Statement by the Press Secretary on Violence in Yemen, Posted by Meosha Eaton

THE WHITE HOUSE
Office of the Press Secretary
______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
June 3, 2011

Statement by the Press Secretary on Violence in Yemen

The United States condemns in the strongest terms the senseless acts of violence today in Yemen, including the attack against the Presidential Palace compound in Sana’a as well as other attacks in Sana'a and throughout the country. We call on all sides to cease hostilities immediately and to pursue an orderly and peaceful process of transferring political power as called for in the GCC-brokered agreement.

Key political risks to watch in Yemen, Posted by Meosha Eaton

SANAA, June 3 (Reuters) - Fierce fighting in Sanaa between forces loyal to President Ali Abdullah Saleh and his tribal opponents has sent Yemen sliding rapidly towards civil war.

Street battles in the past 10 days have claimed at least 155 of more than 370 lives lost since popular protests demanding an end to Saleh's nearly 33 years in power erupted in January.

Yemen's deputy PM injured in palace attack-Al Arabiya, Posted by Meosha Eaton

SANAA, June 3 (Reuters) - Yemen's deputy prime minister was injured on Friday when the presidential palace was hit by at least two shells in street fighting in the capital, Al Arabiya TV reported.

Battles in Sanaa widened on Friday after killing at least 155 people over the last 10 days, marking an escalation in the uprising to end President Ali Abdullah Saleh's three-decade long rule of the impoverished state which started in January.

About 370 people have been killed in total. (Reporting by Mohamed Sudam; Editing by Jon Herskovitz)

Yemen fighting intensifies, US envoy in talks, Posted by Meosha Eaton

* Saleh refuses calls to step down

* Troops fire at protesters in Taiz

* Worries mount about risk to global oil supplies

* Refugee crisis may be brewing (Adds airport re-opening, details)

By Mohamed Sudam and Mohammed Ghobari

SANAA, June 2 (Reuters) - Forces loyal to President Ali Abdullah Saleh battled with tribal fighters in Yemen's capital on Thursday in overnight clashes that killed dozens as a U.S. envoy flew around the region to try and stop a civil war.

Ferocious fighting in the streets of Sanaa which grew out of protests against Saleh's rule since January has killed

MACTV News: Loss of bin Laden adds to al Qaeda money woes, Posted by Menelik Zeleke

 

May 20, 2011 1:37:59 PM

• BINLADEN-QAEDA/FINANCING (ANALYSIS)

* With bin Laden gone, some Qaeda donors may hold back

* Trove from bin Laden home may reveal funding links

* Likely successor Zawahri lacks depth of bin Laden's ties


By William Maclean, Security Correspondent LONDON, May 20 (Reuters) - Deprived of Osama bin Laden's fundraising starpower, al Qaeda's commanders face the prospect of a cash crunch that would complicate the task of evading capture by their U.S. pursuers.

The likely successor to Osama bin Laden is Ayman al-Zawahri, an Egyptian who lacks the former Saudi-born figurehead's depth of contacts among potential donors in the Gulf, a region seen in the West as an important funding source for militant groups.

U.S. warns citizens on Yemen, clashes erupt, Posted by Meosha Eaton

* U.S., Britain advise citizens to leave Yemen
* Clashes, gunfire erupts at protest in Ibb, dozens hurt
* Six security men killed in three attacks, al Qaeda blamed

(Adds more violence, British warning, opposition remarks)
By Mohamed Sudam

SANAA, March 6 (Reuters) - The United States warned citizens in Yemen on Sunday to consider departing as protests seeking the ouster of President Ali Abdullah Saleh gather momentum, saying the security risk in the impoverished state was extremely high.
Tens of thousands of protesters have camped out in major Yemeni cities, their tone hardening daily, and protests turned to clashes in the town of Ibb on Sunday when government loyalists attacked demonstrators with sticks and stones.

Violence also flared in outlying provinces, where six security men were killed in attacks blamed on al Qaeda. "The Department (of State) urges U.S. citizens not to travel to Yemen. U.S. citizens currently in Yemen should consider departing," the U.S. State Department said in a travel warning.

"The security threat level in Yemen is extremely high due to terrorist activities and civil unrest," it added. Britain has also warned against travel, advising those without a pressing need to stay to leave by commercial flights. The growing Yemeni protests, and a series of defections from Saleh's allies, have added pressure on Saleh to end his three-decade rule in the Arabian Peninsula state. But neither side appears willing to compromise to end the deadlock.

