SCAF lifts Egyptian state of emergency which has been in place since 1981

Archives of the State Security Investigations Service (SSI) Police in Cairo. The archives were  ransacked in March 2011.  (Photo Hossam Hamalawy)  

 The Egyptian Supreme Council of the Armed Forces SCAF has finally abolished the state of emergency that has been in place in Egypt since 1981, the year in which president Anwar al-Sadat was murdered. Over the years thousands of people have been arrested under this law that permitted to keep them in prison, without due process  as administrative detainees. Thousands also have also been tried before Emergency State Security Courts. Moreover a  special State Security Investigations Service (SSI) used to follow the steps of millions of Egyptians. In March last year the Interior Ministry abolished the SSI and announced a new national security body, the Egyptian Homeland Security, after the SSI offices in Cairo and Alexandria had been stormed. No details have ever been given as to whether former SSI officers were integrated in the new body, or whether anybody will be investigated for human rights violations.
  The Supreme Council of the Armed Forces had partially lifted the state of emergency at the beginning of this year, except for cases of 'thuggery.' This meant, in practice, that the state of emergency continues until its end on 31 May, according to a presidential decree, which which issued by Mubarak and extended the state of emergency for two years, from 1 June 2010 to 31 May 2012.
 Lifting of the state of emergency had been a demand of the protesters of Tahrir for the beginning. Also human rights organisations like Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International and the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights EIPR had repeatedly asked for it.
What is not clear yet, is what is to happen to detainees under the state of emergency currently still in Egyptian prisons. According to numbers available to the EIPR, there are at least than 89 people at the moment held in Egyptian prisons who were placed under administrative detention in the last few months of 2011 and the first few of 2012. All of them were detained by the Criminal Investigations Bureau, and more than half of them arrested in their homes. While for a number of them the reason for arrest is not know, most of them were arrested for criminal and not political reasons. 

Israeli AG drops case against rabbis who wrote book that incited to kill 'gentiles'

Rabbi Shapira during a court hearing in 2011

The Israeli attorney general Yehuda Weinstein, announced this Monday that he is dropping the case against the rabbis Yizhak Shapira, Yoseph Elizur, Dov Lior and Yizhak Ginzburg, writes Yossi Gurvitz on +972. The first two rabbis wrote a book called “Torat Ha’Melech” (The King’s Bible) two years ago, the two others endorsed it. All four are rabbis in the service of the state and connected to the yeshiva (institute for religious learning) in the settlement Yitzhar near Nablus, which is notorious for its violence against surrounding Palestinian villages. Dov Lior is moreover the chief rabbi of the settlements in Hebron

One of the themes of the book was that killing your enemies is allowed. In a  notorious paragraph it even claims that:

Rabbi Yosef Elitzur in court

there is reason to believe harming children, if there is reason to think they will grow up to harm us, is permitted; and in such a case, the harm should be directed specifically at them, and not just while harming grown-ups.

For “harm,” read “kill,” Gurvitz writes. And: There’s much more there, including permission to kill any gentile which does not follow the “Laws of the Sons of Noah,” which conveniently enough encompasses the vast majority of mankind, if by killing that gentile you intended to punish him for not following a divine mandate he was not aware of. All Christians, pagans and atheists are ipso facto non-Noah-observant, and can be slain at will.
The reason  Attorney General Weinstein gave for his decision not press charges was that while Torat Ha’Melech contained severe racist terms, he did not have grounds for conviction, since the rabbis couched their incitement to racism in religious terms. Weinstein wrote that the law specifically exempted “religious studies” from prosecution.
Distressing idea, the most blatant racism is allowed in Israel as long as it is couched in religious terms.

The big challenge for Egypt´s revolutionairies: how to stop a return to a Mubarak-like past

 Protest rally against Ahmed Tawfiq, Monday evening 28 May on Tahrir. (photo Tawfiq Shalabi)

So it´s final: Egypt's Supreme Presidential Electoral Commission (SPEC) officially announced on Monday that Muslim Brotherhood presidential candidate Mohamed Mursi and last Mubarak-era premier Ahmed Shafiq will face each other in the runoff vote on 16 and 17 June. Mursi was the winner with 24.78%.  Number two, Shafiq, secured 23.66 % and Nasserist Hamdeen Sabbahi came third with 20.72 per cent. Abdel Moneim Aboul Foutouh got 17.47% and Amr Moussa 11,13%. The turnout was 46.42 %.

