The Empty Quarter

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All so young.

Traveled to the U.S. with his mother in 1995. Recruited by an ‘Amr Muhsen Hassan al-Mahfli al-Raimi. He was previously wanted and was included in Yemen’s 161 most wanted list…

Al-Ayyam is reporting on the name confusion of the suicide bomber that killed four Korean tourists and their Yemeni guide last Sunday. Apparently, the bomber had a fake I.D. on him…

Yemen’s top terror buster, Interior Minister Mutahar Rashad al-Masri has publicly denounce Yemeni judges for being lenient on terrorists. It should be noted that the call for harsher punishment comes after a judge ordered investigation of the treatment of members of an accused al-Qaeda cell who complained of torture by security agencies…

This Korean news report has a pretty cool computer generated re-enactment of of the bombing. You get a really good idea of how it was carried out…

UPDATED

HEAVILY UPDATED: Another suicide bomber has struck in Yemen near Sana’a airport. This time, it appears that the Korean delegation headed by the korean ambassador was the target. The bomber blew himself up as the delegation convoy passed en route to the airport. Apparently, a car window was smashed but nobody was injured…

A security source at the Ministry of Interior has told al-Hayat that Yemeni security forces are tracking 50 Saudis spread throughout Yemen. The source told the paper that the names will be submitted to Interpol…

Strange that the name changed. Perhaps the ID card found was not that of the bomber. It is also unclear whether this article is saying the bomber was a Somali immigrant or Yemeni…

UPDATED: He asked to pose with the Koreans before blasting his body parts over a kilometer away. A witness at the scene says that the boy, who was high on qat, was with an older man in his 40s. News Yemen has also published the names of the victims…

The U.S. Deputy National Security Advisor John Brennan is in Sana’a where he met with President Saleh over the fate of Yemen’s Guantanamo detainees. Thus far, Yemeni press has reported the meeting as part of a “continuing dialogue” on the matter, although the reality of the U.S. position – the hesitancy to repatriate many Yemeni detainees – has now come out…

UPDATED: The bombing that killed four South Korean tourists and a Yemeni guide in south-eastern Yemen on Sunday was a suicide attack by a young al-Qaeda operative, security sources said on Monday…

News reports have it that the U.S. is considering releasing Yemeni detainees at Gitmo to Saudi Arabia instead of Yemen. Although not here, I have argued in the past that this is most likely what the U.S. would end up doing with that class of prisoners it doesn’t want to see returned into Yemen’s general population right away – which will be ALL returnees to Yemen…

Security forces captured Saudi national Abdullah al-Harbi, named on the lists of Saudi Arabia’s 85 and Yemen’s 116 most wanted, in the governorate of Taiz on Sunday, March 15. Over the past few days a number of al-Qaeda operatives apparently surrendered to security forces in Abyan as well…

In Yemen’s region of Marib, capital of the mythical kingdom of the Queen of Sheba, the followers of Al-Qaeda might well outnumber tourists these days…

Yemen’s Ministry of Interior released the names and pictures of the country’s 116 most wanted. The ministry has asked for increased vigilance and caution in the capture of those on the list…

Informed sources have said that a senior U.S. military official that visited Sana’a this week (hint: Lieutenant General Samuel T. Helland, Commander, USMC Forces Central, was just in Yemen) offered U.S. military assistance in hunting out al-Qaeda in Yemen’s tribal areas, according to al-Watan…

Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh is currently in Damascus in the first of a fours state visit. While there he met with Ramadan Abdullah Mohammad Shallah, leader of Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ). Saleh during the meeting, Saleh reportedly invited Shallah to visit Yemen…

Abu Nasar Al-Haweshi from Yemen has been nominated as Al-Qaeda’s leader for Gulf Region, TheNation learnt through highly-placed reliable sources on Sunday…

This really needs some confirmation – there is a whole lot here that just doesn’t add up…

