Israel army unveils new cyber defense unit - Xinhua

JERUSALEM, July 8 (Xinhua) -- The Israeli military offered Monday a peek into one of its most secretive bases, which houses a newly established unit tasked with defending its own networks against mounting attacks launched in cyberspace.

Teams of programmers and computer experts, aged 18 to 22, man the "Cyber War Room," situated at an undisclosed site in central Israel, where malicious cybernetic activities occurring worldwide are monitored around the clock.

Long gone are the days when cyber was the exclusive domain of computer "geeks" spending their nights and days hacking into data bases in the privacy of dimly-lit bedrooms. In the Israeli military, it has already received recognition as another dimension of warfare, alongside the bombers, ships and tank battalions.

"Cyber isn't just another means, but a dimension that exists all the time between and during wars," Brig. Gen. Ayala Hakim, commander of the Israeli Defense Forces's (IDF) Lotam Unit, which oversees cyberdefense operations, told Israel's Channel 10 during an interview Monday.

Israel is investing vast human and financial resources in defending against the immediate threat posed by computer network attacks launched daily on its strategic infrastructure, government ministries, military and intelligence community. The fear is that a major cyberattack could cripple the country's critical infrastructure, including utilities, banking and cellphone networks, among others.

To illustrate the scope of the phenomena, the government revealed it deflected a staggering 44 million attacks on its main online sites during a nine-day war with Islamist group Hamas in Gaza last November.

Last year, the IDF publicly acknowledged for the first time, in a post on its official blog, that it was engaged in both defensive and offensive cyberwarfare. On the defensive end, efforts are mainly focused on repelling attempts by enemy states, global militant networks and lone hackers from overseas to penetrate the military's computers, either for espionage or sabotage.

"The operations room enables us to monitor the great breadth of the Internet at a single focal point," explained the Israeli military official. "We look at what is happening to us via a proactive approach and by gathering open intelligence. We assess our situation."

Like other cyber units operating in Israel's defense institution, including in the intelligence community, the soldiers of the new Cyber War Room constantly seek to increase the nimbleness of their response to identify and prevent an attack, and exploit it to launch a counterattack.

E

Thousands rally for south Yemen secession on war anniversary

Source : Al Akhbar English

Thousands of people rallied in south Yemen on Sunday's 19th anniversary of the civil war that was won by the north to demand secession for the south.

"No union and no federation, no to the occupation!" the crowds chanted in the Hadramawt provincial capital of Mukalla, an AFP correspondent said.

They waved the flag of the former South Yemen and portraits of Hassan Baoum, head of the Southern Movement's supreme council.

In a statement, the protest organizers reaffirmed their rejection of a national dialogue under way in the capital Sanaa.

They demanded "negotiations... under Arab or international patronage, to discuss ways of ending the occupation of the south", it said.

In Aden, former capital of the south, shops were shuttered and offices closed on Sunday, witnesses said, as southerners marked the anniversary of the end of the war.

Witnesses said youths blocked some main roads with boulders, an action that was repeated in other towns across the south.

After the former North and South Yemen united in 1990, the south broke away in 1994, triggering a civil war that ended with the region being overrun by northern troops.

Southerners have complained of discrimination and being marginalized ever since.

The UN- backed national dialogue began on March 18 and is due to last six months.

It brings together 565 representatives from Yemen's various political groups, ranging from the southern secessionists to Zaidi rebels in the north, as well as civil society representatives.

(AFP, Al-Akhbar)

Roadside bomb kills three soldiers in Yemen

Source : Al Akhbar English

A roadside bomb in Yemen's capital Sanaa killed three soldiers and injured two others during a security patrol early on Saturday, a security official said.

The bomb was hidden in a plastic bag planted near a police checkpoint in Sanaa's al-Hasaba district, a center of opposition to former Yemeni leader Ali Abdullah Saleh who was ousted early last year.

The device detonated as the policemen opened the bag to check its contents, the official added.

The official, who requested anonymity, said it was unknown who carried out the attack.

Yemen is the poorest Arab state with a third of the population living on less than $2 a day. It faces a Shi'a uprising in the north, an Islamist insurgency in the south and east, a southern separatist movement and splits in the military.

Washington and Gulf Arab countries fear the impoverished state could disintegrate, allowing Islamist militants to operate freely.

Yemen, which borders top oil exporter Saudi Arabia and sits along the Red Sea crude shipment route, is already home to al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula.

The country is navigating an uncertain political transition after Saleh was deposed in early 2012, leading to the creation of a two-year interim government.

Yemen's politicians are currently taking part in a national dialogue aimed at paving the way for a new constitution and planned February 2014 general elections.

(Reuters, AFP, Al-Akhbar)

U.S. to provide Yemen with warplanes amid drone strike criticism

Source : Xinhua

SANAA, June 29 (Xinhua) -- The United States has agreed to give Yemen warplanes to fight al-Qaida militants amid calls by the public and international organizations for putting an end to U.S. intervention and drone strikes in the country, a senior military official said Saturday.

"The warplanes, about three, will be shipped to Yemen in the next few months," the official said on condition of anonymity, adding "Yemen sent to the United States earlier this year pilots for training in operating the warplanes, in an effort to stop depending on complete foreign assistance."

