islamic fundamentalists attending the Via Dei...

<p>WASHINGTON (AP) — A federal judge on Tuesday ordered the United States to release a prisoner from the Guantanamo detention center.</p> <p>U.S. District Judge Ellen Segal Huvelle issued a one-page judgment ordering the release of Yasin Muhammed Basardh, a 33-year-old from Yemen.</p>

Note: The following blog entry is a quote: http://www.thememriblog.org/blog_personal/en/15126.htm Yemen: A New List of 154 Wanted Terrorists The Yemeni Foreign Ministry published a new list comprising 154 wanted terrorists, including 85 Saudi and 80 Yemeni Al-Qaeda members. The list, which contains names and photographs of the wanted individuals, was distributed among Yemeni officials and security forces. Source: Al-Sharq Al-Awsat, London, March 31, 2009 Posted at: 2009-03-31

He also was accused of aiding terrorist-charities and repeatedly meeting with Osama bin Laden. All rubbish, insists his lawyer; as for his meetings with bin Laden, well, they were all merely "chance encounters." "U.S. Decides to Release Detainee at Guantánamo," by William Glaberson for the New York Times, March 31: The Justice Department announced Monday that the administration had decided to release a detainee at the prison at Guantánamo Bay, a Yemeni doctor who the Bush administration once claimed had taken part in an anthrax program of Al Qaeda. The government had backed away from the anthrax accusations but had...

Members of the tiny Jewish community in Sanaa, Yemen’s capital, say they have not received their monthly food rations or any government financial assistance for the past three months. Rabbi Yahya Yusuf, leader of the 65-member community, told IRIN the Jews had been “suffering terribly” of late; many had been finding it very difficult to even feed their children. “We have sold everything we possess to buy food for our families. We even sold our women’s gold rings. We have run out of money,” he said. Yusuf said that two weeks ago they had staged a protest outside government headquarters...

Armed tribesmen kidnapped four foreign tourists, believed to be Italians, in the Yemeni capital Sanaa on Tuesday and took them to a tribal area outside the city, security and tribal sources said on Tuesday. The attack is likely to further damage Yemen's nascent tourism sector and add to the security concerns of foreign firms developing its oil and gas sector. The nationality of the four was not immediately confirmed, but some sources said they were believed to be Italians. Italy's foreign ministry said it was aware of reports of the kidnapping but had no information about the nationalities of the...

The US justice department has agreed to transfer a Yemeni inmate from America's controversial Guantanamo Bay prison. But it declined to provide details of where Ayman Saeed Batarfi would go. The 38-year-old Yemeni doctor has been held at Guantanamo since 2002, a year after he was detained in Afghanistan on suspicion of assisting al-Qaeda. Some 250 detainees are being held at Guantanamo. In January, US President Barack Obama ordered the prison in Cuba to be closed within a year. Mr Obama also ordered a review of military trials for terror suspects and a ban on harsh interrogation methods.

Yemeni authorities said they arrested 10 Islamic militants in a major offensive on Saturday in the south of the country and witnesses said four policemen were killed in the fighting. Clashes erupted in Jaar, northeast of the port city of Aden, where police had been hunting for wanted members of jihadist groups. "This campaign comes after dissident elements attacked members of the security forces and government interests, and disrupted peace and security over the past few weeks," a Jaar security official told AFP. Four Yemeni policemen were killed in fighting, witnesses told AFP. But an interior ministry official denied the...

Note: The following text is a quote: http://www.fbi.gov/congress/congress09/mueller032509.htm Congressional Testimony Robert S. Mueller, III Director Federal Bureau of Investigation Statement Before the Senate Judiciary Committee March 25, 2009 Good morning Chairman Leahy, Senator Specter, and Members of the Committee. I am pleased to be here today. As you know, we in the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) have undergone unprecedented transformation in recent years, from developing the intelligence capabilities necessary to address emerging terrorist and criminal threats, to creating the administrative and technological structure necessary to meet our new mission as a national security service. Today, the FBI is a...

A Yemini court on Monday sentenced to death a Muslim for allegedly writing to outgoing Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and offering to spy for Israel. Two other men were sentenced to three and five years in prison. All three denied the charges, and Bassam al-Haidari, who faces death, yelled after the court decision, “This is an unfair ruling. You have sentenced me without any proof of these accusations.”