The Kuwaiti government has spared no efforts for releasing the four Kuwaitis still held as terror suspects at Guantanamo Bay, Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Sheikh Mohammad Sabah Al-Salem Al-Sabah said yesterday.He denied accusations that the government has been slack on the issue of the Guantanamo prisoners…

A spokesman for the Saudi Interior ministry has denied reports that seven Saudi terrorism suspects were arrested in Yemen who received trainings in the kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Major General Mansour al-Turkey said Yemeni officials had told him the reports were untrue…

I am starting to tire of all the Awfi press, but this article I found rather interesting because of the psychological commentary and the discussion on al-Awfi mental state…or the speculation at least…

Ali Jaber al-Shihri has made a public plea to his son, Sa’id Ali al-Shihri, to hand himself in and return to the homeland. The appeal comes following the recent return of al-Qaeda Field Commander Mohammad al-Awfi…

Greg Johnsen has been busy - and not with his love of controversial novelists. He found and analyzed the names of the 112 controversial “al-Qaeda-linked-not-al-Qaeda-linked” prisonersreleased by Yemen so far. And, well…as Ricky says, “Aaaali, you gots some ‘splainin’ to do”…

During the final months of the Bush administration, top U.S. counterterrorism officials engaged in an intense debate about the fate of the Yemenis detained at Guantánamo Bay. Barack Obama’s Gitmo problem is, in many respects, a Yemen problem. And it just got worse…

Here’s a recent analysis by Jane Novak from over at Armies of Liberation. I have no qualms with much of the underlying information within the analysis; however, as often happens with analyses, we have disagreements on interpretation…

The Obama administration hopes to close the prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, in the next year. But officials keep running into an intractable problem: Nearly half the prisoners are from the Gulf state of Yemen, which is the last place the U.S. wants to release potential terrorists.

The surprise that came with the most recent list of 85 came with regards the 50th name on the list; the journalist Obaida Abdul-Rahman Al Otaibi. The Saudi Ministry of the Interior statement revealed that Obaida Abdul-Rahman Al-Otaibi had left Saudi Arabia for the UAE in 2005, but that there was no information with regards to his current whereabouts…

General Mansour Al-Turki, the security spokesman for the Saudi Ministry of the Interior revealed to Asharq Al-Awsat that a number of those included on the most wanted list of 85 suspected of having links to Al Qaeda were not under any security surveillance prior to their flight from Saudi Arabian territory.

The Ministry of Interior announced on its website that one of the most wanted persons in connection with pipeline bombing in Marib has been arrested in the port city of Hodeidah on Wednesday.

Al Awlaki is a highly regarded, American-born, pro-Jihad ideologue with access to a young audience in the United States, even from his location in Yemen. There is no other comparable pro-Al-Qaida American figure who has such tremendous access to audiences or who has such credibility.”

Saudi Arabia on Monday called upon countries in the region “to shoulder their responsibilities” in hunting down terrorist suspects. The Cabinet, meeting in its weekly session chaired by King Abdullah, Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques, made the appeal days after Saudi Arabia released a list of 85 wanted terrorist suspects who have fled the Kingdom.

UPDATED: Yemeni border guards apprehended 32 people suspected of being linked to the newly formed al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula group. The arrest comes after the release by Saudi Arabia a list of 85 individuals wanted by the state, and after a mass mobilization of Yemeni forces to the border region…

Yemen released 170 men it had arrested on suspicion of having ties to al-Qaida, security officials said Sunday, two weeks after the terror group announced that Yemen had become the base of its activities for the whole Arabian peninsula.

Three of the wanted terrorist suspects aged between 20-25 years old have been arrested in Marib province. The three suspects, who were arrested in a raid within a nationwide anti-terrorism campaign, include a Kuwaiti national.

Yemen has begun deploying security forces to the border regions in response to intel that al-Qaeda members are crossing the border to attack foreign interests including the British and American embassies and tourist sites.

Apparently News Yemen has obtained a document from the Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula which sheds light on the relationship between President Ali Abdullah Saleh and Jihadist in the country, especially those engaged in the civil war of 1994.

