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.

Yemen investigates military jet crash

Source : Xinhua

SANAA, May 15 (Xinhua) -- The Yemeni government started on Wednesday to examine the wreckage of a fighter jet which crashed into the capital Sanaa two days ago, an Air Force official said.

Major Mahdi Al-Aidrous, director of the information center at the Air Force, said the authorities have collected the debris of the Russian-made Sukhoi Su-22 jet to investigate the cause of the crash.

"The black box was badly damaged, but we will do what we can to investigate," he said.

Yemen is a key buyer of Russian weapons. But most of its weapons, especially the aircraft, have become old.

"Our planes are old, but honestly this is not the problem," Al- Aidrous said, adding that the "real problem" is that Yemeni air force does not have necessary equipment or workshops to conduct comprehensive checks before each takeoff.

"We have highly skilled technicians, but we don't have a factory to fix problems of warplanes," he said. "When we find a problem of a plane, we send that warplane to the country which produced it."

The crash of a military jet on Monday was the third one that took place in Sanaa over the past six months. Most of those accidents were blamed on technical problems.

"When a military transport plane fell down in the capital in November (2012), we discovered that a fuel leak was behind the tragedy," he said. "Still, there is something missing which is the secret behind those technical failures."

The official said that the government should address those problems concerning the air force, including low budget and security problems in general.

Al-Aidrous said that he can't rule out the possibility of sabotage behind the latest crash. "People sometimes fire at warplanes," he said.

Early Wednesday, gunmen fired at a helicopter in Rada town in the southern province of al-Bayda. "A bullet penetrated the helicopter carrying teams of the national dialogue conference, but no one was hurt," he said.

In February, a Sukhoi jet crashed, killing several people and injuring more than a dozen. The accident was blamed on a technical problem.

Gunshots hit Yemeni military helicopter

Source : Xinhua

SANAA, May 15 (Xinhua) -- A Yemeni military helicopter was shot by gunfire while it was en route from the capital Sanaa to the southern province of al- Bayda on Wednesday, the defence ministry said.

The chopper was carrying members of a national dialogue conference who are on field visits to al-Bayda.

Yemen launched the reconciliation dialogue between political parties in March, which is scheduled to run for six months to resolve prolonged political crisis, draft a new constitution and prepare for general elections in February 2014. The dialogue is part of a UN-backed power transfer deal that eased former President Ali Abdullah Saleh out of power in 2012 following a yearlong of mass uprising.

"Three gunshots hit the helicopter in Radda town of al-Bayda but caused no technical fault. The plane landed properly in the province as the damage was repaired before it continues its journey," the ministry said in a statement on its website, citing an unnamed spokesman of the Air Force.

The ministry did not identify the gunmen.

Al-Bayda, about 200 km southeast of Sanaa, is one of a strong base for the al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula.

The accident came two days after a Sukhoi jet exploded in the air and crashed in a residential neighborhood in Sanaa, killing its pilot. It was the third plane crash in six months in Sanaa.

Investigations into the plane crash were underway, said the officials.

2 killed in clashes between Yemeni troops, pro-secession activists

Source : Xinhua

ADEN, Yemen, May 15 (Xinhua) -- Two people were killed and three others injured in armed clashes that erupted between Yemeni security troops and pro-secession activists in the southern port city of Aden on Wednesday, a police officer and witnesses told Xinhua.

"One soldier was killed and three others were wounded by gunfire after pro-secession gunmen attempted to block main roads in Aden's neighborhood of Cerater," the local police officer said anonymously.

Also in the same neighborhood in Aden, a secessionist activist was killed when security troops tried to intervene and remove roadblocks by firing live ammunition into the air, according to witnesses near the scene.

A local resident told Xinhua anonymously that "the situation is too bad, gunfire and armed confrontations are still going on across the Cerater neighborhood. Security troops were deployed.

The southerners complain of being economically and politically marginalized and discriminated against since northern troops won a four-month civil war in 1994.

Supporters of pro-secession Southern Movement staged almost daily rallies to protest against the national reconciliation dialogue, which was launched in March by President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi, as part of a UN-backed political settlement to preserve the Yemeni unity.

The talks, which set to run for six months, aimed to end split between northern and southern regions, draft a new constitution and pave the way for general elections by the end of Hadi's two- year interim period in February 2014.

However, some leaders of the Southern Movement refused to join the talks, insisting that the Sanaa government should withdraw its troops from the south.

Released Finnish hostages in Yemen return home

Source : Globaltimes.cn

The Finnish couple who were held hostage in Yemen for 140 days returned home late Friday, Finnish media reported.

The couple and their Austrian friend, who had studied Arabic language in a school in Sanaa, were kidnapped by al-Qaida militants from a busy street in the Yemeni capital on Dec. 21, 2012.

The three persons received medical examinations in Vienna, Austria, on Thursday and were in good condition, according to Finnish Broadcasting Company YLE.

A statement made by the Finnish married couple, Atte and Leila Kaleva, said "It's good to be back in Finland. We were treated well during the time we were held. The food and water were good and we received medicine as needed."

A senior Yemeni official who asked not to be named told Xinhua earlier the couple and the Austrian man, 26-year-old Dominik Neubauer, were released Wednesday night through mediation of the Omani government and the Yemeni tribe.

