No sooner had Yemeni President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi announced his resignation than his country’s tenuous political fabric began to disintegrate.

Provinces across a nation barely held together by a complex web of tribal and religious alliances said they would no longer take military commands from Sanaa after the Iranian-allied Houthi group besieged Hadi’s home and palace this week.

The emerging fragmentation of the Arabian Peninsula country has sparked fears of the “Somalisation” of a state which is home to a revitalised al-Qaeda insurgency as well as a neighbour to top oil exporter Saudi Arabia.

For Washington, Yemen’s splintering would make it hard to carry out a counter-terrorism strategy against al-Qaeda plotters who have targeted it and its ally Saudi Arabia and claimed responsibility for the Jan. 7 Charlie Hebdo attacks in Paris.

Through Hadi, a supporter of US drone strikes on al-Qaeda, Yemen was a top US ally in the Washington’s fight against islamist militancy.

For Yemen’s neighbours, especially Saudi Arabia, the rise of the Houthis resembles yet another fallen domino in capitals where allies of regional rival Iran have risen to power – including Damascus, Beirut and Baghdad.

The Houthi fighters, a guerrilla force drawn from a minority that ruled a thousand-year kingdom in Yemen’s highlands until 1962, first seized the capital Sanaa in September.

They managed to coexist with Hadi until last week, when fighters crushed the president’s guards and deployed outside his home. Although Hadi signed a deal acceding to many of the Houthis’ demands, that attempt to defuse the crisis failed and he unexpectedly resigned soon afterwards.

His move sparked a chain reaction from other provinces, some home to powerful military divisions, to dissociate themselves with the capital, where the Houthis are ostensibly in control even if they have not quite figured out a way to govern.

“People are angry, people are scared. The worst is that it could turn into a civil war,” a diplomatic source said.

“It’s chaos,” said another diplomat.

In the southern city of Aden, once the capital of a Marxist independent South Yemen, the local security committee said it would no longer receive orders from the capital Sanaa.

Yemen’s north and south united in 1990 but civil war broke out four years later, with then-President Ali Abdullah Saleh crushing southern secessionists to maintain the union.

Now, various leaders of a long stagnant separatist movement have announced their secession. None speak for the entire region, comprised of eight provinces, sparking fears of further localised fighting among southerners.

In Aden, local groups raised the flag of the south in the general security building. In Mukallah, the capital city of the Hadramout province, militia fanned out across the city.

In Ateq, capital city of the restive Shabwa province, local media reports said joint patrols by a secessionist group and local security had also taken over security of the area.

In the eastern oil-rich province of Marib, which has emerged as a flashpoint between the Houthis and tribesmen in recent months, local political and security officials denounced the Jan. 19 events as a coup and said they would no longer take orders from Sanaa either.

Source:  thenews.com.pk

About 2,000 vehicles that have been stolen in Turkey have been sent to Syria in the last two years, most of them having been sold to jihadists fighting in the neighboring country.

According to figures from the Police Department and the Gendarmerie Command, the 2,000 vehicles stolen in 2013 and 2014 were smuggled to Syria via using cloned license plates.

Most of the vehicles were either pick-up vans or panel vans which have been sold to fighter groups in the region, primarily the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL). Such vehicles have been used by fighter groups for carrying ammunition and fighters.

According to figures from the Public Security Department of the Police Department, approximately 63 vehicles are stolen every day in Turkey. Istanbul is the province where the most vehicles are stolen, with 26 vehicles stolen a day. In 2014, 23,000 vehicles were stolen across Turkey.

The newest models of luxury vehicles are also often stolen and smuggled to northern Syria and Iraq, according to data obtained by the police.

Car bomb attacks are frequently conducted in the Middle East, often with stolen vehicles. In February 2013, a bombing at Turkey’s Cilvegözü border gate with Syria killed 14 people, with Turkish authorities blaming Damascus for the attack.

Car bomb in town near Syrian border

The deadliest terror attack in Turkey’s history took place, which claimed more than 50 lives, in the Reyhanlı district in the southern province of Hatay on the border with Syria in 2013.

At the time, authorities insisted the suspects being tried for the attack are linked to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, not Islamist rebels, but some leaked documents cast doubt on the government’s claims, suggesting al-Qaeda-linked groups committed the attack.

Turkey faced four car bomb attacks in central Istanbul on Nov. 15, 2003, and Nov. 20, 2003, which left 57 people dead and hundreds wounded. Al-Qaeda claimed responsibility for the attacks on the Beth Israel and Neve Shalom synagogues, the HSBC bank headquarters and the British Consulate. British Consul-General Roger Short was among the victims.

