Yemeni President agrees to step down

Reuters: 'The Gulf Cooperation Council Plan stipulates that Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh, who has faced months of mass protests, will hand over power to his vice-president one month after an agreement is signed with opposition forces, and be granted immunity from prosecution.'

Yemen protests continue

Ali Abdullah Saleh says he will "sacrifice" for the sake of the great Yemeni people.

Reviewing the wave of revolution

Richard Louis reviews the "hot spots" across the Arab world. He says the Bahraini king has imposed a 3-month state of emergency to "quell the violence" without noting that Bahrainis have been protesting peacefully, and that security forces have reacted with violence.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

40 Protesters killed in Yemen

NYT: "Security forces and government supporters opened fire on demonstrators in the capital on Friday, killing at least 40 people, according to a doctor at a makeshift hospital near the scene. But the crackdown failed to disperse the protest, the largest seen so far in the center of the city.

President Ali Abdullah Saleh declared a state of emergency shortly after the violence, and denied that security forces had been involved in any shooting.

The level of violence dwarfed that seen in previous clashes during weeks of large protests in cities around Yemen calling for Mr. Saleh’s immediate ouster."

US advises Americans to leave Yemen

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Al Qaeda in the Arabian peninsula the greatest threat to USA

How would these revolutions, if they result in regime change in Yemen and other Arab countries in the peninsula, affect Al Qaeda and America's relations with those countries?

Cleric wants Islamic govt in Yemen

Of course he does!

NYT: "SANA, Yemen — As thousands of demonstrators for and against President Ali Abdullah Saleh took to the streets on Tuesday, a cleric who is a former mentor of Osama bin Laden joined them to call for the replacement of the government with an Islamic state.

The cleric, Sheik Abdul Majid al-Zindani, has been on the United States Treasury Department’s list of “specially designated global terrorists” since 2004, suspected of fund-raising for Al Qaeda and other terrorist groups. His call was a marked contrast to the message of the rebellions that brought down the leaders of Tunisia and Egypt and now threaten the rulers of Libya, Bahrain, Oman and, to this point, Yemen, where uprisings have been seen as secular and inspired by democratic goals. In the past, he has publicly opposed terrorism, if not jihad, or holy war, and his word as a spiritual leader carries considerable political and moral weight in Yemen.

Mr. Zindani’s appearance coincided with an unusual display of anti-American sentiment by Mr. Saleh, who accused Washington and Israel of fomenting unrest to destabilize the Arab world — an accusation that seemed more remarkable because the United States has been Mr. Saleh’s most powerful Western backer during his three decades in power."

Tens of thousands protest in Yemen

"The unrest in the Middle East spread to impoverished Yemen on Thursday as tens of thousands of protesters angry over unemployment and political oppression marched through the capital against President Ali Abdullah Saleh.

Instability in Yemen is a major concern for Washington, which has been working with Saleh's government to defeat an entrenched Al Qaeda network that claimed responsibility for last year's attempted bombings of planes over U.S. airspace. Officials fear anarchy in the country would give militants a strategic base in the Arabian Peninsula and the Horn of Africa."

It's amazing to see so much protest across the Arab nation at the same time, and thus far we haven't seen thousands of deaths, not even hundreds. Which Arab country is next? Could Saudis get away with this without being killed in the thousands? I wonder how Iraqis would have reacted if Saddam was still in charge and how Saddam would have reacted.

Al Jazeera is naturally covering the protests from all angles, and I should give them credit for finding a spot on their homepage for the funeral bombing in Baghdad.

Yemenis inspired by Tunisia

"Drawing inspiration from the revolt in Tunisia, thousands of Yemenis fed up with their president's 32-year rule demanded his ouster Saturday in a noisy demonstration that appeared to be the first large-scale public challenge to the strongman.

Clashes also broke out Saturday in Algeria, as opposition activists there tried to copy the tactics of their Tunisian neighbors, who forced their longtime leader to flee the country more than a week ago.

The protests in Yemen appeared to be the first of their kind. The nation's 23 million citizens have many grievances: they are the poorest people in the Arab world, the government is widely seen as corrupt and is reviled for its alliance with the United States in fighting al-Qaida, there are few political freedoms and the country is rapidly running out of water."

Yemen second to USA in guns per capita

"But tensions have long run high in the Eighth Congressional District of Arizona, a classic swing district that shares a 114-mile border with Mexico. Protesters chained themselves to the desks of Ms. Giffords’s Republican predecessor, Jim Kolbe, 12 years ago. And over the past year, Ms. Giffords struggled in a brutal re-election campaign during which her opponent appeared in a Web advertisement holding an assault weapon. The district has become a caldron of divisions over government spending, immigration, health care and Barack Obama."

