Category Archives: Countries

فيديو للقاعدة في اليمن يكشف معلومات جديدة عن اقتحام «مركزي صنعاء» واستقبال الفارين

"Arab Spring", Terrorism Issue, Yemen

المصدر أونلاين – خاص
الأحد 30 مارس 2014 03:47:10 صباحًا

بث تنظيم القاعدة في جزيرة العرب في ساعة متأخرة من مساء يوم السبت مقطعاً فيديو لحفل استقبال السجناء الفارين في الهجوم على السجن المركزي بصنعاء منتصف شهر فبراير الماضي.

وأظهر المقطع المتجزأ لأكثر من تسجيل عشرات من عناصر التنظيم وعدد من القادة في بلدة جبلية وعرة باليمن، بعد أيام من بث صور للحفل، وكشفت تسجيلات للسجناء الفارين معلومات عن دخول مواد لتصنيع القنابل اليدوية.

وأظهرت لقطات من المقطع رجالاً ملثمين مصطفين بأسلحتهم في طريق ضيق أمام سيارات تحمل السجناء الفارين ويطلق عدد منهم الرصاص في الهواء مع صرخات التكبير بالتزامن مع ترديد المسلحين للزوامل والهتافات الترحيبية.

ويعكس إطلاق النار والصراخ حالة من الاطمئنان والتحصن في المنطقة التي أقام بها تنظيم القاعدة لحفل الاستقبال فضلاً عن تواجد عدد من القادة المطلوبين للحكومة اليمنية ولواشنطن.

Continue reading فيديو للقاعدة في اليمن يكشف معلومات جديدة عن اقتحام «مركزي صنعاء» واستقبال الفارين →

Yemen’s child brides and beggars fend for themselves

"Arab Spring", Ethics, Gender and Sexuality, Yemen

by Abdullah Hamidaddin, Alarabiya.net, March 28, 2014

Maha is a 10 year old girl. She is the youngest of twelve and is now getting ready for her big day. She is to be married to a man who is thirty seven years old. Her mother is packing her bag. It’s a small bag. The family is so poor that Maha barely has ten pieces of clothes all together. Before she closes the bag, the mother puts in two plastic dolls. Maha found them while foraging for toys with her friends in the trash of an upscale neighborhood in Sanaa. I wonder what the mother is thinking now. She must be happy that Maha will have three meals a day. Before her engagement, Maha would only eat one meal daily and sometimes she had to sleep hungry. Now things seem brighter than before. The father spent part of her dowry on some food to fatten Maha up. Her fiancé remarked that she was getting too thin, and her parents were worried that he would call off the engagement started so they started feeding her more. Maha of course didn’t understand why she was eating alone. Why her mother wouldn’t share her oat meal and fresh cow’s milk. Meat was too expensive; but they would make soup from the fat which butchers usually throw away or feed the stray cats with.

I can’t imagine what Maha is thinking right now. I can’t imagine what she will be thinking when she is in a bedroom with her husband. Continue reading Yemen’s child brides and beggars fend for themselves →

Mahan on Aden in 1867

Aden, camels, Judaism, Orientalism, Travel, Yemen


Alfred Thayer Mahan (1840-1914)

The American admiral Alfred Thayer Mahan is often noted as the man who coined the phrase “Middle East.” After he served in the U.S. Navy on the Union side, he sailed to Hong Kong and passed by the port of Aden in 1867. His comments are brief and reflective more of his own biases than anything significant about Aden. He does provide an interesting description of camels. His narrative is available on archive.org, but I attach here the relevant pages on Aden.

Famous Yemenis

Humor and Satire, Yemen


By accident I came across a website called “countrylicious: World country facts” which has a section on Famous People in Yemen. It is telling that the first entry is for Mukesh Ambani, an Indian business magnate who is India’s richest man with personal wealth of $21.5 billion. He does not seem to have anything to do with Yemen, but he is followed by Tawakkol Karman and then Ali Abdullah Salih, who weighs in just above Abu Hureirah, the companion of the Prophet, who was indeed born in Yemen (the entry here is taken verbatim from Wikipedia). But then when you scroll down to Abd al-Majeed al-Zindani, a rather strange thing happens. The picture shown is actually of Anwar al-Awlaqi or else Zindani has had major plastic surgery. Here is where copying from Wikipedia can get you in trouble. The Wikipedia site for al-Zindani also has the picture of al-Awlaqi and no one checked to see the switch. So much for the facts on this site…

Ba’d Kharab Halab

"Arab Spring", Architecture, Syria, Terrorism Issue


January 2013: Syrian government troops take position in a heavily damaged area in the old city of Aleppo; AFP/GETTY

There is a well-known, and after 2003 quite apt, proverb in Arabic: “After the destruction of Basra” (Ba’d kharab Basra). It originally referred to a slave revolt in Basra, the southern Iraqi port, in the 9th century. But it still resonates a millennium later. The savage violence that has left Syria in turmoil not seen since the days of the Mongols has now reduced major parts of one of the splendid cities of the Middle East to rubble. Now we see the destruction of Aleppo (Halab in Arabic), once Syria’s second largest city, with little evidence of a resolution of the fighting. Even the old suq has been destroyed beyond recognition. UNESCO designated Aleppo a World Heritage site, but this status has not saved it from massive destruction.


The Aleppo of the recent past

For the last three months the government of Bashir al-Asad has been dropping barrels — more than a thousand — of barrel bombs, making much of the city a ghost town. Some estimates indicate that 90% of Aleppo’s population has been forced out.

Sad pictures are readily available on the internet and on Youtube. But the horror of kharab continues. It appears that al-Asad is content to be the dictator of Damascus and let the rest of Syria be damned. Of course, he has his accomplices, the fanatic jihadists who are as vicious as the regime they are intent on toppling. Meanwhile the Syrian people suffer and the rest of the world either ignores this or makes things worse by supporting one side or the other with arms. If only we had a new proverb: ba’d kharab this insanity!

Nigel Groom

Aden, Archaeology and Antiquities, Plants, Yemen


A husn or stronghold in Wadi Bayhan

The Telegraph, March 12, 2014

Nigel Groom, who has died aged 89, was an Arabist, historian, author, soldier, spy-catcher and perfume connoisseur. These pursuits saw him fend off a tribal assassination attempt in Aden, uncover a KGB spy embedded in the RAF and explain the association between frankincense and Christ’s divinity.

As a young Political Officer for the Colonial Service, Groom arrived in the British Protectorate of Aden in 1948. He was responsible for the north-eastern area, based in Bayhan, a remote emirate bordering the central Arabian Desert, and accessible only by small RAF aircraft. Two years later he took over the northern area, based in Al Dhali’, regarded at the time as a difficult, ungoverned tribal part of the Protectorate, riven by unrest fuelled by the Imam of Yemen in pursuance of his claims over the whole country.

At Christmas in 1950 the British agent for the western area of the Protectorate, Basil Seager, and his wife arrived to spend the holiday in Al Dhali’, unaware that a plot was afoot to assassinate both Seager and Groom (and their escort of Arab soldiers) at a Christmas Day lunch in a nearby village. However, while out for a walk with armed guards on Christmas Eve, Seager and his wife by chance met the chief assassin, a religious fanatic high on khat, and his party on their way to their assignment. The assassin stabbed Seager with his dagger, causing serious injury, and in the subsequent gunfight several of the escort and several assailants were killed. Groom signalled to Aden for a doctor, who arrived after a five-hour night-time journey over rough tracks, and for a substantial force of Aden Protectorate Levies, to leave early on Christmas morning to help counter a planned tribal uprising. Continue reading Nigel Groom →