Slavery still exists in Yemen

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Hut in which slves are hold in Yemen. The picture was taken by the weekly Al Masdar, which  devoted an article to slavery in Yemen. The two pictures of interviewed slaves are from the same artcile. The Yemen Times published a translation.

The National Organization for Defending Rights and Freedoms, a Yemeni human rights organization known locally as “Hood,” launched a national anti-slavery campaign on Sunday following reports in local media that there are hundreds of slaves in remote areas of northwestern Yemen, The Media Line reported.
The rights group called on the country’s prosecutor-general to prosecute slave masters. Also it asked the government to build housing complexes on a fertile plot of land to help those emancipated from slavery get a new start.
“We asked the government to look into the problem and the general prosecutor to investigate,” Khaled Al-Anesi, a lawyer with the National Organization for Defending Rights and Freedoms told The Media Line. “They promised to investigate the problem but we don’t yet have a clear idea what they will do. We will follow up with them.”

The campaign follows a series of investigative reports in Al Masdar, an independent weekly newspaper, which claim there are some 500 slaves in the Al Zohrah district of Al Hudaydah Governorate, west of Sana’a and in the Kuaidinah and Khairan Al-Muharraq districts of the Hajjah Governorate, north of the capital. The paper claimed that a number of sheikhs and local authorities are slave owners.
“There is no clear figure as to how many slaves there are but it’s a big problem, with many people who are slaves in many areas,” Al-Anesi claimed. “Since we announced the campaign we have receiving a number of specific complaints from victims of slavery. We have their names and their addresses and we know who owned them.” He said th slaves can’t run away because no one will help them. “The government neglects the problem and there are no organizations in civil society to help them. They have nowhere to go.”

Yemen’s human rights ministry has reportedly sent a fact-finding committee to the two districts and the National Organization for Defending Rights and Freedoms now claims that after consultations with community leaders in the affected areas, it believes the number of slaves is likely much higher than originally estimated.
The organization is arranging a group of volunteer lawyers to visit regions of the country where slavery is believed to be most prevalent to provide legal assistance to slaves and warn their owners that they will face legal action if the slaves are not freed.

Rights advocates say there are two common forms of slavery in Yemen: ‘inheritance’ and migration. With inheritance, the descendants of the slave’s owner upon death inherit a slave and their family. In the case of migration, poor migrants arriving in Yemen from Africa find themselves indebted to businessmen who helped pay their passage.

“In Yemen there is a social class of people called ‘the servants,’ who have usually come from Somalia or other African countries, who live in a stage of bondage and are very widely disregarded in society,” Christoph Wilcke, a senior researcher at Human Rights Watch’s Middle East and North Africa Division told The Media Line. “It has to do with dark skin, being foreign and living in poverty or in debt.”

The Arab slave trade goes back well over a millennium and Arab slave traders are estimated to have enslaved between 12 and 20 million people. Slavery was common throughout the Arabian Peninsula until it was abolished in 1962. Since then, holding someone in servitude is punishable by up to 10 years of prison time under Yemeni law.

Rights advocates, however, say the remnants of slavery still exist throughout the region, with women and children trafficked to the Gulf States from Eastern Europe, the post-Soviet states, Africa and Asia, and migrants forced into servitude to pay off debts of passage.

“Property in Islamic law is so well protected that if you fail to repay debt, you can be held liable not only with your own property but with your liberty,” Wilcke said. “While this is only one particular angle of Islamic law, you could call it codified custom which still exists on the books in many countries in the region, including Yemen, Saudi Arabia, Jordan and a number of Muslim countries in the Middle East.”

