Military officials and witnesses report dozens of gunmen attacked the presidential palace at Taiz, Yemen on Friday. The gunmen killed four soldiers in an attempt to storm the compound. Gunman also injured president Ali Abdullah Saleh in his compound in Sanaa.

Saleh left the country overnight for medical treatment in Saudi Arabia.

One of the gunman was also killed in the violence on Sunday.

Security forces opened fire on protesters in Yemen Tuesday, killing at least three. And on Wednesday gunmen on motorcycles strafed demonstrators in a port city, Al Hudaydah, killing another, according to an opposition activist.

Video shot by someone walking with protesters shows a chaotic scene in Sanaa. Protesters threw stones at government forces, who were using live ammunition, water canons and tear gas.

Read the full story

GRAPHIC VIDEO: Tribesmen loyal to Yemen’s embattled president on Tuesday clashed with a group of soldiers whose commander has sided with the opposition, and the fighting in a suburb of the capital Sanaa left three tribesmen dead.

New fighting reported in Sanaa, Yemen where three people were reported killed in the capital city. The fight Tuesday occurred between tribesmen loyal to President Ali Abdullah Saleh and soldier backing anti-goevernment protesters.

Read the full story

According to witness and medical personnel, Yemeni security forces and plainclothes snipers rooftops shot and killed up to 42 protesters at an anti-government rally in Sanaa after Muslim prayers on Friday

President Ali Abdullah Saleh declared a state of emergency. Also, at least 300 were injured.

“I express my extreme sorrow for what happened today after Friday prayers in the university district.”
– President Ali Abdullah Saleh

Saleh denied the shooters were police, and declared a 30-day state of emergency that gives wider powers to security forces and bars citizens from bearing arms in public.

Yemen is the second country in the region to announce emergency rule this week. Bahrain’s introduced martial law on Tuesday, which was followed by a major crackdown on protesters.

Over 70 people have been killed in several weeks of civil disturbances.

About 40 percent of the population in Yemen live on $2 a day or less, and a third face chronic hunger.

Thousands of protesters gathered in Yemen’s capital Sanaa on Sunday to call for president Ali Abdullah Saleh to step down. Saleh suffered another blow when two powerful chiefs from his own tribe joined the opposition.

Ali Abdullah Saleh is the first and current President of the Republic of Yemen. Saleh previously served as President of the Yemen Arab Republic (North Yemen) from 1978 until 1990. During the term he assumed the office of chairman of the Presidential Council of the Republic of Yemen (North & South Yemen). He is the longest-serving president of Yemen, ruling since 1978. On February 2, 2011, Saleh announced that he would step down in 2013.

Read the full story

Two powerful bombs were hidden inside printer cartridge in a printer and shipped to addresses in Chicago. One of the bombs was intercepted at England’s East Midlands Airport and the other bomb was discovered at a FedEx facility in Dubai.

A forensic investigation determined the bomb on the UPS aircraft was timed to detonate 6-7 hours after it left the U.K airport.

According to British police authorities, the UPS cargo plane intercepted in England left the United Kingdom without the deadly package at 3:20 a.m. GMT on Oct. 29 (11:20 p.m. EDT on Oct. 28), two hours after landing and inspection. The device was timed to be activated at 9:30 a.m. GMT (5:30 a.m. EDT).

The printer cartridges were filled with PETN, an industrial explosive that, when X-rayed, would resemble the cartridges’ ink powder.

One of two mail bombs sent from Yemen last week was disarmed just 17 minutes before it was set to go off, according to a statement today by the French interior minister.

Security forces in the Dubai region claim that the description of the bomb that Fortefeux is describing do not match information known about the bomb that was detained in Dubai.

The packages were addressed to two Chicago-area synagogues, but the addresses were outdated and the names on the packages included references to the Crusades — the 200-year wars involving predominantly Christians vs. Muslims.

The French Interior Ministry, British authorities and U.S. authorities would not elaborate on Hortefeux’s comment.