There are around 3,000 people linked to ISIL in Turkey, official reports have suggested. The number is in addition to between 700 and 1,000 Turkish fighters in the group, whose potential return has concerned Turkey, Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu recently said.

Source:  hurriyetdailynews

The Lebanese Army has announced arrest of 17 Syrian citizens for suspected engagement in terrorist activities as well as illegal entry into Lebanon, PressTV reported.

In a statement released on Sunday, the army stated that 12 of the Syria-based suspects were detained for attemps to organize a terrorist cell following a raid by the Lebanese troops in the al-Marj district of the Bekaa Valley.

The other five were taken into custody over illegal entry into the Lebanese territory.

On Friday, eight Lebanese soldiers were killed following fierce clashes with Syria-based Takfiri terrorists near the Syrian border.

Suspected ISIL terrorists launched a major attack on Lebanese army positions around Ras Baalbek, near the restive town of Arsal, where the foreign-backed militants killed and kidnapped two dozen Lebanese soldiers in August 2014.

Over the past months, Lebanon has been suffering from terrorist attacks by the Takfiri terrorists and random rocket attacks, viewed as a spillover of the conflict in Syria.

The violence fueled by Takfiri groups in Syria has so far claimed the lives of over 200,000 people since early 2011, according to reports. New figures show that over 76,000 people, including thousands of children, were killed across Syria last year.

Takfiri groups, with members from several Western countries, control parts of Syria and Iraq, and have been carrying out horrific acts of violence such as public decapitations and crucifixions against all communities such as Shias, Sunnis, Kurds, and Christians.

Source:  trend.az

A 10-year-old girl was forced to carry out suicide attack after she was abducted by Taliban group in southern Helmand province of Afghanistan.

An Israeli attack which killed several prominent members of Lebanon’s Hezbollah last week was an attempt by Israel to set “new rules” in the conflict between the two foes, Hezbollah’s deputy leader said at a gathering to commemorate those who died.

 
Gunmen kidnapped a Libyan deputy foreign minister from his hotel room on Sunday in the eastern city of Al Baida where the recognised government is based, a ministry official said.

The kidnappers told staff they were members of the security forces when they entered the hotel before dawn, the official said, citing witnesses.

They drove deputy minister Hassan Al Saghir off to an unknown destination.

No group immediately claimed his abduction but Libya has been rocked by a spate of kidnappings of both foreigners and Libyans.

The oil-rich North African nation is awash with weapons and has two rival governments and powerful militias battling for territory.

The internationally recognised government has been based in the remote east since a militia alliance seized the capital last August.

Al Baida lies 1,200 kilometres from Tripoli. The government established its headquarters in the city after initially taking refuge in the towns of Tobruk and Shohat further east.

Source:  khaleejtimes.com

The So-called “Islamic State” has published a list of punishments ranging from 80 lashes for drinking alcohol and losing a hand for theft, to death for committing blasphemy, Mail Online reports.

The what ISIS imagine “Sharia code of conduct” will be enforced in areas under its control which now covers swathes of Iraq and Syria.

Those who commit adultery will be stoned to death if the adulterer was married and lashed 100 times and exiled if he or she was unmarried.

Those engaged in sodomy (homosexuality) will be sentenced to death, along with those who ‘spy for the unbelievers’.

Those who steal ‘as part of banditry’ will have their right hand and left leg cut off, and the punishment for terrorizing people is exile.

Charlie Winter, a researcher for the counter-extremism think tank Quilliam, said the document appeared to be authentic.

He told The Independent it was released on 16 December from the Aleppo branch of Isis.

Last week, ISIS published pictures of the crucifixions of two men accused of being bandits, and of a woman being stoned to death, allegedly for adultery.

The terrorist group also released a video showing the two men being thrown off the top of a tower block in Raqqa, Syria, for being gay.

A masked ISIS fighter announced the charges against the accused using a small handheld radio, before declaring them guilty of engaging in homosexual activities.

He said they should be punished by death, in accordance with “Islamic State’s radical interpretation of Sharia law”.

The men were then bound and blindfolded before being pushed off the 100ft tower block to their deaths.

Down on the ground, two men accused of banditry have been tied to makeshift metal crosses.

Strung up tightly with yellow and green ribbon around their wrists, the men were hanged from the crosses, wincing in agony’.

And it’s believed the ISIS militants killed three of at least 15 pigeon breeders in Iraq after deciding it is against “Islamic religion” to keep birds this week.