Protesters want Saleh to step down by the end of this year, if not sooner, while the president is sticking to an earlier pledge to leave office only when his current term ends in 2013. Yemen, a neighbour of Saudi Arabia, was teetering on the brink of failed statehood even before recent protests, with Saleh struggling to cement a truce with Shi'ite rebels in the north and quell a secessionist rebellion in the south.

Analysts say the recent protests, inspired by unrest that has toppled the leaders of Egypt and Tunisia and sparked an insurrection in Libya, may be reaching a point where it will be difficult for Saleh, an astute politician, to cling to power. "The country is on the brink of imploding," said Dubai-based security analyst Theodore Karasik. "This popular uprising is going to hit some kind of crescendo and you might have an outbreak of more violence. We might be looking at a Libya situation emerging in Yemen."


UNREST BUBBLING
Washington said its ability to help citizens in a crisis could be restricted, and evacuation options would be "extremely limited". It authorised the voluntary departure of the family members of U.S. embassy staff and non-essential personnel.

Yemeni protests, relatively peaceful in recent days, turned to violence in the town of Ibb when Saleh loyalists marched on an anti-government protest site in a park where thousands were camped out, attacking demonstrators with stones and batons. "There were a large number who tried to storm the park carrying clubs and pelting us with stones and shouting: 'No to destruction and chaos'," said protester Ahmed Saleh, citing a slogan widely used by Saleh supporters.

Police fired in the air to disperse the protesters. At least 47 people were hurt in the melee, six critically, including a youth protest leader, an activist and witnesses said. Some 26 people have been killed since protests surged in early February. Opposition leader Yassin Said Noman said there was currently "no dialogue or even discussion" with the government and that so long as street protests continued, any future talks would be only about bringing down the government. On Saturday, protesters blocked Prime Minister Ali Mohammed Megaar from arriving at Sanaa University to hold talks with protesters there.

Protesters say they are frustrated with corruption and soaring unemployment in Yemen where 40 percent of its 23 million people live on $2 a day or less and a third face chronic hunger. Elsewhere in Yemen, suspected al Qaeda assassin teams shot dead two high ranking intelligence officials in separate marketplace attacks in two provinces, officials there said.

One intelligence officer, Abdel-Hamid al-Sherbani, was killed in the southern town of Zinjibar. He was one of around 50 security officers thought to be on an al Qaeda hit list. The second officer was killed in the eastern province of Hadramout. In Maarib, east of the capital Sanaa, suspected al Qaeda militants killed four police officers in a shooting ambush, a local official said. The police vehicle had been delivering supplies to forces when it was attacked.

(Additional reporting by Mohammed Ghobari in Sanaa and Mohammed Mukhashaf in Aden; Writing by Cynthia Johnston; editing by Philippa Fletcher)

Yemen president tells US he is committed to reform, Posted by Meosha Eaton

WASHINGTON, March 2 (Reuters) - Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh called the White House on Wednesday to express regret for "misunderstandings" related to his remarks about the United States and Israel and say he is firmly committed to political reform in Yemen, the White House said.

Saleh, a key ally of Washington against al Qaeda's resurgent Yemen-based arm, called White House counterterrorism adviser John Brennan "to convey his regret for misunderstandings related to his public remarks that Israel and the United States have engaged in destabilizing activities in Arab countries," the White House said in a statement.

Saleh chastized Washington on Tuesday for its criticism of Arab leaders' responses to regional unrest, asking U.S. President Barack Obama if he was "president of the world."

Brennan reiterated Obama's calls for all sides to pursue their interests in a nonviolent manner, the statement said.

(Reporting by Patricia Zengerle, editing by Steve Holland)

Saudis, China dilute G20 Middle East text -sources, Posted by Meosha Eaton

As reported by Reuters:

PARIS, Feb 19 (Reuters) -

Saudi Arabia and China diluted Western efforts on Saturday to have the Group of 20 major world economies offer support to Tunisia and Egypt in their transition to democracy, delegates said. The diplomatic wrangle came as authorities in Libya, Bahrain and Yemen used lethal force to try to quash anti-government protests inspired by the popular uprisings that ousted authoritarian rulers in Tunisia and Egypt.