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

CIA 'seeks truce with Iraqi Baathists'

Jan 11, UPI: 'The Central Intelligence Agency is reported to have recently conducted secret contacts in Yemen with Iraqi Baathist leader Izzat Ibrahim al-Douri, Saddam Hussein's former vice president, in a bid to negotiate a political accord between Sunni insurgents and the Shiite-led Baghdad government.

The Paris-based Intelligence Online Web site said other meetings were held with Baathist leaders in Damascus, the Syrian capital where Douri and his associates reportedly live.

The objective is to reconcile the minority Sunnis, who were the backbone of Saddam's tyrannical regime, and the majority Shiites, who were brutally suppressed by that regime, before crucial parliamentary elections scheduled for March 7.'

Al Qaeda fighters leaving Iraq for Yemen

'Experienced fighters returning to Yemen from the Iraq war and radicalized U.S. citizens who have taken up residence in that country have broadened assessments of the threat posed by the al-Qaeda affiliate there, according to administration and congressional officials.

..."U.S. officials said they are on heightened alert because of the potential threat from extremists carrying American passports and the related challenges involved in detecting and stopping homegrown operatives," the report says.

An additional concern, it says, "is a group of nearly 10 non-Yemeni Americans who traveled to Yemen, converted to Islam, became fundamentalists, and married Yemeni women so they could remain in the country." One U.S. official, it reports, described them as "blond-haired, blue-eyed types" who "fit a profile of Americans whom al-Qaeda has sought to recruit over the past several years."

...The new group, whose leadership was formed by terrorists who escaped from a Yemeni prison in 2006 and Yemenis released from the U.S. military prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, under the Bush administration, combines al-Qaeda affiliates in both Saudi Arabia and Yemen and is bolstered by insurgents returning from Iraq with what one counterterrorism official called "battlefield expertise" and tactical knowledge.

"As the Iraq conflict came down, you found that a number of those al-Qaeda types who went to Iraq to fight came back with hardened skills and new techniques," the senior administration official said.

"These individuals who wanted to go and fight are now being plugged into the existing organization in Yemen," said Gregory D. Johnsen, a Yemen expert at Princeton University. "For a long time, there was no real organizational infrastructure for them to fit into. Now, there is something." '

Getting tough with Yemen

I just saw an interview in which the Yemeni reporter said the US is putting great pressure on the Yemeni government, which has responded by killing innocent people.

The Obama administration says no more Guantanamo Bay detainees will be sent to Yemen for the time being -- after a failed Christmas terror plot raised concerns about terrorists active in that country.

White House spokesman Robert Gibbs told reporters the government will not send additional detainees to Yemen for now, which could increase the number of inmates held at a planned prison for terror suspects in Illinois.

Gibbs' comments reflect the growing worry about terrorists operating in that country since a Christmas attempt to destroy a U.S.-bound airliner by a Nigerian man who said he was acting on instructions from al-Qaida operatives in Yemen.

Just days before the attempt, the U.S. sent six men held at the Guantanamo Bay detention center back to their home country of Yemen."

Militant Jihadis in Yemen

I think it's safe to say that releasing Gitmo detainees to our Arab "allies" was a huge mistake.

'As a country where weapons outnumber people, half the population is illiterate, close to a quarter of them cannot find work and internecine fighting is forcing thousands from their homes, Yemen has become fertile ground for jihadis looking to take up the mantle of Osama Bin Laden.

Stretched around the southern heel of the Arabian peninsula and home to 24 million people, it is one of the poorest countries in the Middle East.

Long a source of jihadis, the country sent tens of thousands of fighters to the war against the Soviets in Afghanistan in the 1980s. To judge by the number of Yemenis captured, killed or identified as insurgents in Iraq, it continues to be one of the biggest suppliers of fighters to regional conflicts.'

Yemeni Gitmo detainees to be detained a bit longer

Smart move.

The alleged Christmas day terrorism plot has complicated plans by Barack Obama, US president, to shut the Guantánamo Bay prison camp.

Following reports that two former inmates who took refuge in Yemen were behind the botched plot, senators from his own party were among those calling for detainee transfers to be halted pending an investigation into the links between Guantánamo and the Arab nation.

I've posted before about Gitmo detainees committing crimes after their release. This is not the first time that an Arab country, our "ally", has failed to keep the criminals locked up. Kuwait acquitted a Gitmo detainee after receiving him in 2005, and KSA attempts to "rehabilitate" Saudi prisoners released by the US military. I remember over the years many people online (no doubt Arabs and Arab Americans) claimed that all the Gitmo detainees are innocent.