Demonstrations against murder of Khaled Said in several Egyptian cities

In front of the journalists syndicate. Picture by one of the participants transmitted via twitter

Hundreds of Egyptians protested in Cairo and other cities on Friday over the death of an activist, whose case has raised calls for political change. Khaled Said, 28, died on June 6 in Alexandria. Witnesses and rights groups say two policemen dragged him out of an Internet cafe and beat him to death. Official autopsies said he choked on a plastic roll of drugs, but two officers will stand trial.The demonstration was organized by a Facebook group called "We Are All Khaled Said."
The extent to which web groups can turn online support into street protests is being watched closely before a parliamentary election this year and a presidential poll the year after.
President Hosni Mubarak, 82 who has been in power since 1981, has not said if he will run in 2011. If he does not, many believe he will seek to push his son, Gamal, 46, into office.Other online groups calling for change have also emerged, including ones backing Mohamed ElBaradei, the former head of the U.N. nuclear watchdog who has said he might run for president.
The Said protest group, which has about 180,000 online backers, told its followers to wear black T-shirts and stand silently at specified places. A group in Cairo, barred from a site it intended to use, regrouped outside the journalists' syndicate. "Officer, how can you sleep at night when you are torturing the people," they chanted.
Smaller numbers elsewhere in Cairo stood at intervals along streets in silence, some reading the Koran. The Facebook group told protesters not to stay in groups in order to circumvent an emergency law that can restrict even small gatherings.
"If many people stand and protest, surely there will be an end to torture," said Fatima Mohamed, 24, who turned up after learning about the protest plan on Facebook.
A few hundred stretched along the seaside boulevard in Alexandria, some holding black flags with Said's image, a witness said. Dozens protested in Damietta and Tanta, other witnesses in these cities said.
Extra police were at planned protest sites. Egypt's police are usually swift to contain protests and often heavy handed, tending to limit protest numbers to no more than a few hundred.
The death of Said, who posted an Internet video purportedly showing two policemen sharing the spoils of a drug bust before he died, raised concerns among Egypt's U.S. and European allies.



Analysts say such groups have yet to show they can rally mass protests in a country of 78 million to force change on a government that has huge security forces at hand. But protests are drawing unwelcome international attention, they have said.

BDS is growing

 The trend towards BDS of Israel is gaining momentum. After artists like Elvis Costello and the Pixies called off tours of Israel and after boycott actions  in ports in California and Norway, more actions are emerging. The trade unions at the Kochi port, the former Cochin, one of the main ports of India,  decided to boycott Israeli ships and cargo, a decsion which may affect Indo-Israeli trade. The unions, comprising those affiliated to the Left parties, the Indian National Trade Union Congress and the Bharatiya Mazdoor Sangh, took the decision at a meeting on Wednesday. After India ended its long diplomatic freeze with Israel in the 1990s, trade has steadily increased. Imports include machinery and engineering goods, solar equipment and raw materials used in tyre manufacture.

At the meeting, the union leaders condemned Israel's recent attack on an aid flotilla to Gaza, killing several activists. The attack at sea had drawn worldwide criticism, the speakers said. In a statement, they said Israel should lift the inhuman embargo and end the atrocities.

A British children’s educational movement has voted to boycott Israel at their annual gathering in Sussex.The Morning Star reported that the Woodcraft Folk, which runs weekly sessions for children including singing, dancing, craft and eco-projects, voted for the boycott at their conference in Ashdown Forest, west Sussex.
The emergency motion was proposed by international secretary Paul Bemrose, who said it had been prompted by the deaths of nine Turkish activists on the Gaza flotilla. A majority of the 150 delegates at the conference backed a complete boycott until the Gaza blockade is lifted.

The film star Meg Ryan (picture) stayed away from the Jerusalem Film Festival this year, follwing the raid on the Free Gaza Flotilla. Meg Ryan cancelled an existing agreement with the festival, shortly after the attack on the ships. With Dustin Hoffman negotiations that were still underway were broken off after the nine Turks got killed in the attack on the Mavi Marmara.  