G20 president France urged finance ministers and central bankers of countries representing 85 percent of global economic output to welcome the change in the two north African Arab states and declare their willingness to provide resources to help their interim governments during the transition. "In the shorter term, France will ask you to be ready to join forces to accompany our Tunisian and Egyptian friends on the road to democracy, in making economic and social progress," President Nicolas Sarkozy told them in a speech on Friday.

Delegates said the wording of the draft G20 communique had been considerably watered down to remove any welcome of the popular uprisings but leave the offer of help. Saudi Arabia, an absolute monarchy with no elected parliament, strongly opposed any endorsement of the popular uprisings that toppled Tunisian President Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali and Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, they said.

"This sort of talk makes people like the Saudis rather nervous," one Western delegate said. "Understandably, the Chinese are weighing in as well."

Beijing argued that the Middle East situation was a matter for foreign ministers, not finance chiefs, he said.
"This is the nature of the G20, where we have democracies but also less democratic governments," the delegate said.

Most Western leaders have welcomed the popular wave sweeping North Africa and the Middle East, but analysts are nervous of how further civil unrest, economic disruption and a surge in migration will affect the rest of the world.

France, the formal colonial power in Tunisia and an influential voice with big economic interests in the Middle East, wants to see stable democracies take root in both countries, where it long had close ties with the ousted rulers.

(Reporting by Paul Taylor and Catherine Bremer, editing by Mike Peacock)

Bahrain police teargas protesters, Libyans clash, Posted by Meosha Eaton

As reported by Reuters:

* Libyans take to streets after protesters killed
* Bahrain opposition bloc snubs king's offer of talks
* Rights group says death toll in Libya now 84
(Updates Bahrain, Libya, adds Yemen, Algeria, UK's Hague)

By Cynthia Johnston and Frederik Richter
MANAMA, Feb 19 (Reuters) - Two of the Middle East's most entrenched rulers were battling to quell unrest on Saturday after security forces killed dozens of protesters in Libya and police fired teargas at demonstrators in the Bahraini capital.

Unrest has spread from Tunisia and Egypt to Bahrain, Libya, Yemen and Djibouti, as people of one country after another shed their fear of oppressive, autocratic rulers and took to the streets demanding democratic change and economic opportunity. Protesters in Algiers on Saturday were surrounded by police and corralled into a courtyard, pro- and anti-government crowds in the Yemeni capital Sanaa hurled stones at each other, and protesters clashed with security forces in Djibouti.

Libyan security forces killed 35 people in the eastern city of Benghazi late on Friday, Human Rights Watch cited witnesses and hospital sources as saying, in the worst violence of Muammar Gaddafi's four decades in power. Protests against Gaddafi's rule this week, inspired by the uprisings in Tunisia and Egypt, were met with a fierce security crackdown, especially in the restive east around Benghazi. A security source said clashes were still under way on Saturday in the region between Benghazi and Al Bayda, 200 km away, where local people said security forces had killed dozens of people in the past 72 hours.

The area is "80 percent under control ... a lot of police stations have been set on fire or damaged," the source said. New York-based Human Rights Watch said Friday's killings took to 84 its estimate for the death toll in three days of protests, mostly around Benghazi, against a ruling elite accused of hoarding Libya's oil wealth and denying political freedoms. It said the deaths in the city, 1,000 km (600 miles) east of Tripoli, happened when security forces opened fire on people protesting after funeral processions for people killed in earlier violence. There was no official word on the death toll.

British Foreign Secretary William Hague urged Libya to stop using force against protesters and asked Middle East governments to respond to the "legitimate aspirations" of their people.
"I condemn the violence in Libya, including reports of the use of heavy weapons fire and a unit of snipers against demonstrators," Hague said in a statement. "This is clearly unacceptable and horrifying."
In Bahrain, a key U.S. ally and home to the U.S. Fifth Fleet, troops and armoured vehicles left a Manama square that had been a base for anti-government protesters, hours after opposition groups rejected a royal call for dialogue unless the military stood down.

Police firing teargas beat back the few demonstrators who tried to move back into their former stronghold in Pearl Square after the army pullout. The crown prince, charged by King Hamad on Friday with opening a dialogue with the protesters, announced that all troops had been ordered off the streets and that police would maintain order. The announcement met one of the conditions for talks spelt out by a Shi'ite ex-lawmer of the main Shi'ite opposition bloc, Wefax, which quit parliament on Thursday.