The family members and friends of ex-Gitmo detainees, Muhammad Al-Oufi and Sa’eed Al-Shihri, who resurfaced last week in Yemen as Al-Qaeda operatives despite having undergone a rehabilitation program in Saudi Arabia, have denounced them as “irreversible deviant members of society.”

The father of ex-Gitmo detainee Sa’eed Al-Shihri who has seemingly surfaced in Yemen as a senior Al-Qaeda operative despite having had undergone a rehabilitation program in Saudi Arabia, says his son “is a deviant member of society who must be removed.”

The recent reappearance of a rehabilitated Al-Qaeda member in Yemen who had been previously held at Guantanamo Bay does not disqualify the Saudi rehabilitation program as it has been proven successful to integrate the majority of returnees into the mainstream of society…

Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh said yesterday that his country had rejected a US proposal to send 94 Yemeni detainees from the military prison in Guantanamo, Cuba, to Saudi Arabia to be rehabilitated.

This doesn’t sound like any organized al Qaeda-Yemen operation…shooting at an army vehicle and running away. Of course, a number of checkpoints have been attacked as well lately, which AQ apparently later claimed credit for. The “bomb” is more likely a grenade. There are plenty in Mareb sympathetic to al Qaeda and hostile to the [...]

I guess they ran out of mortars…or maybe subsidy cuts are affecting prices in the weapons suqs too.

Second blast within a week, Americans evacuated from embassy

By: Nasser Arrabyee

Article Date: Apr 10, 2008

A bomb exploded early on Thursday outside the offices of a Canadian oil firm in Hadda Street, in the Yemeni capital Sana’a. The blast [...]

Disarmed? So it’s not mortars this time…ieds?

Blast near Canadian oil firm Nexen offices in Yemen

SANAA, April 10 (Reuters) - A blast shook an area near the headquarters of Canadian oil company Nexen (NXY.TO: Quote, Profile, Research) (NXY.N: Quote, Profile, Research) in the Yemeni capital Sanaa early on Thursday but there were no casualties, a Yemeni [...]

It appears as though al Qaeda influenced elements have attempted to target westerners again. This time, instead of going after the US embassy, they launched mortars at a housing complex in the affluent suburb of Hadda. I know that the there is a secured complex next to the (Best Western) Haddah Hotel (you can see the [...]

Just in the Arabic now. When I get some time I’ll go back and see if I can translate some of it.

لاأمان للسواح لأن دولهم محاربة ولسنا معنيين بأمان الدولة لهم
هذا اللقاء تم بواسطة الهاتف مع المسئول الإعلامي للقاعدة في اليمن واسمه الحركي أحمد منصور. تم اللقاء عبر شخص يكنى (أبو عبد الرحمن) والذي يتواصل [...]

No death for you. Lets see if Spain does what Yemen does with its citizens arrested for terrorism in foreign countries.

Yemen to extradite criminal to Spain
SANA’A, Jan. 29 (Saba) - Well-informed sources have said that Yemen would extradite the Spanish citizen Nabil Nankly, who has been jailed in Yemen on the charges of terror acts [...]

Despite what the government claimed after that attack, the shooting of the Belgians seems to have had major ramifications for those in the tourism industry in Hadhramout. This only makes sense. If the government itself hasn’t restricted travel permission to the region, Embassies, foreign businesses and NGOs most likely have…at least for the time being. I don’t know [...]

This story has been in the Yemeni press for a few days now…good to see it was finally picked up by an English paper. From the other reports, it sounded like Seche was trying to explain to the sheikhs how his personal belief carries no weight in an independent judiciary…its not surprising that [...]

Well, more like a confirmation. Mukalla Today says the suspects were apprehended on the basis of reports from locals, and confirms that a number of them where caught on the road to Shabwa. The report ends by citing sources that said the “taqfiri terrorists” were from “outside the governorate” (of Hadhramout).