At least 60 dead in attacks on Shia pilgrims in Baghdad

Updated Thurdsday, 2.00 pm
At least 60 people have been killed in attacks across the Iraqi capital, including 32 in a suicide bombing that targeted pilgrims commemorating a revered Shia saint, Iraqi police say. Since Tuesday also over 300 peole have been wounded.

Iraqi officials said two blasts on Thursday, the latest in a string of bombings in Iraqi capital, killed seven people, pushing the death toll in the recent attacks to 60.One bomb in the central Bab al-Muazam neighbourhood killed four people and wounded 46, while a second bomb in the southeastern Mashtal district killed three and wounded 31.
 The deadliest attack occurred on Wednesday in northern Baghdad's predominantly Sunni Muslim neighbourhood of Adhamiya. A suicide bomber killed 32 people and wounded more than 90 as Shia Muslim pilgrims were about to cross a bridge leading to the shrine where Moussa Kadhim, a revered imam, is buried. The attack took place near the bridge where 900 people died in 2005 in a stampede sparked by a rumour that a suicide bomber was about to strike.
 Earlier on Wednesday, police said an improvised explosive device [IED] had exploded in Baghdad's southeastern Jadida district, followed by another one in Futhaliya district, in the east of the city, killing five Shia pilgrims and wounding 36 others. But hundreds of thousands of pilgrims - defying the attacks - remain in the Iraqi capital for Thursday's culmination of the religious festival.
 The mausoleum of imam Moussa Kadhim has previously been targeted by bombers. In April  2009, two female suicide bombers blew themselves up near the shrine, killing 65 people, including 20 Iranian pilgrims, and wounding 120 others. The Twelver Shiites worship 12 descendants and followers of the profet Mohammed  Imam Moussa Kadhim is the seventh of them.
The attacks offer a clear indication of the determination of some circles to exploit Iraq's political vacuum and destabilise the country as US troops head home. Iraq has been without a new government since the March 7 election, which produced no clear winner. 

Israeli soldier, who ignored white flag in Gaza and killed two women, indicted for manslaughter

The Israeli military Advocate General major-general Avichai Mandelblit decided Tuesday to charge a soldier with manslaughter for allegedly shooting and killing two Palestinian women during Operation Cast Lead in the Gaza Strip last year. The incident took place on January 4 in Juhar a-Dik, near Gaza City, when a group of about 30 Palestinian civilians, including women and children, approached an Israeli military position.
The group, according to several eyewitness accounts, was waving white flags.At a certain point, one of the IDF soldiers from the Givati Brigade opened fire, killing a mother and daughter – 35-year-old Majda Abu Hajjaj and her 64-year-old mother Salama. The incident was later thoroughly investigated by B’Tselem and mentioned in the Goldstone Report. During a military probe shortly following the incident, one soldier was picked out as responsible for opening fire at the group of civilians. 
The Israeli army also announced Tuesday that Mandelblit had decided to launch a new criminal investigation into an air force bombing of a home in the Zeitoun neighborhood of Gaza City which was occupied at the time by close to 100 members of the A-Samuni family. 

Human Right Watch
 There were in fact 11 cases during the Gaza war in which Israeli soldiers unlawfully shot and killed Palestinian civilians, including five women and four children, who were in groups waving white flags to convey their civilian status, Human Rights Watch said in a report released on 13 August 2009. HRW urged the Israeli military in the report to conduct thorough, credible investigations into these deaths to tackle the prevailing culture of impunity. The 63-page report, “White Flag Deaths: Killings of Palestinian Civilians during Operation Cast Lead,” was based on field investigations of seven incident sites in Gaza, including ballistic evidence found at the scene, medical records of victims, and lengthy interviews with multiple witnesses – at least three people separately for each incident.

Quizz: what do you actually know about the occupation?

HaMoked, Center for the Defense of the Individual, sees it as its main task to provide assistance to Palestinians in the occupied territories whose rights are violated (that's all of them as far as I can see). On its website HaMoked has a nice quizz for the more aldult members of the family: What do you actually know about the occupation? Highly recommended, particularly for those among us with a penchant for cynicism.. In order to play, click here.  

