Tuesday 28 April 2009

Soldier killed and others injured in Yemen clashes

Soldier killed and others injured in Yemen clashes
By Nasser Arrabyee/28/04/2009

One security man was killed and 14 others injured including four citizens when a group of gunmen clashed with security forces in Al Dhale'e south of Yemen, official sources said Tuesday.

The official sources said that two Members of Parliament were leading the armed group that attacked a check point between Al Dhale'e and Lahj.

"An armed gang of saboteurs led by the socialist MPs, Nasser Al Khubaji and Salah Al Shanfari and Shalal Ali Shaye'e attacked a check point at Habeel Al Raidah between Al Dhale'e and Lahj and fired at the security men killing one and injuring 14 others including four citizens," the official said.

On Monday, southern protesters calling for separation set fire to several commercial shops belonging to northerners in the coastal city of Mukalla but no casualties were reported.

Southern groups calling for independence of the south held on Monday a rally in Zunjubar capital of Abyan to mark what they called the "day of declaring the war against the south on April 27th, 1994"

Tareq Al Fadhli, a prominent tribal sheikh in Abyan, joined these groups, called south movement, only last month after he was one of the President Saleh's advisors since 1994 when he fought against the socialists in the south. Al Fadhli participated in Jihad with Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan before he came back to take revenge on the socialists expelled his father in 1970s as a capitalist.


On the Monday's rally which was organized and sponsored by Al Fadhli in his home town Zunjubar, Abyan, he called for leaving behind all the differences among southerners and cooperating to "Drive away the occupation and have our own southern independence."

He said that former leaders of the south who are now in exile agreed with him on reconciliation and having the independence of the south.

The official media said that the Yemeni government had requested the governments of Saudi Arabia and Oman to hand over those leaders who are politically supporting the south movements.

In a similar rally held in the southern port of Aden on the same day Monday April 27th, the day of democracy as it was called by officials, bringing together the people from the three provinces of Aden, Lahj and Abyan, the vice President Abdu Rabu Mansour Hadi, who is originally from Abyan, said," Those elements who lost their interests and became isolated should stay away from dangerous paths, and they should know that patience has limits. "

Further, on April 25th, 2009, the President Ali Abdullah Saleh warned from a civil war in his country.

"Yemen, All forbid, will not divide into two partitions, south and north, but into villages and small states, and people will be fighting with each other from door to door and from window to window," he said in a big rally bringing together all state's official military and security commanders.

"There are negative repercussions refused by every one in political forces, and these negative repercussions return us back to square number 1 before May 22, 1990, and the regretful war of 1994."He said referring to the south movement activities.

He refused the talk about referendum on the continuation of unity saying, "Any referendum should have been conducted before unity not now after 19 years since it was proclaimed."

He attacked the southern leaders in exile accusing them of trying to enter Yemen into new wars and of being agents to the British colony. "It's not the right of any one to claim guardianship on revolution, unity, or and the south."

The south movement emerged in 2007 when a group of retired southerners from civil, military and security institutions started to complain they were excluded and marginalized by the northerners after the 1994 civil war. They also complained that influential northerners plundered a lot of lands.

"We treated the issue of retired people with 52 billion YR (US$ 125,000,000) and that the south is not possession of any one, and nobody has the right to take lands from the south, and everybody is responsible for solving these issues," Saleh said.

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