Southern Yemeni Ex-Soldiers Demand Jobs

By AHMED AL-HAJJ
The Associated Press
Saturday, September 1, 2007; 9:21 PM

SAN'A, Yemen -- Riot police fired bullets and tear gas Saturday to disperse thousands of retired officers and soldiers in southern Yemen who gathered to demand a place in the country's military again, police and protesters said.

The demonstration, which was the second of its kind in the past month, underlined increasing tensions between southern and northern Yemen 13 years after a civil war. The protesters were largely members of the army of south Yemen who were ousted after being defeated by northern forces.

The Yemeni government deployed dozens of armored vehicles Saturday and sealed off several roads in the southern port city of Aden, 200 miles south of the capital Sana'a, where the protest was taking place, according to a police official who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media.

The security measures were intended to prevent additional people from joining the demonstration. During the first protest in early August, one person was reportedly killed and some 1,000 arrested when thousands of demonstrators marching toward downtown Aden clashed with police.

The government said it had responded to the former military personnel's demands by allowing more than 7,000 of them back into the army, but Abdu al-Muatari, the spokesman for the retired officers, said that was only a partial solution.

"Protests will continue until all demands are met," al-Muatari told The Associated Press. "We want to feel that we are citizens and partners and not followers."

Al-Muatari said police and soldiers rounded up more than 200 people in Aden, adding that the clashes had prevented schools and government institutions from operating Saturday.

A local official in southern Yemen's Hadramawt valley, who spoke on the condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of the subject, said that the clashes continued late into the night Saturday and that at least 19 protesters were wounded in the southern cities of Aden and al-Mukalla, 350 miles southeast of San'a.

Protesters complain the government of President Ali Abdullah Saleh is ignoring discrimination at the hands of the northerner-dominated leadership.

North and South Yemen were united in 1990, with Saleh _ who had been the north's president _ remaining in his post. In 1994, rebels announced the secession of the south, and battled northern forces for several months in a civil war that ended in their defeat.

Afterward, about 60,000 southern servicemen were discharged from the army, and many of them fled abroad. Most have since returned, attracted by amnesty and promises they would be allowed to re-enlist.

But many have not been allowed back into the military, which is dominated by northerners. At the same time, southerners complain that they are kept out of government jobs _ a main source of employment in the south _ in favor of northerners brought in to fill the bureaucracy and security forces.

Northerners also continue to hold large tracts of land in the south granted to them after the civil war.

Suspected al Qaeda suicide bombing kills 9 in Yemen

Mon Jul 2, 2007 9:01PM EDT

By Mohamed Sudam

SANAA (Reuters) - Yemen said seven Spanish tourists and two Yemenis were killed in a suspected al Qaeda suicide car bomb attack on their convoy in the province of Marib on Monday.

Six Spanish tourists were wounded in the attack and were taken to hospitals in Sanaa and Marib, about 95 miles east of the capital, the official Saba news agency quoted an Interior Ministry source as saying.

"Preliminary information indicates that al Qaeda is behind this cowardly terrorist attack," the source said.

The bomber targeted the tourists after their vehicles left a temple in Marib at about 5:30 p.m. (10:30 EDT), the source said.

Two of their Yemeni drivers and tourist guides were killed and two were wounded.

"The security bodies will spare no effort to track down the terrorist elements behind this criminal act and present them to justice for a deterring punishment," the source said.

Security sources told Reuters earlier the attack followed an al Qaeda statement last week demanding the release of some of its members jailed in Yemen and warned of unspecified actions.

Spanish Foreign Minister Miguel Angel Moratinos said the tourists were accompanied by Yemeni security personnel when the suicide bomber rammed his vehicle into their convoy as they left the Queen of Sheba Temple.

"The convoy they were traveling in was made up of four vehicles with Yemeni security ahead of and behind them," he told reporters.

"A suicide car drove into the two central vehicles causing the death of seven tourists and injuring another six, one of them seriously."

PRISON ESCAPEE

Residents said body parts were strewn around the charred and damaged vehicles used by the Spaniards. One resident said the blast was very strong and had been heard miles away.