Iran complains that some countries refuse to refuel its passenger planes

Iran says that Britain, Germany and the United Arab Emirates are refusing to provide fuel to Iranian passenger planes.The move, which has not been confirmed, follows unilateral sanctions imposed by the US, the Isna news agency reported.
Iran is facing tougher sanctions designed to impede the development of its nuclear programme.
Tehran says its nuclear industry is for peaceful purposes but Western powers fear it is trying to develop a bomb.
"Since last week, our planes have been refused fuel at airports in Britain, Germany and UAE because of the sanctions imposed by America," Mehdi Aliyari, secretary of the Iranian Airlines Union, told the news agency.
He said the national carrier Iran Air and Mahan Airlines had both run into refuelling problems.

 However, a spokeswoman for the Abu Dhabi Airports Company (ADAC) told Reuters that it was continuing to supply Iranian jets with fuel."We have contracts with Iranian passenger flights and continue to allow refuelling," she said.
A spokesman for the UK's Civil Aviation Authority told the BBC that such a move would be down to individual fuel companies.Germany's Transport Ministry said the refuelling of Iranian planes was not banned under EU or UN sanctions.However, he could not comment on whether any individual providers were refusing to fuel Iranian aircraft.
The US sanctions prohibit the sale or provision to Iran of refined petroleum products worth more than $5m  over a year. Paul Reynolds, World affairs correspondent for the BBC News website, said it might be that fuel companies are worried that their sales over a year might add up to $5m, in which case they could face a possible ban on doing business in the US.

Syria imprisons aging human rights defender; should clarify disappearance of 52 prisoners

A Syrian military court jailed on Sunday the 79-year-old lawyer Haytham Maleh (picture Reuters), who campaigned for decades for an end to the emergency law, to a sentence of three years. Haytham Maleh is considered by Amnesty International to be a prisoner of conscience detained solely for expressing his peaceful and legitimately held views.
Haytham al-Maleh was arrested on 14 October 2009, detained incommunicado for one week and then brought to trial before the Second Military Court in Damascus, although he is a civilian. He faced two charges, “conveying within Syria false news that could debilitate the morale of the nation” and “weakening national sentiment”. These “catch-all” charges are commonly used by the Syrian authorities to prosecute and imprison peaceful critics and human rights activists.
The charges arise from an interview Haytham al-Maleh gave in September 2009 to the European-based satellite broadcaster Barada TV, in which he criticized the lack of democracy, the excessive powers wielded by security officials and official corruption in Syria and his published writings exposing human rights abuses.
Haytham al-Maleh is a long-standing human rights defender. He is the former head of the Human Rights Association of Syria, an independent human rights organization founded in 2001 but which was forced to close down at least partly as a result of harassment by the authorities.
He has been summoned and questioned on numerous occasions in recent years and he was previously imprisoned between 1980 and 1986 for protesting against government restrictions on trade union rights.

Two others
Two other prominent human rights lawyers are currently imprisoned in Syria. On 24 April 2007 Anwar al-Bunni was sentenced to five years’ imprisonment on a charge of “conveying within Syria false news that could debilitate the morale of the nation”. On 23 June this year Muhannad al-Hassani was convicted of the same charges now being brought against Haytham al-Maleh and sentenced to three years in jail.