California Sen. Dianne Feinstein, the senior Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, has joined Republicans in calling for a halt to planned transfers of Guantanamo Bay detainees to Yemen in the wake of revelations of ties between the Christmas day bombing attempt and terrorists in that country.

"Guantanamo detainees should not be released to Yemen at this time," Feinstein said in a statement. "It is too unstable."

Last week the Department of Justice announced that it had transferred six detainees to the government of Yemen. As the Washington Post notes, former Gitmo detainees in Yemen "have led and fueled the growing assertiveness of the al Qaeda branch that claimed responsibility for the attempted Christmas Day bombing."

There are 80 Yemenis left at the Guantanamo facility, almost half the remaining prison population. The Obama administration has already acknowledged that it will miss its one-year deadline for shuttering the prison; the emergence of Yemen as a flashpoint will likely further complicate their efforts.'

America's plot to "divide and conquer" the Arabs

After more than 1,100 suicide bombers have blown themselves up among Iraqis since the end of Saddam's tyranny, and as Arab dictators continue to imprison and kill their own people to maintain power, and as Saudi Arabia bombs Shia rebels in Yemen, I still hear Arabs claiming that America's desire is to see the Arabs disunited. The "divide and conquer" logic drives their argument.

Bush Sr. did say in 1990 that one country will not be allowed to have control over so much oil. Preventing one Arab country from gaining control of the majority of the world's oil reserves may have served the interests of an America that would do anything to avoid another oil embargo like the one that plunged America into recession in 1973. But to assert that America actually wants to divide the Arabs and to suggest that America actively prevents unity between the Arabs is to ignore history. There has not been unity between the Arabs for decades. Most suicide bombers in Iraq have been Sunni Arabs, and some of them grew up near occupied Palestine all their lives. It seems that if America wants to see the Arabs disunited, the Arabs themselves have been aiding America's plot, if it exists.

Iraq Pundit describes what some Arabs believe to be the real purpose of the recently passed Iraqi election law: "So there you go. It's a nefarious plan to prevent the noble Arabs and Muslims, you know, the ones who currently get along so well with each other, from uniting and becoming a significant player on the world stage. It's easy to choose to believe this theory and sit back and enjoy the role of the powerless victim. But it doesn't have to be that way."

The Islamic Revolution in the Middle East

The BBC World Service has concluded a three part documentary titled Iran and the West: From Khomeini to Ahmedinejad. It is a very informative documentary. Part 3 reveals that Iran under Khatami and the US worked together to set up a new government in Afghanistan in late 2001. After this cooperation, George Bush labeled Iran as part of the "Axis of Evil" in January, 2002, which damaged relations between the two countries. In 2003 Khatami again offered to cooperate with America, this time with Iraq and Hizballah. But Bush's conservative administration did not want to do business openly with the Islamic Republic, whose conception was marked by the Iranian students' taking hostage of 53 Americans for more than a year.

It has been more than 30 years since Iranians voted to become an Islamic Republic. Khomeini and his crew of Islamic scholars reversed the Shah's westernization of Iran and ended 2,500 of monarchy in Iran. Clerics in Qum began imposing their version of the hijab on all Iranian women, including in Tehran, where women had enjoyed many years of secular law. Many gay Iranians have been sentenced to death and hung in public. Hundreds of thousands of Iranians have fled Iran over the three decades.

One would think the Arab world, especially Saudi Arabia and other religious Gulf countries would embrace the new Islamic Republic. But the opposite happened, and a war between Saddam's Iraq and Khomeini's Iran would be funded by the oil-rich Sunni Arab Gulf states and would result in the deaths of a million people. The influence of Islam, however, would spread beyond Iran, and the relationship of each Arab country with the US would take a different and unique direction.

The governments of Kuwait and Saudi Arabia would cozy up to the US government and pay for American protection from Iran, and later from Saddam, and then from Iran again. Sunni Arab rulers have feared Iran's Islamic Revolution and have purchased billions of dollars in US weapons to defend themselves and have portrayed the Shia as infidels.

Despite their human rights record, the relationship between the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and the US government has been relatively stable since the end of the oil embargo in 1974, and the two governments worked together to fund and adequately weaponize the mujahideen in Afghanistan in order to expel the Soviet invaders. The Saudis also funded the building of hundreds of Wahhabi mosques and madrasas in Afghanistan and Pakistan throughout the 80s and 90s.

In 1992, angered by the presence of infidel American soldiers in the birthplace of Islam, bin Ladin moved to Sudan and from there he began planning attacks on American soldiers. Al Qaeda was born.

'On December 29, 1992, al-Qaeda's first terrorist attack took place as two bombs were detonated in Aden, Yemen. The first target was the Movenpick Hotel and the second was the parking lot of the Goldmohur Hotel.

