region:south yemen

Al-Akhbar describes UAE-Saudi conflict playing out in Yemen | The Mideastwire Blog
▻https://mideastwire.wordpress.com/2017/02/21/al-akhbar-describes-uae-saudi-conflict-playing-out-in-yemen/?fb_action_ids=1037058189733565&fb_action_types=news.publishe

Yes, it is from the Anti-KSA monarchy daily Al-Akhbar, but nevertheless an important piece about intra-GCC conflicts: UAE vs. Saudi Arabia, with the emphasis on the anti-Wahhabi aspect of the conflict. Translated today by our Mideastwire.com (for a free trial, email info@mideastwire.com).

On February 21, the Al-Akhbar daily newspaper carried the following report: “The UAE views the southern and eastern governorates of Yemen as a new arena to enhance its religious, anti-Wahhabi methods… The competing between the “Gulf brothers” is not limited to the military authority, the economic weight and the political status. The competing exceeds all that to touch on the religious and spiritual leadership of the Muslims…

“This is how the situation currently looks like between Saudi Arabia and the UAE. The history of the hostility between the two countries dates back to 1971, the year that saw the unification of the princedoms at the western coast of the Gulf. Back then, the Al-Nahyan family was worried since the Al-Saud family had crossed their eastern borders and were threatening the oil rich princedom of Abu Dhabi. Since that time, the UAE has been trying to demolish the self-proclaimed Saudi leadership of the Islamic world…

“This strategy started to escalate following the September 11 events in light of the anger against Al-Riyadh felt at the level of the western public opinion. The UAE saw this as an excellent opportunity to pull the rug from under its neighbor’s feet and to enhance its own presence under the slogan of “moderation” and “confronting extremism…” The UAE worked on attracting sheikhs and scholars known for their “moderation” and their affiliation to Al-Azhar. The polarization reached a pinnacle in July 2014 upon the establishment of the “Muslim Council of Elders” in Abu Dhabi under Al-Azhar’s Sheikh Ahmad al-Tayeb…

“The UAE is working today in South Yemen based on this same strategy… The available pieces of information indicate that Abu Dhabi’s agents are enticing the southern sheikhs to travel to Al-Azhar by securing all the necessary financial, physical, and logistical facilitations to them with the aim of restricting the Saudi-affiliated circles and preventing their ability to act on the religious call level…

« WITH OR WITHOUT THE BROTHERS » un colloque à ne pas rater, aujourd’hui et demain à Sciences Po Paris.

▻http://www.sciencespo.fr/ceri/evenements/#/?lang=fr&id=4225

Organisé par Laurent Bonnefoy, François Burgat et Stéphane Lacroix, il réunit des chercheur-e-s français, arabes, etc dont les travaux sont des références.

WITH OR WITHOUT THE BROTHERS. DOMESTIC, REGIONAL, AND INTERNATIONAL TRENDS IN ISLAMISM (2013-2015)
du 29/10 | 09h30 au 30/10 | 18h00

Dans le cadre du projet ERC When Authoritarianism Fails in the Arab World

En partenariat avec l’IREMAM, l’IFPO, et l’Université d’Oslo


Thursday 29th of October, 2015

9:30-9:45 Opening address by Alain Dieckhoff, Sciences Po-CERI, CNRS

9:45-10:30 Keynote address by François Burgat, WAFAW, IREMAM
From Ghannouchi to al-Baghdadi: The ubiquitous diversity of the Islamic lexicon

Panel 1: Linking political exclusion to violence?

10:30-13:15

Chair: Loulouwa Al-Rachid, WAFAW, Sciences Po-CERI

Sari Hanafi, WAFAW, American University of Beirut
Transnational movement of Islamic reform: New configurations

Bjorn Olav Utvik, Oslo University
Myths of Ikhwan disaster: Anatomy of the 2011-1013 power struggle in Egypt

Amal-Fatiha Abbassi, IREMAM, Sciences Po Aix
The Muslim Brotherhood and political disengagement. The consequences of an authoritarian situation

11:45-12:00 Coffee break

Monica Marks, WAFAW, Oxford University
Survivalist club or dynamic movement? Generational politics in Ennahda today

Joas Wagemakers, Utrecht University
With or without the others: Consolidating divisions within the Jordanian Muslim Brotherhood (2013-2015)

Amel Boubekeur, SWP, Berlin
Algerian Islamists and Salafis after the Arab Spring: Eroding or reloading the regime?

Panel 2: A Resilient Muslim Brotherhood?