'Lost' Prisoners 
Amnesty International has called on the President of Syria to reveal exactly what happened to 52 prisoners who went missing during and after disturbances at a military prison that also left at least 22 people dead. Families, lawyers and human rights organizations have campaigned for an independent investigation into the disturbances but the Syrian authorities have revealed few details about them or what happened afterwards.
The clashes between inmates and military police at Saydnaya Military Prison near Damascus began on 5 July 2008. Unconfirmed reports say the violence erupted after police officers shot dead nine Islamist prisoners. According to these reports, Military Police officers threw copies of the Qur’an on the floor during a routine search of the prison, and then shot dead nine Islamist prisoners who tried to pick them up. Unarmed Islamist prisoners are said then to have overpowered the police, taking several hostages together with the prison director, and to have seized their guns and mobile phones – which they used to call their families to alert them and local and international human rights organizations about what was happening.
They said they were protesting to demand that their lives be spared and that measures be taken to improve prison conditions. Communication between prisoners and the outside world then stopped. Later, families of prisoners held at Saydnaya reported seeing ambulances shuttling between the prison and Teshrin military hospital in Damascus, apparently carrying those killed and injured at the prison.
At least 17 prisoners and five Military Police officers are said to have died during the protests.
Amnesty International sent Syrian President Bashar al-Assad the names of the 52 prisoners missing from Saydnaya requesting that their fate and whereabouts be clarified.

Fadlallah, highest Shia cleric of Lebanon, dies at 74

Grand Ayatollah Mohammed Hussein Fadallah, Lebanon's most influential Shia cleric, has died in Beirut at the age of 74. He was  admitted in hospital last month suffering from internal bleeding.
Fadlallah was born to Lebanese parents  in 1935 in Najaf, the centre of Shia scholarship in Iraq. He studied Islam more than 20 years in his birthplace before moving to Lebanon in 1966. He attained the status of marja, or 'source of emulation', the highest level of authority amongst Shia clerics.
Fadlallah was often described as Hezbollah's 'spiritual guide', but he never held a role within the organisation. He did support some of its actions, however, endorsing suicide attacks against Israel. Also he issued a fatwa  in 2009 that forbade normalised relations with the Jewish state. At the same time, he condemned other suicide attacks that targeted civilians, like the Moscow subway bombings earlier this year. He also condemned the September 11 attacks on the United States, saying they were 'not compatible with sharia law'.
In 1985 there was an attempt on his life. A bomb consisting of 200 kg of dynamite exploded at some tens of metres from his home in Beirut. Fadlallah escaped unharmed, but the bomb destroyed a seven story building and a cinema and killed at least 80 people while wounding 256. Most of the killed were women and girls who had just left a mosque. It was widely suspected that the CIA and it's director William Casey were behind the attack, as a revenge for the attacks on the American embassy and the American marines in the beginning of the eighties.
Fadlallah was also a staunch critic of American foreign policy in the Middle East, accusing it of bias in favour of Israel. While the West criticised him for his politics, conservative Islamic scholars often condemned Fadlallah for his moderate views. Fadlallah was widely known for his views on women, describing men and women as equals, and issuing a fatwa in 2007 which encouraged women to defend themselves against violence. He condemned honour killings, and permitted female masturbation, but favoured the hejab as a means to preserve women's dignity. He also issued a ruling banning female circumcision.
His extensive charitable works added to his popularity. Fadlallah established a network of schools and orphanages in Shia suburbs of Beirut and in southern Lebanon.
Fadlallah was an early supporter of the Iranian revolution and of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, Iran's first supreme leader.But he eventually became a critic of the concept of vilayet-e-faqih, the Iranian system of government in which a Shia religious leader exercises absolute authority. He was quoted as having said that no Shia authority had a monopoly on the truth, not even Khomeiny. Instead he oriented himself more on the line of ayatollah Ali al-Sistany.With Sistani and the Iraqi Hawza (highest religious council) he fell out, however, on the issue of the role of the Iraqi Da'awa Party of  Nuri al-Maliki. Fadlallah, belonged to the Da'awa ands was it's spiritual guide, while Sistani was much more oriented towards a modern role for the state.

Update Thursday 8/7:
Iraq's prime minister is in Beirut to pay his respects for Lebanon's late top Shiite cleric.
Grand Ayatollah Mohammed Hussein Fadlallah was one of the founders of Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's Dawa party. He was also believed to be the party's religious guide until his death on Sunday following a long illness.A 100-member Iraqi delegation took part in his funeral south of Beirut on Tuesday that drew tens of thousands of mourners.