The bombings were an attempt to eliminate American soldiers on their way to Somalia to take part in the international famine relief effort, Operation Restore Hope. Internally, al-Qaeda considered the bombing a victory that frightened the Americans away, but in the United States the attack was barely noticed.

No Americans were killed because the soldiers were staying in a different hotel altogether, and they went on to Somalia as scheduled. However little noticed, the attack was pivotal as it was the beginning of al-Qaeda's change in direction, from fighting armies to killing civilians.[88] Two people were killed in the bombing, an Australian tourist and a Yemeni hotel worker. Seven others, mostly Yemenis, were severely injured.'

In March, 2001, in the Hindu Kush mountains of Afghanistan, the Taliban blew up 1,700-year-old sandstone statues of Buddha, believing them to encourage idol worship, which is forbidden by Islam. On September 11, 2001, Al Qaeda hijacked United Airlines and American Airlines planes and crashed them into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, killing almost 3,000 people. 15 of the 19 hijackers were Saudi.

Islamic rule in the Arabian peninsula had been the norm for centuries: “The kingdom [of Saudi Arabia] is an authoritarian monarchy in which all political power is held by the royal family and in which the Koran and the Sunna (rules derived from the deeds and sayings of the prophet Mohammed) serve as the country's constitution. All Saudis are required by law to be Muslims, and the government prohibits the public practice of any religions other than Islam. Women, like this one at a trade fair in Riyadh, are forbidden from driving, receive half the inheritance awarded to their brothers, and find their testimony equal to half that of a man's in sharia courts.”

But the wave of modernization throughout the world and the liberalization that swept the Americas and Europe in the 50s and 60s also reached North Africa, the Levant, Baghdad, and Tehran. Few women in Cairo wore hijab in the 60s. The photo below shows how Iraqi women dressed in the late 60s.



The result of the last war between the Arab states and Israel in 1973 compelled many Arabs to turn to Islam. In Iran the belief that Islamic rule would end poverty and outside influence was very popular. A reversal of the trend towards secularization in the Middle East began. Khomeini’s revolution was the catalyst in a reaction that could not be easily reversed. It is as if the Sunni Arabs were competing with Iran in becoming more Islamic. Cairo and Tehran are very different from each other, but both capital cities have become more conservative.

By 2000, most women in Cairo wore some sort of hijab, and Muslim societies, especially in the Middle East, became more conservative, often striving to be fundamentalist. The entrenching of Islam in Iraq was inevitable, given the circumstances during the war with Iran, and then especially during sanctions, when even educated Iraqis struggled to survive. The US meant to punish Saddam, but indirectly punished the Iraqi people instead. The ostensible alliance between the US and KSA and the Gulf states, however, would continue.

Two years ago, at the height of the sectarian violence in Iraq that Saudis participated in, the US offered to sell Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states $20 billion in weapons. With typical ineptitude that made Dubya infamous, "the administration did not seek specific assurances from Saudi Arabia that it would be more supportive of the U.S. effort in Iraq, the officials said.

According to the officials, the plan to bolster the military might of Gulf countries is part of a U.S. strategy to contain the growing power of Iran and to demonstrate that, no matter what happens in Iraq, Washington remains committed to its longtime Arab allies in the region."

And so the irony and hypocrisy continue.

Today the Islamic revolution in the Middle East is in disarray. In Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan, those who sought to impose their version of Islam have been responsible for the deaths of tens of thousands of Muslims. Al Qaeda has nothing to offer Iraqis except death and threats of death.

After the fall of Saddam's secular regime, Jaish al Mahdi and the Iranian-influenced Badr seemed only to be competing with Al Qaeda in terms of imposing their respective views of Islam on the Iraqi people, often attacking Iraqi women for not wearing hijab. The more moderate Da3wa party have gained power through democratic elections in Baghdad, but have been unable to pull Iraq from the grips of poverty, war, and sectarianism. The new Iraqi security forces have relied heavily on American military support for their survival. Corruption and murder have plagued Maliki's government.

It seems that nothing good has come out of the Islamic Revolution.

After the disputed re-election of Mahmoud Ahmedinijad, many Iranians protested, and the legitimacy of the Iranian regime appears to be in jeopardy. Iranians shouted "Allah Akbar" every night for weeks after the election, reminding all that God is above Khameini and Ahmedinejad. Shouting "Allah Akbar" also reminds us that Iranians are still pious Muslims. Leaders like Mossavi and Khatami may not be as liberal as westerners would like them to be, but they are more moderate and sensible than Khameini. The Iranian people will continue their protests, and hopefully the Iranian people will soon get the democracy and justice they deserve. Maybe then there will be reconciliation between Iran and the US, which may lead to a solution to the Israel-Palestine conflict. Insha Allah.