Security measures around foreign interests and tourist sites were intensified after the attack, one security source said. Another said the bomber might be one of 13 convicted al Qaeda members who escaped from prison in 2006.

Yemen is the ancestral home of al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden. It joined the U.S.-led war on terrorism launched after the September 11 attacks on the United States and has been battling Islamic militants for years.

The security sources said al Qaeda also demanded that Sanaa reconsider its cooperation with Washington.

In March a French student and a Yemeni man were killed and another Frenchman was wounded when Shi'ite rebels attacked an Islamic college in a volatile area in northern Yemen. The rebels are not linked to al Qaeda.

Yemen foiled two suicide attacks on oil and gas installations in 2006, days after al Qaeda urged Muslims to target Western interests, especially oil installations.

Al Qaeda's wing in Yemen claimed responsibility for the foiled attacks and vowed more strikes.

In 2002 militants bombed the French oil supertanker Limburg off Yemen's coast. In 2000, a suicide attack on the U.S. warship Cole killed 17 U.S. sailors.

Yemen, on the southern tip of the Arabian Peninsula, has been widely seen in the West as a haven for Muslim militants, including al Qaeda supporters.

Scores of tourists and foreigners working in Yemen have been kidnapped over the last decade by tribesmen demanding better schools, roads and services, or the release of jailed relatives.

Most hostages were released unharmed, but in 2000 a Norwegian diplomat was killed in crossfire and in 1998 four Westerners were killed during a botched army attempt to free them from Islamic militants who had seized 16 tourists.

(Additional reporting by Raquel Castillo and Emma Pinedo in Madrid)

Yemen blames Al-Qaeda for deadly bombing

Compiled by Daily Star staff

Seven Spanish tourists and two Yemenis were killed in an attack by a suspected Al-Qaeda suicide car bomber in the Yemeni province of Maarib on Monday, security sources said.

The Interior Ministry said the bombing in the restive northeastern region appeared to be the work of the Al-Qaeda network. "Preliminary information indicates that the Al-Qaeda organization is behind the cowardly attack," an Interior Ministry official told Saba news agency.

"This criminal attack has killed seven Spanish tourists and two Yemeni nationals who worked as drivers and tourist guides and wounded six Spanish tourists and two nationals," he added. A security official said on the Web site of the Yemeni Defense Ministry's newspaper that the bomber slammed his explosives-laden vehicle into the tourists' five-car convoy, which included a police car.

Witnesses told AFP the attack occurred as the tourists were wrapping up a tour of a temple in Maarib which dates back 3,000 years to the time of the biblical Queen of Sheba.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility.

Security sources said the "terrorist attack" followed an Al-Qaeda statement demanding the release of some of its members jailed in Yemen and warned of unspecified actions.

The security sources said Al-Qaeda also demanded that Sanaa reconsider its cooperation with Washington.

Spain's Foreign Ministry confirmed the toll in the attack in Maarib, about 150 kilometers east of the Yemeni capital Sanaa.

"According to preliminary information the blast could be the result of a car bomb that hit a convoy of tourists," one provincial authority source said.

"Investigations are under way," he added.

Yemen, the ancestral home of Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, has been battling Islamic militants for years.

In March a French student and a Yemeni man were killed and another Frenchman wounded when Zaidi rebels attacked an Islamic college in a volatile area in northern Yemen. The rebels are not linked to Al-Qaeda.

Yemen foiled two suicide attacks on oil and gas installations in 2006, days after Al-Qaeda urged Muslims to target Western interests. Al-Qaeda's wing in Yemen claimed responsibility for the foiled attacks and vowed more strikes.

In 2002 militants bombed the French oil supertanker Limburg off Yemen's coast. In 2000, a suicide attack on the US warship Cole killed 17 US sailors.

Yemen, on the southern tip of the Arabian Peninsula, has been widely seen in the West as a haven for Muslim militants, including Al-Qaeda supporters.

Scores of foreigners in Yemen have been kidnapped over the last decade by tribesmen demanding better schools, roads and services, or the release of jailed relatives. Most were released unharmed, but in 2000 a Norwegian diplomat was killed in crossfire and in 1998 four Westerners were killed during a botched army attempt to free them from Islamic militants who had seized 16 tourists. - Agencies