14:30-16:45

Chair: Stéphane Lacroix, WAFAW, CERI-Sciences Po

Rory McCarthy, Oxford University
When Islamists lose an election

Marc Lynch, George Washington University
Evolving transnational networks and media strategies of the Muslim Brotherhood

Marie Vannetzel, WAFAW, CURAPP
#R4bia: The dynamics of the pro-Mursi mobilizations in Turkey

Dilek Yankaya, WAFAW, IREMAM
A “transnational Islamic business network”? Rethinking the connections between Turkish, Egyptian and Tunisian “Islamic businessmen” after the Arab Springs

16:45-17:00 Coffee break

17:00-17:45 Open discussion on contemporary Muslim Brotherhood dynamics

*

Friday 30th of October, 2015

Panel 3: The Iraqi/Syrian matrix of violence

9:30-11:30

Chair: Bjorn Olav Utvik, Oslo University

Loulouwa Al-Rachid, WAFAW, CERI-Sciences Po
The Disarray of Iraqi Sunnis

Truls Tonnesen, FFI, Oslo
The Iraqi origins of the “Islamic State”

Yahya Michot, Hartford Seminary
Ibn Taymiyya in ’Dabiq’

Thomas Pierret, Edinburgh University
Farewell to the vanguard: Syria’s Ahrar al-Sham Islamic movement and wartime de-radicalisation

Tine Gade, Oslo University
Sunnism in Lebanon after the Syrian war

11:30-11:45 Coffee break

Panel 4: Al-Qaeda vs. the Islamic State

11:45-13:30
Chair: François Burgat, WAFAW, IREMAM

Hasan Abu Hanieh, Independent researcher
New Jihadism: From harassment to empowerment (In Arabic)

Brynjar Lia, Oslo University
The jihadi movement and rebel governance: A reassertion of a patriarchal order?

Stéphane Lacroix, WAFAW, CERI-Sciences Po
Saudi Arabia, the Brothers and the others: the ambiguities of a complex relationship

Abdulsalam al-Rubaidi, Al-Baidha University
Ansar al-Sharia in South Yemen: configuration, expansion and discourse (In Arabic)

Ismail Alexandrani, Independent researcher
Sinai with and without the Brothers: did it matter?

Panel 5: Muslim Brothers and their Islamist competitors

14:30-16:45
Chair: Sari Hanafi, WAFAW, American University of Beirut

Muhammad Abu Rumman, Jordanian University
Dilemmas in Salafi dynamics in the wake of the Arab democratic revolutions (In Arabic)

Stéphane Lacroix, WAFAW, CERI-Sciences Po
Being Salafi under Sisi: Examining the post-coup strategy of the al-Nour party

Ahmed Zaghlul, CEDEJ, Cairo
The nationalization of the religious sphere in Egypt (In Arabic)

Myriam Benraad, IREMAM
Iraqi Muslim Brothers: Between the Islamic State and a hard place

Nicolas Dot-Pouillard, WAFAW, IFPO
Hizbullah and Muslims Brothers: A political rupture or a contract renegotiation?

Laurent Bonnefoy, WAFAW, Sciences Po-CERI, CNRS)
Islahis, Salafis, Huthis: reconfigurations of the Islamist field in war torn Yemen


16:45-17:00 Coffee break

17:00-18:00 Concluding remarks and discussion with François Burgat (WAFAW, IREMAM) and Bernard Rougier (Paris III University).

Conference in English and Arabic (with translation)

Responsables scientifiques: Laurent Bonnefoy (Sciences Po-CERI, CNRS), Stéphane Lacroix (Sciences Po-CERI),François Burgat (IREMAM), Bjorn Olav Utvik (Oslo University)

Sciences Po-CERI: 56, rue Jacob 75006 Paris (salle de conférences)

INSCRIPTION OBLIGATOIRE auprès de nathalie.tenenbaum@sciencespo.fr

langueAnglaislieuSalle des conférences, Bâtiment SorganisateurCERI

Yémen : Des séparatistes du sud demandent l’indépendance - Ahram Online

▻http://english.ahram.org.eg/News/113868.aspx

Thousands of southern Yemenis turned out in Aden Friday to demand independence for their once sovereign region, as rebels from the north press to expand their control over more of the impoverished country.
Yemen continues to reel under the impact of the expansion by Shiite rebels, after they overran the capital last month and seized a major port unopposed, before clashing with Sunni tribes and Al-Qaeda south of Sanaa.

The demonstrators gathered in Aden’s Parade Square to mark a “Day of Anger” called by the Supreme Council of the Revolutionary Peaceful Movement for the Liberation and Independence of the South, a new coalition of two major separatist groups.

Waving flags of the former South Yemen, they chanted “we demand freedom and independence” and “independence or death.”

On October 14, tens of thousands protested in central Aden’s Al-Arood Square, setting up a tent camp and promising an indefinite sit-in to press for independence.

The Supreme Council has urged southerners working for the government, especially those in the armed forces and police, to abandon their jobs and join the protests.

Many protesters go to work during the day and return in the afternoon to the camp, which has some 120 tents, activists said.

The south was independent between the end of British colonial rule in 1967 and union with the north in 1990.

A secession attempt four years later sparked a brief but bloody civil war that ended with northern forces occupying the region.

The separatists, as well as Huthi Shiites, rejected plans unveiled in February for Yemen to become a six-region federation, including two for the south.

The Supreme Council is led by exiled former South Yemen president Ali Salem al-Baid and Hassan Baum, who heads the hardline wing of the Southern Movement.

However, around 20 other factions have formed a separate coalition — the National Council for the Salvation of the South — under the leadership of Mohammed Ali Ahmed, the former South Yemen interior minister.