Ibrahim Mattar told Reuters the authorities must "accept the concept of constitutional monarchy" and pull troops off the streets before a dialogue could begin. "Then we can go for a temporary government of new faces that would not include the current interior or defence ministers," he said.
The government is led by the Sunni Muslim Al Khalifa dynasty, but the majority Shi'ite population has long complained about what it sees as discrimination in access to state jobs, housing and healthcare, a charge the government denies. The United States and top oil producer Saudi Arabia see Bahrain as a Sunni bulwark against neighbouring Shi'ite regional power Iran.

The spreading unrest -- particularly worries about its possible effects on the world No. 1 oil producer, Saudi Arabia -- helped drive Brent crude prices higher this week before other factors caused them to slip on Friday.
It was also a factor in gold prices posting their best weekly performance since December.
Analysts say a key difference between Libya and Egypt is that Gaddafi has oil cash to smooth over social problems. He is also respected in much of the country, though less so in the Cyrenaica region around Benghazi.

"There is no national uprising," said Noman Benotman, a former opposition Libyan Islamist based in Britain but currently in Tripoli. "I don't think Libya is comparable to Egypt or Tunisia. Gaddafi would fight to the very last moment," he said by telephone from the Libyan capital.

In Yemen, supporters and opponents of the government threw stones at each other and fired shots in the air in Sanaa, a day after five people were killed and dozens wounded in clashes in several towns between security forces and crowds demanding an end to President Ali Abdullah Saleh's 32-year rule. Saleh, a U.S. ally against a Yemen-based al Qaeda wing that has launched attacks at home and abroad, is struggling to end month-old protests flaring across his impoverished country. In Algiers, police in riot gear crammed some 500 protesters into the courtyard of a residential block before they could reach May 1 Square in the city centre.

The main opposition parties did not take part in the banned protest, which was organised by human rights groups, some trade unionists and a small opposition party.

This, like other recent demonstrations in Algeria for democratic change and better economic conditions, was too small to rattle the authorities, but there have been signs that pressure is building within the ruling group for substantial change, including a new government line-up.

The political uprising sweeping through the Middle East has also reached the tiny Horn of Africa state of Djibouti, where anti-government protesters clashed with security forces on Saturday for the second day running.

On Friday, thousands of protesters called for the removal of President Ismail Omar Guelleh, whose family has held sway in Djibouti since independence in 1977. Guelleh took office in 1999 and is expected to run for a third term in April 2011.

Djibouti, a former French colony between Eritrea and Somalia, hosts France's largest military base in Africa and a major U.S. base. Its port is used by foreign navies patrolling busy shipping lanes off the coast of Somalia to fight piracy. Unemployment runs at about 60 percent.

(Additional reporting by Hamid Ould Ahmed in Algiers, William Maclean in London and Saleh Al-Shaibany in Muscat; Writing by Tim Pearce, )

3 weeks since Egypt set off the chain of events that has rocked the Middle Eastern Nation, Meosha Eaton

Taking a walk down the road of the chain of events across the Middle East that has taken the world on an unexpected shock wave!  See details and recap as reported by Reuters:

* Clashes reported in Bahrain, Yemen, Iran, Iraq, Libya
* Obama says Mideast rulers must "get out ahead of change"
* Rulers mix economic, political concessions with repression

 (updates throughout)

    By Paul Taylor

    PARIS, Feb 16 (Reuters) -

Anti-government protests inspired by popular revolts that 

toppled rulers in Tunisia and Egypt are gaining pace around 

the Middle East and North Africa despite political and economic 

concessions by nervous governments.
Clashes were reported in tightly controlled oil producer
Libya, sandwiched between Egypt and Tunisia, while new protests
erupted in Bahrain, Yemen, Iran and Iraq on Wednesday.

The latest demonstrations against long-serving rulers came
after U.S. President Barack Obama, commenting on the overthrow
of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, declared: "The world is
changing...if you are governing these countries, you've got to
get out ahead of change, you can't be behind the curve."
With young people able to watch pro-democracy uprisings in
other countries on satellite television or the Internet, and to
communicate with like-minded activists on social networks hard
for the secret police to control, authoritarian governments
across the region have grounds to fear contagion.

 

Protests spread across Yemen on Wednesday demanding an end
to the president's three decades in power, and a 21-year-old
demonstrator died in clashes with police in the south, witnesses
and medical sources said.