The big questionmark form,any now is, how to stop Shafiq, who is as feloul (remnant of the Mubarak era) as can be. In een speech for the American Chamber of Commerce on 14 May he announced that he was never ashamed to tell that Mubarak was his example and that he might choose Omar Suleiman as his vice president when elected. He promised that he, once he was president, would restore law and order in a month.   
Monday evening protest demonstrations were held against the fact that he is in the race in the first place. Thousands came to Tahrir and in Doqqi his headquarters went up in flames.

The office of Ahmed Shafiq is on fire. (Al-Masry al-Youm).

Mohammed Morsi, meanwhile, tries to pose as the candidate of the revolution, so that he can prevent that Shafiq wins. He tried to have a meeting with the other candidates Aboul Foutouh, Sabbahi and Amr Moussa, but all three declined,. Also he promised a ´national cabinet´ in case he´ll become president. So far not too many people went over to his side, although some, like the writer Alaa al-Aswani, voiced the opinion that Morsi is the only hope to keep Shafiq out of office. Morsi´s attempts at having deals with the more secular opposition are most surely to be continued

Hani Shukrallah, the editor of Al-Ahram Online, the English Al-Ahram so to say, wrote an interesting piece about the results of the first round of these elections in which he pointed to the fact that the Muslim Brotherhood in fact lost if we compare the results with those of the earlier parliamentary elections. At that time the Ikhwan got 47%, this time it was a meagre 24,8%. Apparently the opportunist way in which the Ikhwan played its own games after the parliamentary win, was not appreciated by too many voters, Shakrallah concludes. In the countryside the Ikhwan still won, but in the big cities it lost to the candidate of the revolution, Hamdeen Sabbahi:

 Alexandria, for years considered the Brotherhood's stomping ground and foremost urban base in the country gives leftist Sabbahi first place with 34.2% of the vote, compared to 15.3% for the Brotherhood's Mursi, and the state's Shafiq at the bottom of the stack, in fifth place, with a paltry 12%.

Sabbahi maintains his first place position in the nation's capital, Cairo, with 34.6%, followed by Shafiq who does much better here than in Alexandria, with 25.9% with Mursi in third place, with 20.1%, thus earning the city founded by Alexander the Great the title of Egypt's revolutionary capital.

and the case of  Imbaba, which used to be a stronghold of  the Islamists:

Yet another set of spectacular numbers is provided by the extremely densely populated and horribly destitute Cairo district of Imbaba. During the 90s of the last century, Imbaba had come under the sway of the militant Al-Gamaa Al-Islamiya to such an extent that it was widely named the Islamic Republic of Imbaba. When the police finally, and with predictably tremendous viciousness, crushed the Gamaa by the end of that decade, it was natural for the district to be inherited by the Brotherhood.  

Imbaba results in the first round of the post-revolution presidential elections in 2012 had Sabbahi in first place (32.2%) followed by: Shafiq (23.2%); Mursi (18.3%); Abul-Fotouh (14.7%). All of which seems to support that not only was the Muslim Brotherhood's support waning, but that in fact there was something of a backlash against the group.

In passing Shukrallah also debunks the conclusion of some that it was the 10 million Copts who helped Shafiq to his position of runner up. Shukrallah argues that Shafiq without doubt was helped by part of the Coptic population of of fear for a victory of the Islamist Muslim Brotherhood. But he points to the fact that the bulk of the votes for Shafiq came from rural provinces like Menoufia, where there are virtually no Copts. Also it is clear that many Copts, particularly the less well to do, voted for Sabbahi. The ´zabaleen´ - Cairo´s famous Christan garbage collectors, turned out to be a case in point.
Shafiq´s succes, Shukrallah thinks, was largely the work of the remnants of  Mubarak's ruling National Democratic Party, which was

 ...never a political party in any real sense of the word. Rather, it was a giant network of state patronage, in which the intermarriage of money and power, businessmen and bureaucrats at the very top is replicated down to the remotest hamlet in the country. (....) Yet Shafiq's 23 per cent is not a sterling result by any means, considering that that's the best that can be done by a decades-old authoritarian state, run by the military, the intelligence and security services and able to mobilise and put into motion a huge machinery made up of the state bureaucracy and repressive machinery, as well as the extensive network interlinking that machinery with local bosses and dignitaries spread across the nation including anything from tribal chieftains, village heads to billionaire industrialists and mangers of state economic enterprises.