’Qaeda’ suspects kill army officer in #South_Yemen
▻http://english.al-akhbar.com/content/qaeda-suspects-kill-army-officer-south-yemen

Al-Qaeda suspects on a motorbike shot dead an army officer Thursday in Lahij province of southern Yemen, a local security official said. The gunmen opened fire at Major Bilal Karo near his home in Thalab town, “immediately killing him,” the source said, adding that the militants “suspected of belonging to Al-Qaeda” fled on their motorbike. A medical source said Karo’s body was taken to Ibn Khaldoun hospital in the province. #motorbikes in the impoverished country have become a tool for hit-and-run shootings which have killed dozens of officials in past years. read more

#AQAP

Yemeni troops kill five gunmen, wound dozens in anti-Qaeda offensive
▻http://english.al-akhbar.com/content/yemeni-troops-kill-five-gunmen-wound-dozens-anti-qaeda-offensive

Yemeni government forces killed five #al-Qaeda fighters and wounded dozens of others in south #Yemen, the defense ministry said on Friday, in the fourth day of an offensive against Islamist insurgents. Yemeni troops launched their offensive into an expanse of south Yemen spanning 20,000 square kilometers, backed by air force jets and hundreds of loyalist militiamen. read more

#Top_News

Militants execute three Yemeni soldiers: army
▻http://english.al-akhbar.com/content/militants-execute-three-yemeni-soldiers-army

Suspected #al-Qaeda jihadis have executed three Yemeni soldiers they captured in an ambush of an army convoy backing an offensive against extremist strongholds in the south, a security official said Wednesday. “Residents found the bodies of three soldiers, bearing marks of torture, near a road intersection in Ataq,” the official said, referring to the capital of Shabwa province in south #Yemen. read more

#Top_News

Four killed in clashes between #Yemen army and separatists
▻http://english.al-akhbar.com/content/four-killed-clashes-between-yemen-army-and-separatists

Two soldiers were among four people killed on Thursday when the army clashed with separatists in Daleh in south Yemen, sources on both sides said. “Southern Movement activists ambushed an army vehicle at dawn with automatic fire, killing two soldiers,” a military source told AFP. Two attackers were killed and seven more wounded in a subsequent firefight, he added. An activist with the Southern Movement confirmed the clash, saying the attackers belonged to the militant Southern Resistance group. read more

#Top_News

#Yemen #army_shelling kills pregnant mother, two daughters
▻http://english.al-akhbar.com/content/yemen-army-shelling-kills-pregnant-mother-two-daughters

Army shelling killed a pregnant woman and her daughters, three and five, in the same Yemeni town where a bombardment killed 19 mourners last month, medics said on Saturday. The girls’ father, Yassin Said, was seriously wounded when the shell slammed into their home in Daleh, 300 kilometers (190 miles) south of the capital, on Friday evening, the medics added. read more

#South_Yemen #Top_News

Thirteen killed as army shells funeral in #South #Yemen
▻http://english.al-akhbar.com/content/thirteen-killed-army-shells-funeral-south-yemen

An army tank shelled a funeral tent erected by the Southern Movement at a school in Yemen on Friday, killing 13 people including children, a medic and witnesses said. Tensions are running high in the formerly independent south, home to an increasingly assertive secessionist movement, raising fears that al-Qaeda’s powerful Yemen affiliate could exploit the growing unrest in the Arab world’s poorest country. read more

#Top_News

Thousands protest for South Yemeni independence
▻http://english.al-akhbar.com/content/thousands-protest-south-yemeni-independence

Thousands demonstrated in south #Yemen's main city Aden on Saturday to demand a return to independence a day after President Abdrabuh Mansur Hadi said only autonomy was on the table. The rally in Aden’s central Parade Square came as southerners marked the anniversary of the end of British colonial rule in 1967, which created an independent state that lasted until union with the north in 1990. Demonstrators waved southern flags and banners proclaiming: “Yes to Freedom and Independence,” and: “Our Goal is the Reclamation of Statehood.” read more

#Top_News

Southern separatists stage protest in #Yemen
▻http://english.al-akhbar.com/content/southern-separatists-stage-protest-yemen

Thousands of separatists demanding secession took to the streets of Aden on Saturday to mark the anniversary in 1967 of the independence of former South Yemen. The demonstrators came from across the south and gathered on Parade Square in the center of Aden, waving flags of the former South Yemen and carrying banners with pro-independence slogans. Security forces watched the crowds from a distance, particularly around public buildings and police and army posts. read (...)

#Top_News

Suicide bomber gravely injured three South #Yemen separatists
▻http://english.al-akhbar.com/content/suicide-bomber-gravely-injured-three-south-yemen-separatists

A suicide bomber in southern Yemen gravely wounded three members of the separatist Southern Movement on Friday in an attack in Lahij province, the group and a local official said. The bomber detonated an explosives belt as activists’ cars headed for the port of Aden for a demonstration on Saturday marking the independence of the former South Yemen. A Southern Movement source said the attack took place in al-Askariya district of Lahij. read (...)

#Top_News