DTN News: Qaeda Calls For Yemen Tribes To Rise Against Government

DTN News: Qaeda Calls For Yemen Tribes To Rise Against Government

Source: DTN News / AFP

(NSI News Source Info) SANAA, Yemen - June 19, 2010: Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) called on Yemen's eastern tribes to rise against the government and threatened retaliation for alleged air strikes in the area, the US monitoring group SITE said on Friday.

"Bear (arms)... and defend your honor, land and homes" in response to air attacks in May by the Yemeni military in the Wadi Obeida region in Marib province, SITE quoted the Al-Qaeda splinter group as saying. "We ... will not stand idle over what is happening to our women and children in Wadi Obeida," SITE quoted the statement as saying. It called on the tribes to oppose the government of President Ali Abdullah Saleh. "Allah willing, we will light up the ground with fire under the tyrants of infidelity in the regime of Ali Saleh and his helpers, the agents of America." In late May, provincial official Jaber Ali al-Shabwani and four of his bodyguards were killed in an air strike in Marib province that reportedly targeted a wanted Al-Qaeda suspect. The suspect, named as Mohammed Said bin Jardan, was wounded but was able to escape, a security source had told AFP. A local official said Shabwani had been negotiating for a week for Bin Jardan's surrender and had gone to the farm that was hit in the air strike for talks. The high security council -- Yemen's highest security authority -- expressed regret over Shabwani's death. Angry Yemeni tribesmen attacked an oil pipeline, petrol stations and government installations after the raid to avenge the death of the provincial official. AQAP said women and children had died in the air raids, which had also destroyed homes. Yemen is the ancestral homeland of Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden and has been the scene of several attacks claimed by the group on foreign missions, tourist sites and oil installations. Marib is one of the Al-Qaeda strongholds. The group has suffered setbacks amid US pressure on Sanaa to crack down but its presence threatens to turn Yemen into a base for training and plotting attacks, a top US counter-terrorism official said in September.