Archive: yemen

23rd September 2010
By: Brian Whitaker
More than 1,500 Yemeni troops launched a major offensive yesterday against the southern town of Hota (Huta, Hawta) which they have been besieging since Sunday. Xinhua news agencyquotes a local counter-terrorism official as saying: "The massive offensive started with ... air raids and a partial drop… Read more
22nd September 2010
By: Brian Whitaker
As many as 15,000 civilians have now fled al-Hota (Huta), the southern Yemeni town which has been besieged by the military since Sunday.  Between 80 and 100 al-Qaeda militants are said to be holed up in the town (estimated population 20,000-25,000) and the surrounding area. It appears that the army… Read more
21st September 2010
By: Brian Whitaker
Between 8,000 and 12,000 people have fled their homes in al-Hota, southern Yemen, in what is said to be a battle between government forces and al-Qaeda militants, according to Red Crescent sources in the area. The town, in Shabwa province, has reportedly been subjected to heavy shelling, with five… Read more
19th September 2010
By: Brian Whitaker
In Yemen, the deputy governor of Abyan province, Ahmed al-Rahawi, survived an assassination attempt yesterday when his convoy was ambushed in al-Rai district of Jaar. AFP says a roadside bomb exploded, injuring three soldiers and a fourth person who was in al-Rahawi's car. A civilian was reported… Read more
14th September 2010
By: Brian Whitaker
The international Friends of Yemen group must do more than fight terrorism and provide economic aid, Christophe Wilcke of Human Right Watch argues in an article for the Yemen Times. "If Yemen’s friends don’t tie economic assistance to improvements in the country’s rapidly deteriorating human rights… Read more
11th September 2010
By: Brian Whitaker
Al-Qaeda's campaign to demoralise the security forces in souther Yemen has taken a new twist.  Following a series of assassinations of officers, the militants have issued a list of 55 names – 31 state security officers, 15 members of the judiciary police and nine members of military intelligence,… Read more
1st September 2010
By: Brian Whitaker
A couple of useful articles about Yemen in the September issue of The Majalla. In the first, Professor Fawaz Gerges of the London School of Economics discusses Yemen's summer of discontent. He writes: What is alarming about the growing brazenness and activism of [al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula]… Read more
29th August 2010
By: Brian Whitaker
With mediation from Qatar, the Houthi rebels and the Yemeni government have signed an agreement aimed at consolidating the ceasefire announced last February. Reuters reports: "Among the main points of the agreement, rebels were required to return stolen Yemeni military weapons to their Qatari… Read more
25th August 2010
By: Brian Whitaker
Thousands of Yemenis – possibly as many as 80,000, according to al-Jazeera – are reported to to have fled their homes in Lawdar (or Loder) as the authorities conduct a massive house-to-house search ostensibly aimed at rooting out al-Qaeda militants. Details are sketchy because the city, in the… Read more
25th August 2010
By: Brian Whitaker
Amnesty International says it is "extremely likely" that Saudi Arabia used British-supplied Tornado warplanes to bomb northern Yemenat the height of the Houthi conflict last year. Saudi forces came to the aid of the Yemeni military against the rebels in November and operations continued until a… Read more