So also that machinery is not all powerful anymore, Shukrallah seems to think. Let´s hope he´s right.

Bahraini activist Khawaja stops hunger strike

Abdelhadi Khawaja

Bahraini opposition activist Abdulhadi al-Khawaja will end a 110-day hunger strike on Monday evening. his lawyer Mohammed al-Jishi said. Earlier Jishi announced that another prominent activist, Nabeel Rajab, was granted bail although he continues to face three separate trials. In a statement posted by the lawyer on his Twitter page, Khawaja cited the fact that he is being  force fed since April 23 as one of the reasons why he stopped his strike.

Khawaja was arrested in April last year following a government crackdown on Shiite-dominated protests, He began his hunger strike on February 8. He is the former head of the Bahrain Centre for Human Rights (BCHR), and has dual Bahraini and Danish nationalities. Last June he was tried with 20 others by a military tribunal of plotting to overthrow the government. Together with seven olthers he got a life imprisonment, while 14 others were sentenced to between two and 15 years. He is being retried in a civil court along with 12 others. A new hearing is slated for Tuesday.

Rajab, the current head of BCHR, was arrested on 5 May upon arrival from a trip abroad after posting tweets deemed insulting to security forces. He was released on a bail of 300 dinars ($796). However, the prosecutor ordered him to stay behind bars for questioning in the case of taking part in a rally and calling for illegal demonstrations. On Monday, the defence asked the court to "combine the three cases together in one trial," lawyer Jishi said.

Again 87 killed in Syria on Sunday, Annan in Damascus

Annan at his press conference in Damascus (AP)

At least 87 people were killed on Sunday in Syria, shortly  after more than 100 had been killed in Houla, a town in de province of Homs, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said. Thirty-four of the dead were killed in random shelling of the central city of Hama by troops retaliating for losses suffered in clashes with rebel fighters. "Hama is like a ghost city," an activist on the spot told AFP by telephone on Monday. The activist said troops were surrounding the areas where there was fighting, and it was feared that a new attack might occur. 

The Observatory says more than 13,000 people have been killed in Syria since the anti-regime revolt broke out in March 2011.

The UN Security Council had condemned the Syrian government in a non-binding resolution for its role in the massacre that killed 108 people in Houla on Friday and Saturday, among them 49 children and 34 women. Britain and France had proposed a text making a stronger condemnation of the Assad government, bu Russia would not agree on the wording. In Monday it said both sides in the conflict were responsible for the massacre. "Here we have a situation where both sides clearly had a hand in the fact that peaceful citizens were killed," said Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov. 

Kofi Annan, the special envoy of the UN and the Arab League arrived in the Syrian capital Monday for a bid to salvage his peace plan. He expressed "shock" at the massacre in Houla, in remarks to reporters ahead of a meeting with Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Muallem. Annan said those responsible for the massacre must be held accountable, and called on "everyone with a gun" to abide by his six-point blueprint.

 "I urge the government to take bold steps to signal that it is serious in its intention to resolve this crisis peacefully, and for everyone involved to help create the right context for a credible political process. And this message of peace is not only for the government, but for everyone with a gun.''

Turkish indictment against Israeli military for raid on Mavi Marmara in 2010

Funeral in Istanbul of one of the nine who were killed aboard the Mavi Marmara (AP)  

A Turkish court has formally pressed charges against members of Israel's military for the killing of nine unarmed activists aboard a Turkish ship trying to break Israel's blockade of Gaza in 2010.
Turkey's state-run Anadolu Agency says the court in Istanbul voted unanimously Monday to approve an indictment against Israel's former military chief Lieutenant General Gabi Ashkenazi, along with the heads of its navy, air force and military intelligence.
It has said they face nine consecutive life terms in prison for "inciting to kill, torturing and theft of property of the people aboard. Israeli military members are unlikely to stand trial in Turkey but the court might issue an order for their arrest if they are convicted in absentia. The move comes just a few days ahead of the second anniversary of the May 31 raid.

Situation in Syria detoriates further, at least 90 killed in massacre in province of Homs

Amateur video shows bodies in Houla.