In Sanaa, capital of the Arabian Peninsula state, hundreds
of government loyalists wielding batons and daggers jumped out
of cars to chase around 800 protesters marching in the streets.
President Ali Abdullah Saleh, a U.S. ally against al Qaeda
who has been in power in fractious Yemen for 32 years, was
quoted by the state news agency as saying the unrest was a
foreign plot to foment chaos in Arab countries.

Saleh has pledged to step down when his term expires in 2013
and offered dialogue with the opposition, but radical protesters
are demanding he go now.

In Bahrain, protesters poured into the centre of the capital
Manama on Wednesday for the third successive day to mourn a
demonstrator killed in clashes with security forces on Tuesday.
The emirate has a history of protest over economic hardship,
the lack of political freedom and sectarian discrimination by
the Sunni Muslim rulers against the Shi'ite majority.

Some 2,000 protesters demanding a change of government were 

encamped at a major road junction in Manama, seeking to emulate
rallies on Cairo's Tahrir Square that toppled Mubarak.
Though itself only a minor oil exporter, Bahrain's stability
is important for neighbouring Saudi Arabia, where oilfields are
located in an area populated by an oppressed Shi'ite minority.

    
DISTURBANCES AT IRAN FUNERAL

In Iran, supporters and opponents of the hardline Islamic
system clashed in Tehran during a funeral procession for a
student shot at an anti-government rally two days ago, state
broadcaster IRIB reported. Both sides claimed Sanee Zhaleh was 

a martyr to their cause and blamed the other for his death.

Monday's rallies in Tehran and several other Iranian cities
were the first staged by the Green pro-democracy movement since
security forces crushed huge protests in the months after
President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's disputed 2009 re-election.

Hundreds of opponents of Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi, in
power since 1969, clashed with police and government supporters
in the eastern city of Benghazi in Wednesday's early hours, a
witness and local media said.

 

Reports from the port city, 1,000 km (600 miles) east of the
capital Tripoli, said protesters armed with stones and petrol
bombs set fire to vehicles and fought with police in a rare
outbreak of unrest in the oil-exporting country.

Gaddafi's opponents used the Facebook social network to call
for protests across Libya on Thursday. 
In Iraq, three people were killed and dozens wounded in the
southern city of Kut as protesters demanding better basic
services fought with police and set government buildings on
fire, hospital and police sources said.
 

Some shouted, "Down, down (Prime Minister Nuri al-) Maliki's
government, down, down with corruption," echoing rallies that
have buffeted other parts of the Arab world, although Maliki
unlike other Arab leaders was democratically elected. 

Iraq is still struggling to get back on its feet almost
eight years after the U.S.-led invasion that toppled dictator
Saddam Hussein. Infrastructure is dilapidated, electricity is in
short supply and jobs are scarce.

POLITICAL, ECONOMIC CONCESSIONS

Rulers in several countries, drawing lessons from events in
Tunisia and Egypt, have announced political changes and moved to
cut prices of basic foodstuffs and raise spending on job
creation in efforts to pre-empt spreading unrest.

Algerian President Abdelaziz Bouteflika promised to lift a
19-year-old state of emergency soon and has acted to reduce the
cost of staple foods in the North African oil and gas exporter.
Authorities deployed an estimated 30,000 police in Algiers
on Saturday to prevent a banned pro-democracy march. Several
hundred protesters defied the ban and dozens were detained.

A coalition of civil society and human rights groups and an
opposition party vowed afterwards to demonstrate every Saturday
until the military-backed government is removed.
 

Morocco, where the main banned Islamist opposition movement
warned last week that "autocracy" would be swept away unless
there were deep democratic reforms, announced on Tuesday it
would almost double state subsidies to counter an increase in
commodity prices and address social needs.

Syria, controlled by the Baath Party for the last 50 years,
released a veteran Islamist activist on Tuesday after he went on
hunger strike following his arrest 11 days ago for calling for
Egyptian-style mass protests, human rights activists said.

Jordan's King Abdullah has sacked his prime minister and
appointed a new government led by a former general who promised
to widen public freedom in response to anti-government protests.
Countries with oil and gas wealth such as Saudi Arabia and
Algeria appear better placed than poorer countries like Egypt
and Tunisia to buy social peace.

(Editing by Mark Heinrich)