Salam Fayyad, and why he is in fact NOT building a state

F
Salam Fayyad inspects a factory for marble and stone.

Nathan Brown, professor of political science at George Washington University, wrote a sobering piece on the Middle East Channel of Foreign Policy for all those who had pinned their hopes on 'Fayyadism', the endeavours of Salam Fayyad, the PA's prime minister in what often is called the 'building of a Palestinian state'. As I said, it's sobering. Particularly recommended to Thomas Friedman, columnist of the New York Times who recently sprayed Fayyad with praise in a piece called  'The real Palestinian revolution'.   
I give some excerpts of Brown's piece. For the complete article - click here

His unassuming style, honest and capable administration, and sometimes soothing words have led to a host of international paeans to "Fayyadism." Salam Fayyad is held to be quietly building a Palestinian state rather than waiting for international actors to deliver one.
There is no doubt that Fayyad as an individual has some real virtues: a measure of personal integrity, an ability to convey an attitude that politics is about public service rather than personal aggrandizement, and a shift from revolutionary rhetoric to practical action. But is Fayyadism building a Palestinian state?
No.
And in a recent trip to the West Bank, I could not find a Palestinian who thinks he is. I report more fully on my findings in a commentary for the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace that was released today.

  There are those who admire and participate in Fayyad's efforts to be sure. And there is much to admire in Fayyad. But even those participating in his project would be the first to admit -- along with Fayyad himself -- that the effort cannot be sustained unless it is supported by a diplomatic process that also points to Palestinian statehood. And nobody believes there is such a viable process right now. The only question that most serious observers debate is whether hope for a two state solution is dead, dying, or merely in hibernation.


But there are three other problems with pinning our hopes on Fayyadism as the basis of a two-state solution.

First, it is simply not true that his cabinet is building institutions on the West Bank. Instead, it is improving the functioning of some existing institutions in some areas -- and failing in others. I have been trying to follow the institutional development of the Palestinian Authority since it was founded; on my trip to the West Bank to update my research, I found that for every one step forward taken under difficult circumstances, politics in the West Bank has taken two steps taken back
For all his admirable qualities, what Fayyad has managed to do is to maintain many of the institutions built earlier and make a few of them more efficient. (...)

The second problem is that these efforts take place in an authoritarian context that robs it of domestic legitimacy. Palestinian democracy has died, and Fayyad could not operate the way he does (and would probably not be prime minister at all) if it were still alive. The president's term has expired, the parliament's term is also expired, no new elections are in sight, elected local officials have been selectively dismissed, and local elections have been cancelled. Opposition supporters have been ousted from the civil service and municipal government and their organizations have been shuttered. Activists are detained without charges; court orders have been ignored; and the broader citizenry is increasingly administered according to laws that are drafted by bureaucrats out of public view. This is not the "rule of law" if the phrase is to have any meaning.


The third problem with relying on Fayyadism is that political paralysis and authoritarianism is infecting other Palestinian institutions, even those outside of the governmental structure. Structures that were launched or knit together over the past two decades (professional associations, NGOs, political parties) are hardly being built or improved; they are decaying. Some are being actively squeezed and even suppressed, such as Islamist NGOs in the West Bank or non-Islamist ones in Gaza. A recent report of the Palestinian Independent Commission for Human Rights found "stark violations" of the law by both halves of the PA and observed more dryly that "it is possible to conclude that despite the presence of a modern legal framework governing the registration and operation of associations, the current political and security considerations prevail over the system of rights and public freedoms."