FREQUENT U.S. DRONES

Since 2009, the U.S. drones have carried out many operations targeting al-Qaida leaders and most wanted members. And since the 2011 political upheaval in the Arab country, the drone strikes increased and people in areas such as provinces of Abyan and Marib have complained of the dangers resulted by such strikes.

Yemeni President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi said in 2012 during a trip to the United States that there was coordination between the two countries to fight terrorism under which he, as the transitional president, personally gave permission to use U.S. drones to target militants in Yemen.

Senior military officials said the Yemeni authorities are aware of all counterterrorism operations including drone strikes.

"All strikes are carried out through the coordination between the United States and Yemeni authorities including the Yemeni commander-in-chief's office, the operations room at the defense ministry and the Yemeni-U.S. security coordination office at the U. S. embassy in Sanaa," a military official said.

"(But still) it is impossible to believe that foreign warplanes are easily violating our airspace... It can't be like that even though Yemen does not have modern military equipment," the official added. U.S. INTERVENTION

Some international organizations, such as the Britain-based Reprieve, considered the U.S. drone strikes -- especially the misdirected ones that have killed dozens of innocents in recent years -- as part of illegal foreign intervention that affects Yemen's national security and social stability.

Cori Crider, the legal director at Reprieve, visited Yemen's national dialogue conference (NDC) in June, calling on the SANAA government to issue a law that criminalizes extrajudicial killings and violation of Yemen's airspace.

"Even though there were wanted and dangerous combatants, killings must be (conducted) according to the law," Bara'a Shaiban, a member of the NDC and coordinator for Reprieve in Sanaa said.

Shaiban said his team at the NDC has consensually made a decision on criminalizing extrajudicial and drone killings and they are struggling to ensure the new constitution will include provisions criminalizing foreign direct intervention.

"Yemen does not have advanced equipment to hunt militants at the moment and this is a key reason for the presence of U.S. drones in the country," another official at the air force said. " We can say -- and this is not justification -- that the United States is providing complete assistance to Yemen."

"Theoretically no one can deny that U.S. strikes may violate our country's sovereignty, but the Yemeni-U.S. counterterrorism cooperation deals are clear and what is going must take place according to them," he added.

Local researchers said Yemen has laws that prevent direct foreign intervention on its soil but there are key reasons behind overpassing such laws on the ground.

"When it comes to the war on terrorism, the United States and Europe ignore sovereignty and that is a problem which Yemen should focus on," Abdulsalam Muhammad, head of ABAAD center for strategic studies, said.

"The United States has carried out drone strikes in Yemen's eastern and southern regions in recent years and dozens of innocents were killed, which stirs public anger and could affect the bilateral relations between the two countries," he added.

Yemen Releases Activists Held since Saleh-Era

Source : Ahlul Bayt News Agency

The release came after 20 detainees began a hunger strike on May 24 in a bid to step up pressure to be freed, according to local rights group Hood.

Some of them are suspected of involvement in an attack on Saleh in June 2011 which killed 11 of his guards.

On Wednesday, state news agency Saba reported that the attorney general has ordered the release of 17 out of 22 people detained for their suspected involvement in the attack.

According to local rights groups, the 22 had been held in Sanaa, 19 in Hajja province, 11 in Saada in the north and six in several other prisons across the country.

During the 2011 uprising, which erupted as part of the Arab Spring wave of protests, demonstrators frequently clashed with security forces and partisans of Saleh.

Yemen's main oil export pipeline bombed: ministry

Source : Xinhua

SANAA, May 24 (Xinhua) -- Yemen's main oil pipeline which carries crude from the Marib province to export terminal on the Red Sea was blown up Friday, the defense ministry said in a statement.

"Saboteurs on Friday dawn bombed the main oil pipeline in Serwah district in the northeastern province of Marib," the ministry said in the statement on its website.

Acts of sabotage on the oil pipeline and electricity grid in Marib have dramatically increased over the past few days, the statement said without elaborating further details.

Yemen's oil and gas pipelines, as well as the country's main electricity grid, have been frequently attacked almost every week since the eruption of protests against former President Ali Abdullah Saleh in 2011.

Oil revenues make up more than 70 percent of the state budget, while oil and gas products account for over 90 percent of Yemen's exports.

Yemen's oil production rapidly declined from more than 400,000 barrels per day at the beginning of the past decade to the current 270,000 barrels per day.

Suspected Islamist gunmen assassinate Yemeni colonel

Source : LBCI News

Gunmen shot dead a senior Yemeni military intelligence officer who had been targeted for assassination by al Qaeda-linked militants, a local security official said.

Colonel Abdullah al-Rabaki was walking home in the city of Mukalla in Hadramawt Province late on Friday when the gunmen shot him six times with a revolver fitted with a silencer, the official said. They escaped on a motorbike.

Leaflets from Islamist militants allied to al Qaeda had previously been circulated in the city on Yemen's south coast, calling for Rabaki's assassination, the official said.

Tackling lawlessness in Yemen, which lies near important oil shipment routes and flanks the world's biggest oil exporter Saudi Arabia, is an international priority for the United States and other Western countries. It is home to an al Qaeda wing that has planned international bomb plots.

More than 60 army and security officers have been assassinated in the country's southern provinces in the past two years as government forces attempt to wrestle back control of areas seized by militants during the chaos of the Arab Spring.

As well as battling an Islamist insurgency in the south, the government faces a southern separatist movement and a revolt among some tribes in the impoverished country's north.