The official also said "a large amount of ransom, about millions of US dollars, has been paid to the al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) in return of releasing the hostages."

Denying any payment, Teemu Turunen, an official with the foreign ministry has said "the most important thing is that Finland has paid nothing."

Gunmen kill 3 Yemeni pilots in drive-by shooting

Source : Xinhua

ADEN, Yemen, May 8 (Xinhua) -- Three military pilots of the Yemeni air forces were shot dead by suspected al-Qaida gunmen in the restive southern province of Lahj on Wednesday morning, a government official told Xinhua.

Two al-Qaida gunmen on a motorbike opened fire on a car that carrying the three military pilots to workplace at the Anad air base, the local government official said on condition of anonymity, adding that the three pilots were shot dead at the scene.

"All the three victims were high-ranking officers of the air force and working at the Anad military air base located in Lahj province," the government source said.

The assailants managed to flee the scene after conducting the drive-by shooting.

Yemeni security services have repeatedly blamed militants of the Yemen-based al-Qaida offshoot for a series of assassination attacks, mostly in the country's southern regions.

The Yemen-based al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), which emerged in January 2009, is considered the most strategic threat to the Yemeni government and its neighboring oil-rich Saudi Arabia.

The AQAP underscores the challenges faced by Yemeni President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi, who came to power after winning support from major Yemeni political forces, the United States and Saudi Arabia in February 2012.

Hadi is tasked with restoring security and stability to Yemen and putting an end to growing influence of al-Qaida that also threatens daily oil shipping routes in the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden.

Editor: Yang Yi

Yemeni army is cracking down on human trafficking

Source : Yemen Post

After rights groups and NGOs expressed their growing concerns over illegal smuggling activities in Yemen, warning traffickers were using a lapse in security to run profitable criminal rings, the government has sough to address the situation by appointing more men on the ground. Earlier this month at a conference in Geneva, UNHCR spokesperson, Adrian Edwards painted a grim picture to his audience "Yemen is frequently used as a transit point by Ethiopians looking to travel to the Gulf States and beyond. Few Ethiopians decide to seek asylum. There are many reports of mistreatment, abuse, or torture among people who make the journey by smugglers boats. Conflict and instability in Yemen have limited the ability of the authorities to address trafficking, particularly along the Red Sea coast where Yemeni smugglers and traffickers are often waiting to receive new arrivals from the Horn of Africa." For the past two years, slavery and human trafficking have been rife in the impoverished nation, putting the coalition government in a difficult situation as its resources and men are already stretch pretty thin. However, months of careful planning and strong political will are eventually bearing fruits. Several military units have been sent to crackdown against smugglers in the northern town of Haradh, a village which was first identified as a traffickers' hub in 2012. As stated by Medecin Sans Frontieres a reported 1620 migrants including women and children have been freed in the last four weeks. Many bore the marks of torture. “There are clear signs of extreme violence. Fingernails have been pulled out and many are badly beaten. We welcome this clampdown, but there are almost certainly thousands more migrants in captivity, and for those released, welcome centers and humanitarian NGOs are seriously overstretched,” Tarek Daher, MSF’s head of mission in Yemen, told the press.

2 southern leaders quit Yemen's national dialogue

Source : Xinhua

SANAA/ADEN, Yemen, May 4 (Xinhua) -- Two leaders of Yemen's Southern Movement announced Saturday that they would quit the ongoing national dialogue as the talks failed to reach any consensus or solutions to the secessionist issue.

"Our agenda and views were marginalized and the outcome of the ongoing dialogue will not reflect the real demand of southerners for self-determination," Ahmed bin Farid al-Suraimah, head of the committee responsible for the southern issue in the national dialogue conference (NDC), said in a statement.

Ali Ba-Odah, another pro-secession leader of the Southern Movement, also announced his withdrawal from the talks, which started on March 18 and is scheduled to run for six months.

"Withdrawal of al-Suraimah and Ba-Odah has a significant impact, but the committee of the southern issue is continuing its field work," NDC Secretary General Ahmed Awad bin Mubarak was quoted by the official Saba news agency as saying.

"Everyone knows that I sent a letter to President Abd-Rabbo Mansour Hadi and to the presidency of the conference on April 19, in which I demanded that this dialogue should tackle the southern issue and recognize the right of southerners on self-determination, " al-Suraimah said.

Some representatives in the southern issue committee will not attend any upcoming sessions of the national dialogue in protest against the withdrawal of al-Suraimah, sources from the secessionist movement told Xinhua anonymously.

The ongoing national dialogue aims to end the split between northern and southern regions, draft a new constitution and pave the way for general elections by the end of Hadi's two-year interim term in February 2014.

However, some leaders of the Southern Movement refused to join the talks, insisting that the Sanaa government should withdraw its troops from the south first.

The roots of the southern issue date back to 1994 when the civil war between the north and the south started, four years after they united in 1990. The southerners complain of being economically and politically marginalized and discriminated against since the northern troops won the four-month war.

Exclusive- 8500 more Turkish-made arms from Turkey to Yemen captured

Source : islamicinvitationturkey.com

8500 more arms from Turkey to Yemen captured Security guard police of Bab Al Mandeb Starit in South Yemen Taiz Province seized 8500 arms in a fishing ship named Al- Jalea coming from African Horn countries. Turkish made arms were packed in 200 boxes and were on the way to Yemen