But it is not only civil society that is feeling the pinch. Palestine's political parties are also in a state of crisis. Hamas is certainly in the healthiest state, but only in Gaza (in the West Bank the organization is still in hibernation, with only a few leading members active in public view). And even in Gaza, where its dominance is so well established, the movement is still sorting out the effects of being melded with a governing political structure it had long held in disdain. The smaller factions (such as the PFLP and the People's Party) remain small, and the newer initiatives (most notably the Palestinian National Initiative) are not gaining much traction.
But Fatah is undoubtedly in the greatest disarray. The much-celebrated (and long delayed) party congress held last summer did little to revive the organization or calm its bitter internal rivalries. It is not clear if Fatah really remains a political party in any meaningful sense; instead it consists of an aging old guard monopolizing top positions, a middle generation that stands in the wings (and is no more unified than the old guard), and a host of local branches whose links to the center are tenuous. The recent debacle of local elections -- in which Fatah leaders forced Fayyad's cabinet to cancel them just as candidate registration was closing because of the movement's inability to assemble electoral lists -- shows the extent of the disarray. Fatah could have waltzed to an overwhelming victory with Hamas boycotting and a host of smaller parties and independents either cooperating with Fatah or putting forward meager challenges. One of the most knowledgeable observers of Palestinian elections told me: "Now we know that Fatah is incapable running against itself, let alone against Hamas."
Fayyad is not building a state, he's holding down the fort until the next crisis. And when that crisis comes, Fayyad's cabinet has no democratic legitimacy or even an organized constituency to fall back on. What he does have -- contrary to those who laud him for not relying on outsiders -- is an irreplaceable reservoir of international respectability. The message of "Fayyadism" is clear, and it is personal: if Salam Fayyad is prime minister, wealthy international donors will keep the PA solvent, pay salaries to its employees, fund its infrastructural development, and even put gentle pressure on Israel to ease up its tight restrictions on movement and access. 
Nathan Brown is a professor of political science and international affairs at George Washington University, a fellow at the Woodrow Willson International Center for Scholars, and a 2009 Carnegie Scholar for the Carnegie Corporation of New York.

Yemeni intelligence officer shot, second in Abyan province in a month

Motorcycle gunmen shot dead a senior Yemeni intelligence officer on Thursday outside his home in the southern province Abyan, where armed secessionists and al Qaeda militants are active, police sources said. The officer had been relaxing outside his home in the provincial capital Zinjibar after lunch. He was the second security officer gunned down in Abyan in less than a month. "Two men on a motorcycle opened fire on Colonel Saleh Amtheib as he sat near his house in Zinjibar, " one of the sources said. The officer had worked on al Qaeda and secessionist issues. Police were combing the area for suspects but had no immediate word on a motive.
Yemen has been a growing security concern for the West since a Yemen-based regional arm of al Qaeda claimed responsibility for an unsuccessful attempt to bomb a U.S.-bound plane in December. Yemen has stepped up security measures after accusing al Qaeda's wing in the Arabian Peninsula country of an attack on June 19 in which militants raided the police intelligence building in the southern city of Aden, killing 11 people.
Yemen also is struggling to curb a separatist movement in the south and cement a ceasefire with Shi'ite rebels in the north. It is under international pressure to quell domestic conflicts to focus on a growing al Qaeda presence in the impoverished country.

Five Turks, 12 Kurds dead in fights in E-Turkey

At least 12 Kurdish separatist fighters and five members of the Turkish security forces have been killed in clashes in the southeast of the country. Two separate attacks by suspected members of the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) in Siirt province left two soldiers and three village guards dead, an army statement said. Twelve fighters were then killed in the ensuing operation late on Wednesday, backed by artillery fire and helicopter gunships, the statement added. The violence is a further sign of rising tension in the troubled region, where the PKK are fighting for an independent Kurdish state. More than 50 Turkish soldiers have been killed in recent months as the PKK has increased attacks on military installations in the primarily Kurdish southeast. The military says 42 PKK were killed in clashes in June. The outlawed PKK has stepped up attacks on the military after calling off its one-year truce on June 1, dissatisfied with prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan's concessions to Kurdish demands for reform.