A report by UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon paints an alarming picture of a situation in Syria that is further detoriating day by day. Groups fighting President Bashar al-Assad now control "significant" parts of some cities and there is "considerable physical destruction" across the country, it says. "There is a continuing crisis on the ground, characterised by regular violence, deteriorating humanitarian conditions, human rights violations and continued political confrontation," according to the report, obtained by AFP on Friday. The report is to be debated by the Security Council next week.

One of the latest examples of  how the situation again completely goes out of hand is an apparent massacre in the town of Houla in the province of Homs. The Britain-based Observatory said the shelling had killed more than 90 people in Houla, including 25 children. Amateur videos on YouTube (like the one posted here) showed horrifying images of children lying dead on a floor.

 Also for the first time since the uprising against President Bashar al-Assad's regime erupted 14 months ago, army tanks rumbled through Aleppo, said the Britain-based watchdog Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. Hours after massive anti-regime rallies across Aleppo, tanks deployed in the city, rumbled through the Kalasse and Bustan al-Kasr neighbourhoods after thousands attended a funeral, it said. According to the Observatory five people were killed in Aleppo by gunfire, including two children.

 Rallies in support of the opposition were also reported from Damascus, in at least five residential neighbourhoods. Loyalist forces fired tear gas to disperse demonstrators marching in the Midan district, the Observatory reported, saying a child was killed by sniper fire in the suburb of Irbin. Both Aleppo nand Damascus have become part ofg the protests in the last few weeks.

The Observatory also said helicopter gunships went into action against rebels, strafing mountain villages in the Latakia area of northwestern Syria, near the Turkish border, wounding at least 20 people. And in southern Deraa province, birthplace of the uprising against Assad, troops fired on demonstrators, several of whom were wounded in Inkhel as they emerged from mosques after weekly Friday prayers, the watchdog said.

 Pictures: above: dead children in Houla. Down: bodies in Houla prepared for mass burial.

Egyptian presidential elections put Morsi and Shafiq in the lead

Morsi

Updated: As it looks now the Egyptian presidential elections will result in a run-off, next month, between the candidate of the Muslim Brotherhood, Mohamed Morsi, and Hosni Mubarak's last prime minister, Air Marshall Ahmed Shafiq. That is the worst possible outcome: a contest between the contra-revolutionary Shafiq, or the islamist Morsi. Who is worse: Shafiq, whose spokesman Ahmed Sarhan told the New York Times that  Shafiq would bring back security, and that ''the revolution has ended, it is one and a half years”?  Or Morsi, the candidate of the conservative islamist Brotherhood, with its preference for conservative values as embedded in the sharia?. Really a choice between two opposing devils, both of them from the past. 

Shafiq

The differences turned out to be extremely narrow. Morsy and Shafiq received respectively 24.9 and 24.5 percent of the votes in the first round. The two outran the three other viable contenders: Nasserist Hamdeen Sabbahi (21.1 percent), moderate Islamist Abdel Moneim Abouel Fotouh (17.8 percent), and former Arab League Secretary General Amr Moussa (11.3 percent). These results are still unofficial, the final count will be annnounced on Tuesday.
The one positive surprise was that Sabbahi, the secular, leftist (Nasserist) candidate who is for more equality and taxing the rich, did so well. Other surprises were that Abouel Foutouh after all not seemed to have profited enough of the support the Salafist had promised him, and that Amr Moussa appeared to have been far less appealing to the voters than was expected. Now the big question mark is going to be for whom  the people who did not vote for Shafiq or Morsi, (and together they represent almost more voters than these two put together) are going to vote in the second round. For Shafiq, or for Morsi. Or not at all.

Elections for a president 'who will not be able to change the old structures'

Posters of  one of the progressive candidates that not are going to win: Hamdeen Sabahy of the Nasserist Karameh (Dignity) party. He's of rather humble descent, consequently his slogan is 'One of us'. (Reuters).