When investigators pulled the Chicago-bound packages off cargo planes in England and the United Arab Emirates Friday, they found the bombs wired to cell phones and hidden in the toner cartridges of laser printers.

The cellphone communication cards had been removed, so the phones could not connect to a wireless tower or receive calls. Hence, the focus on the alarm or timer functions to detonate the bombs.

The bomb found at East Midlands airport in central England went unnoticed for several hours, because of an intricate design in the toner.

Intelligence officials in the U.S. said Wednesday that each bomb was attached to a syringe containing lead azide, a chemical initiator that would have detonated PETN explosives packed into each printer cartridge.

PETN and a syringe were used in the failed bombing last Christmas 2009 of a Detroit-bound airliner. Investigators are scrutinizing the Yemeni al-Qaida faction’s top bomb maker, who had previously designed the bomb that failed detonate properly on a crowded U.S.-bound passenger jetliner last Christmas.

Authorities believe that master bomb maker Ibrahim al-Asiri packed four times as much explosives into the bombs hidden last week on flights from Yemen. The two bombs contained 300 and 400 grams of the industrial explosive PETN, according to a German security official.

The underwear bomb on the Detroit-bound plane last Christmas contained about 80 grams.

One of the explosive devices found inside a shipped printer cartridge in Dubai had flown on two airlines before it was discovered., The cartridge flew on a Qatar Airways Airbus A320 jet to Doha and then on an unnamed flight from Doha to Dubai. The number of passengers on the two flights were unknown, but the first flight had a 144-seat capacity and the second would have been transported a variety of planes with seating capacities ranging from 144 to 335.

————–
France has been on heightened alert since mid-September and last month Hortefeux said that Saudi intelligence had advised of a heightened threat from al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula, the Yemen-based al-Qaida affiliate, which was “doubtless active or envisioned being active” on the “European continent, notably France.”

Brice Hortefeux (born 11 May 1958) is a French politician and Minister of the Interior, Overseas Territories and Territorial collectivities. He was previously Minister for Labour, Labour Relations, the Family, Solidarity and Urban Affairs and Minister-Delegate for Local Government at the Ministry of the Interior and was a Member of the European Parliament.

VIDEO from Dubai showing Mahan Air, Qatar Airways aircraft. U.S. intelligence officials intercepted three suspicious packages in September that they think were a dry run for Friday’s mail bomb scheme, a U.S. official said Monday. Authorities think the October 29, 2010 attempt was to bring down the aircraft over an U.S. city.

Suspected al-Qaida plotters behind a mail bomb scare last week performed a “dry run” in September, sending similar packages with books, papers, CDs and other household items rather than explosives from Yemen to Chicago to time how long they would take to be delivered.

The September packages were intercepted because return addresses were linked to al-Qaida in Yemen — the same group suspected in the cargo bombs found Oct. 29, 2010.

SAT OCT 30 2010 — Yemeni president Abdullah Ali Saleh refused Saturday night to allow Washington to land US special forces in Al Gouf, 140 kilometers south of Sanaa the capital for a commando raidon al Qaida package mail bombers.

DEBKAfile Yemeni President bars US commando raid on al Qaeda package plottersYemeni President bars US commando raid on al Qaeda package plotters

OPERATION ‘Blow to the Head’ — Yemeni security forces conducted house-to-house sweep of Saada, Yemen to flush out Shi’ite rebel hideouts and Houthis — members of a tribe. The operation resulted in the deaths of eight soldiers and 19 Shi’ite rebels, and the arrest of at least 25 rebels. The rebels are also known as Huthis and Zaidis (Zaidi).

The Yemeni government also faces separatist movement in the south and is fighting a resurgent al Qaeda in multiple provinces.

Wikipedia: Yahia Badreddin al-Houthi | Abdullah al-Ruzami | Yahia Badreddin al-Houthi | Saada (Sa’dah) | Yemen

SOURCES:
Reuters Yemeni forces kill 19 Shi’ite rebels, arrest 25
Pakistan Daily Times: 17 Yemeni rebels, 8 soldiers dead in Saada