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| Arabia |
| Yemen: al-Qaeda in Broad Daylight |
| 2005-05-22 |
| So did you hear the one about Yemen? They are "reforming" the press law. The proposed law now includes the death penalty for journalists. How about this one? In a move to unify the country, the government is confiscating all Shia religious material. How about this? This ally in the War on Terror is perpetuating an al-Qaeda jihad. Recent public statements about Yemen paint a dire picture. Ayatollah al-Sistani and the religious establishment in Najaf, Iraq said there is a "brutal massacre" going on there. The defecting Yemeni Ambassador has stated that high ranking members of the Yemeni government are affiliated with al-Qaeda. Putting these statements together, (the massacre with the al-Qaeda), it's like a 9/11 unfolding slowly in the mountains and cities of Yemen. The Yemeni Ambassador to Syria who is attempting to defect to the UK has been making statements about al-Qaeda elements within the Yemeni government. Ambassador Ahmed Abdullah al-Hasani alleges that members of Al-Qaeda are in the highest ranks of Yemen's military and security forces. He also claims they were behind the bombing of the USS Cole, in which 17 sailors died, and the 1998 kidnapping of 16 western tourists. His statements support the existing evidence of a strong link between Yemeni leadership and al-Qaeda. The fleeing al-Hasani says that it is very likely that President Ali Abdullah Saleh "knew in advance of the Cole explosion." Indeed, Freedom House in 2003 reported that Saleh refused to investigate the Cole bombing until the US threatened military action. Another thing President Saleh is refusing to do is interrupt the flow of terrorist financing. Only one bank account was frozen in response to a UN Security Council Sanctions Committee directive to the freeze 144 terrorist affiliated accounts of persons, companies, and organizations. The other 143 al-Qaeda associated bank accounts in Yemen remain fully functional. Next is Ali Mohsen al-Ahmar, President Saleh's half-brother, and a currently a prominent military commander in Yemen. Ali Mohsen al-Ahmar was an ally of Osama Bin Laden and helped him to recruit Yemenis to fight Soviet troops in Afghanistan reports indicate. Later these fighters set up terrorist training camps in Yemen. Ambassador al-Hasani says that Ali Mohsen al-Ahmar was complicit in the kidnapping of 16 western tourists in December 1998. "Two days before the killings, members of the terrorist group were in al-Ahmar's house in Sana'a," al-Hasani said. "They were also in telephone contact with Sana'a just before the shootings." |
| Posted by:Whineting Flese2359 |