Egyptians are going to the polls today and tomorrow for the first round of the presidential elections. There are 13 candidates, but only four of them stand a chance to win. All four of them belong in one way or other to the conservative establishment. Two are remnants of the Mubarak era: Amr Moussa was Mubarak's foreign minister and his choice for the post of secretary-general of the Arab Ligue, and Ahmed Shafiq was Mubarak's last prime minister. Two others are islamists: Abdel-Moneim Abouel Foutouh is a 'moderate', and Mohamed Morsi is the candidate of the Muslim Brotherhood.
The Egyptian revolution was initiated by workers (the textile workers of Mehallat al-Kubra for instance) and spearheaded by young, well educated members of the middle classes who formed the nucleus of the portest of Tahrir and in other cities. A large majority of the Egyptians however is not progressive at all. They may have been happy with the disappearance of the Mubarak-dynastie, but at the moment they are strongly in favour of stability, security and family values. Consequently candidates of the progressive '25 January at Tahrir'' trend are not going to win. There are three of them: the young lawyer Khaled Aly, co-founder of the Hisham Mubarak Law Centre, the judge and human rights activists Hisham Bastawisi and the leader of the Nasserist Karameh party Hamdeen Sabahy. All three are strongly in favour of a ''civic'' (codeword for secular) society, based on human rights and a strong constitutional system. The majority of Egyptians, however, will give their vote to representatives of the past.   

The writer Khaled al-Khamissi related in the Egypt Independent (Al-Masry al-Youm) the elections to a of nightmare he had during his sleep. He compared the fact that only thes four candidates stand a chance to a game of Russian roulette: Mohamed Morsy and Abouel Fotouh are opposed to the civil camp that advocates human rights, while Shafiq and Moussa belong to a camp opposed to the values of social justice.   
and he concludes:

Hundreds of millions were spent on these electoral campaigns, and the media machine has been working to make the Egyptians feel that they are going through a historic experience. They promoted the idea that this presidential election is the outstanding result of the Egyptian revolution and that the people now have a say.

The truth is, this election is worthless, for it is being conducted in a society that lacks a healthy political life, one that lacks genuine parties and political powers. This election will bring a useless president who will be unable to change the structure of the old regime.

Hope lies in the revolutionary and social mobility. Change will come from the bottom, at the hands of the hundreds of movements, coalitions and blocs that emit hope. It is this that will change the face of Egypt.

And then we did not yet mention the fact that the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF)  apparently is preparing to issue an addition tot the constitutional declaration that was approved by referendum last year. According to press reports this addition, that has been discussed with some political parties, will curtail the power of the president and keep the duty of preserving the stability and security of Egypt in the hands of the military. Consequently the military will retain the right to appoint the key ministers of foreign affairs, finance, interior and defense, while the rest of the cabinet will be appointed by the parliament.   

The president will reportedly only retain the power to dissolve Parliament and appoint the public prosecutor, the grand sheikh of Al-Azhar and the grand mufti of the state. He cannot go to war without approval from Parliament and the SCAF, which also reportedly wanted to keep the last word in any legislation concerning the armed forces and keep the right to keep its budget a secret as it is now. 

 PosPosters in Cairo

Egyptian state security court convicts Christians and acquits Muslims in unfair trial

 Havoc in Abu Qurqas wrought during the riots in April 2011.

 An Egyptian court sentenced 12 Christians to life in prison and acquitted eight Muslims on Monday in a case set off by religious tensions in the country's south. The Christians were found guilty of sowing public strife, the possession of illegal weapons and shooting dead two Muslims in April of last year in Minya province, about 220 kilometers (135 miles) south of Cairo.

The violence started last year when a Muslim microbus driver, angered by a speed bump outside a wealthy Christian man's villa, got into a scuffle with security guards who beat him. After returning to his village of Abu Qurqas that evening, he rounded up the villagers who then gathered outside an ultraconservative Islamist group's main office there to protest his beating. According to rights researcher Ishak Ibrahim of the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights (EIPR), the Christians nearby thought they were going to be attacked and shot from their rooftops down at the crowd, killing two and wounding two others. For several days after that, angry villagers torched dozens of Christian homes and stores.

The eight Muslims on trial in the same case had been charged with possession of illegal weapons and burning down the Christian-owned homes and stores after the shooting.

"The fact that the Muslims were acquitted means that the attorney general's investigation from the beginning was faulty and unfair because there was evidence to prove these men had burned Christian property," Ibrahim said.

The State Security Court's ruling cannot be appealed. The ruling military council SCAF is the only entity with the power to request a retrial. (See also this list of incidents involving sectarian tensions by Human Rights Watch) 

In spite of UN-monitors at least 54 people killed in renewed fighting in Syria

Fighting in Syria spilled over to Beirut: burnt out car in the Tariq al-Jdideh district. (Daily Star)

At least 54 people, including 31 soldiers, were killed on Monday in the ongoing unrest that has shaken Syria since March last year, the London based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said. Fierce fighting near Damascus and in the regions of Aleppo and in the Idlib province, in northwestern Syria, killed at least 22 soldiers and 11 rebels, it said. Also tanks and transport vehicles were destroyed during the battles. it added.

