Up Close and Personal

As we earlier discussed, the Yemeni regime has distributed a fatwa justifying violence against a band of Zaidi (Shiite) rebels. A variety of established jihaddist groups have joined the battle, for example the Aden Abyan Islamic Army and Khalidabdul Nabi, along with thousands of Salafi tribesmen. The regime has ordered Salafi mosque preachers to increase their rhetoric against Zaidis in general. The regime has furthermore entirely blocked off the region where the rebels are located, prohibited shipments of food and medicine for two months, and ordered villagers to leave their homes in advance of military assaults without providing any shelter. The Yemeni military assault is being lead by General Ali Mohsen al-Ahmar, a "former" friend of Osama Bin Laden, and the upper ranks of Yemen's military, security forces, judiciary and administration are thought to contain numerous individuals of a hard core Salafist orientation.

To follow is a listing from the rebels side of the Yemeni government's actions and their impact on the civilian population.

1- The government prohibiting corn and other beans and foods from coming to the governorate

2- Prohibiting medical supplies from entering the Saada region, closing pharmacies and clinics. Also only allowing military personnel and others fighting with the government to enter the Republic Hospital and Alsalam Hospital and arresting the injured civilians who come to the hospital for treatment.

3- Prohibiting all kinds of energy supplies from entering the governorate

4- Cutting the public electricity supply in all parts of the governorate

5- Cutting all telecommunication supplies, home land phones, cell phones and internet

6- Banning civilians from selling their agriculture production although it is their only recourse for surviving, and confiscating their products in check points under the justifications that they are supporters for Alhouthi

7- Providing soldiers with religious books that describe us as disbelievers that deserve to be killed and we have samples of these books

8- Forcing people to guest military soldiers and using their homes to perform military actions including firing heavy weapons from inside these homes and making schools as military camps.

9- Indiscriminating arrest for large numbers of civilians in Saadah and other governorate. Taking these arrested people to unknown places. The arrest includes religious scholars, religious guidelines, religious teachers and innocent in general.

10- Continuous indiscriminating attacks with heavy weapons including missiles, heavy cannons and others. This leads to destroying homes while civilians are inside it as what happened to the home of Gar Allah Fardan in Altalh are when he was killed inside his home with his two daughters in Altalh area. In addition to confiscating properties from homes by soldiers.

11- Continuous attacks especially air forces attacks over cities and villages especially on the areas of (All Alseefi), (Alhamazat), (lmahather), (Altalh), (Bani Mouath), (Algomolah) and (Majz). In addition to threatening to attacking areas that have not been attacked yet. This leads to hundreds of families to become displaced. They have been going suddenly to deserts, mountain and caves with out covers, tents, camps and any surviving supplies.

12- Assassinating number of social figures through different means and claiming untruly that the followers of Alhouthi are behind it in order to flame tribal revenge as what happened to Dr. Ahmed Alagam and Taha Alsaddi

13- Making pressure on heads of tribes to send their tribes men to fight with the army in order to flame tribal retaliation that will continue even after the war.

14- Establishing units inside the army from Salafi religious group that believe that we are disbelievers and it is (according to their understanding of religion) Ok to kill us, to take our property and it is OK to rape our females and it is OK to take our children as slaves.

15- Forcing religious speakers to invite people to join the army to fight and distributing publication that encourage for that.

16- Pressuring the Association of the religious guidelines to issue a religious testimony (Fatwa) that legitimize fighting us and justified killing us. This statement was published every where including official media (radio, TV and newspapers). This statement was published with out signatures and with out names.

17- There is credible news that confirms that there are ten troops (ten military units) – with full equipment- are in their way to the governorate from different part of the country.

More on the jihad and all things Yemeni at AOL

Posted by: JaneNovak at 07:23 AM | Comments (6) | Add Comment
Post contains 736 words, total size 5 kb.