The extremists also executed 13 teenage boys for watching the Asian Cup football match between Iraq and Jordan last week.

The young football fans had been caught watching the game on television in the Iraqi city of Mosul, which is controlled by the ISIS.

The teenagers were rounded up and publicly executed by a firing squad using machine guns, according to anti-ISIS activist group Raqqa is Being Slaughtered Silently.

The small activist group said the teenagers were rounded up by militants in the Al-Yarmouk district of Mosul after ‘breaking religious laws’ by watching football.

Images also emerged of a woman, dressed in a black burqa, being stoned to death by a horde of ISIS militants.

Four doctors were recently killed in central Mosul, allegedly after refusing to treat ISIS fighters.

The group also reportedly executed 15 civilians in front of a large crowd in Fallujah on January 1, on suspicion they had cooperated with Iraqi security forces, and 14 more in a public square in Dour, north of Tikrit, for refusing to pledge allegiance to ISIS, Shamdasani said.

Images also emerged of a woman, dressed in a black burqa, being stoned to death by a horde of ISIS militants.

Four doctors were recently killed in central Mosul, allegedly after refusing to treat ISIS fighters.

The group also reportedly executed 15 civilians in front of a large crowd in Fallujah on January 1, on suspicion they had cooperated with Iraqi security forces, and 14 more in a public square in Dour, north of Tikrit, for refusing to pledge allegiance to ISIS, Shamdasani said.

The terrorist group also released a video showing the two men being thrown off the top of a tower block in Raqqa, Syria, for being gay.

A masked ISIS fighter announced the charges against the accused using a small handheld radio, before declaring them guilty of engaging in homosexual activities.

He said they should be punished by death, in accordance with “Islamic State’s radical interpretation of Sharia law”.

The men were then bound and blindfolded before being pushed off the 100ft tower block to their deaths.

Down on the ground, two men accused of banditry have been tied to makeshift metal crosses.

Strung up tightly with yellow and green ribbon around their wrists, the men were hanged from the crosses, wincing in agony’.

And it’s believed the ISIS militants killed three of at least 15 pigeon breeders in Iraq after deciding it is against “Islamic religion” to keep birds this week.

The extremists also executed 13 teenage boys for watching the Asian Cup football match between Iraq and Jordan last week.

The young football fans had been caught watching the game on television in the Iraqi city of Mosul, which is controlled by the ISIS.

The teenagers were rounded up and publicly executed by a firing squad using machine guns, according to anti-ISIS activist group Raqqa is Being Slaughtered Silently.

The small activist group said the teenagers were rounded up by militants in the Al-Yarmouk district of Mosul after ‘breaking religious laws’ by watching football.

Source: Al Alam

Shia rebels break up anti-Houthi rally in Sanaa, arresting protesters and attacking journalists, witnesses say.

Houthi fighters have violently dispersed a protest against their takeover of the Yemeni capital, Sanaa, wounding several people, witnesses have said.

The Houthis reportedly arrested several demonstrators in Sanaa on Sunday, after firing rounds in the air to break-up the rally by their opponents.

Witnesses told the AFP news agency that several protesters who had gathered near Sanaa University, in the heart of the city, were injured while journalists were attacked and had their cameras broken.

Sunday’s demonstration came a day after more than 10,000 people marched in solidarity with President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi, denouncing the takeover of the presidential palace and much of the capital by the Shia Houthi rebels.

The Houthis, who had long been concentrated in their northern highlands where Shia Muslims form a majority, have captured several key cities across the north as they push to control more territory of the country.

Hadi, a key US ally in the fight against al-Qaeda, tendered his resignation along with Prime Minister Khalid Bahah on Thursday, saying he could no longer stay in office as the country was in “total deadlock”.

The crisis in the Arabian Peninsula country escalated on January 17 when the Houthis seized Hadi’s chief of staff, Ahmed Awad bin Mubarak, in an apparent bid to extract changes to a draft constitution they oppose.
In another development, Yemen’s parliament once again postponed a session that had been due to discuss Hadi’s resignation, state news agency Saba has reported.

Parliament “has decided to postpone an emergency meeting set to take place on Sunday… to another date which will be decided later to make sure all members are informed to attend,” the news agency said.
Politicians had originally been due to meet on Friday to discuss his request to step down.

Under the constitution, parliamentary speaker Yahya al-Ra’i takes office for an interim period while new elections are organised.

The fall of Hadi’s Western-backed government raise fears of chaos engulfing Yemen, strategically located next to oil giant Saudi Arabia and on the key shipping route from the Suez Canal to the Gulf.

Source: Al Jazeera