Nine army deserters were killed overnight as they retreated under cover of darkness from Jisr al-Ab village near the Damascus suburb of Douma. Also in the Damascus area, troops fired on people at a funeral, the Observatory said. A bomb rocked the Damascus neighbourhood of Qaboon during the night killing five people. Elsewhere five civilians were killed, including two in a bombing and military raid in central Hama province, one by unidentified gunmen in the nearby region of Homs, and two more in fighting between the army and rebels in coastal Banias. 

A spokesman for UN chief Ban Ki Moon said at the NATO summit in Chicago that he was increasingly worried about the situation in Syria. 'The secretary general said we were at a pivotal moment in the search for a peaceful settlement to the crisis and that he remained extremely troubled about the risk of an all-out civil war,' Ban's spokesman said.

 

Beirut 

The Syrian crisis also spread to Beirut, the capital of neighbouring Lebanon, for the first time since the upheaval erupted in March 2011, with overnight street battles between pro- and anti-Syrian groups.

"During the night, groups of young men cut off the road in the Tariq el-Jdideh district and street battles followed," a security official said.

"Two people were killed and 18 were wounded," he said, adding machineguns had been fired and that the fighting had raged until about 3:00 am (2400 GMT).

The clashes broke out after reports emerged troops had shot dead an anti-Syria Sunni cleric, Sheikh Ahmad Abdul Wahid, when his convoy failed to stop at a checkpoint in north Lebanon on Sunday.

The cleric's killing followed a week of intermittent clashes that left 10 people dead in Lebanon's northern port city of Tripoli between Sunnis hostile to the Syrian regime and Alawites who support Assad.

Suicide bomber attacks parade rehearsal in Yemen: more that 120 dead, 350 wounded

 Collecting debris from the attack.

An attack by a suicide bomber on Yemeni troops rehearsing in the capital Sana'a for a parade has made more than 100 victims on Monday. The newspaper the Yemen Post reported that the death toll rose to more than 120 soldiers, mostly from the central security forces. About 350 others were injured, many in critical condition, hospital sources said. A medic of those who treated some injuries said some soldiers arrived at the new police typical hospital in very critical condition.
There are conflicting reports as to how the attack occurred. Some said a soldier with an explosive belt blew himself up amidst one of the battalions participating in the parade. Others said the bomber came from outside the forces. Investigations are underway.

Yemen's Defense Minister Mohammad Nasser Ahmed and Chief of General Staff Ahmed Ali Al-Shawal were present, but the escaped the incident, military sources said.
The authorities said the attack on the national forces, who were conducting a parade rehearsal a day before the anniversary of the unification of the two Yemens, bore the hallmarks of Al-Qaida.The army has recently stepped up the war on militants in southern and southeastern regions, mainly Abyan where key towns were seized last year. Hundreds of militants have been killed and injured including senior leaders.
But observers doubted whether an Al-Qaida bomber could infiltrate into the parade square, which is heavily guarded by the republican guard and the central security forces, without help from commanders and forces. Citizens said the remnants of the former regime including military commanders might be involved in this massacre, which comes amid security disorders including the spread of guns and tribesmen roaming main cities.

President Abd Rabo Mansour Hadi ordered to fire some of the commanders after the incident. The Central Security Forces’ leader, Abdulmalik Al-Tayb, (who was appointed under Saleh) was replaced. . Hadi also removed Saleh’s nephew Amar Mohamed Abdullah Saleh from his post as Deputy Chief of the National Security Organization. Another of Saleh's nephews, Yahia Mohamed Abdulla Saleh, Chief Staff Officer of the CSF, has not been removed, however, according to a source at the Central Security Forces.
Additional changes of command were made with Mohamed Abdullah Al-Qawsi, chief of the Patrol Police, and one of Saleh’s aides who was also replaced.
Reponsiblity for the attack was claimed by the Ansar Al-Sharia, an Al Qaeda affiliate group based in Abyan and Shabwa.The Ministry of Interior warned last week that armed militants of Al-Qaeda have entered the capital Sana’a and are expected to carry out sabotage and terrorism operations. One militant was captured after intelligence reports revealed what car he was driving. However the Ministry warned that there are still terrorists at large and called for tighter security measures to help combat the threat.