“The Protester”: A Photo Journal of the Egyptian Revolution

Thanks to TIME Magazine for recognizing the revolutionaries all over the world… I’ve been meaning to write this for quite some time but only finding the chance to do it now.

A year ago when Mohammed Bouazizi, a fruit vendor in Tunisia, burned himself out of frustration from a political system that neglected him, I was en route to Beirut ahead of the Christmas holiday and writing, mainly, about the credit crunch in the Arab Gulf states and mounting concerns that the banking system would not soon recover from the blow. Days after I returned from Beirut, my host, Rania Abouzeid, came to stay with me in Dubai in a desperate attempt to fly to Tunisia, where flights were almost entirely grounded amid an uprising across the country. It was hard to imagine then that the desperate act of this young man not only set in motion a revolution in his country, but around across the region.

Jan. 27, 2011: me and Rania Abouzeid heading to Cairo (at 3am -- ughhh!!!)

On January 14, 2011, following a month of violent protests against his rule, Zine El Abidine Ben Ali – Tunisia’s president since 1987 — was forced to flee to Saudi Arabia along with his wife and their three children.  A week later, Rania and I were on a flight to Cairo where calls for a revolution had begun to circulate on social media websites. They were days I will never forget, and with TIME Magazine’s 2011 Person of the Year issue being dedicated this year to The Protester, I want to share with you all a few memories and photos of the protesters I met in Cairo this year. (Click here to read some of my stories on the Arab Spring)

On January 27, two days after the protests officially begun, Internet and mobile phone service was completely cut off in Egypt and we were left guessing where crowds were gathering. After trying a few spots around town, Rania and I decided to go toward the Mohendiseen neighborhood near the Moustafa Mahmoud mosque. It was a good guess! About 500 protesters had gathered after Friday prayers where they came face to face with riot police chanting slogans like “The people want the end of the regime” and “Hosni Mubarak: illegitimate.”

We began to march, with the intention of going toward Tahrir Square. (Rania and I were quickly separated in the crowd and were each forced to continue reporting on our own). Weaving through side streets and alleys in the Cairo neighborhood, people watched us from balconies, throwing bottles of water, garlic and onions, and bottles of vinegar – all simply remedies for tear gas inhalation, because everyone knew what lie ahead.  The longer we marched, the more the crowd swelled, with protesters called on those people in their homes not to be afraid.

Cairo, January 27, 2011/Photo by Vivian Salama

Cairo, January 27, 2011/Photo by Vivian Salama

Jan 27: Protesters Near Moustafa Mahmoud Mosque/Photo by Vivian SalamaS

Sure enough, we were quickly confronted by tanks and soldiers firing tear gas at the crowd. I’ve never seen so much camaraderie in my life. Soldiers at a nearby military hospital threw medical masks at the protesters and pharmacists handed them out to the crowds. At one point I felt quite ill from the tear gas. A man approached from behind me and pressed a vinegar-covered mask against my mouth and nose. A nearby vendor (who probably struggles to feed his own family with the pennies he earns) emptied his refrigerator, handing out water bottles and cans of soda to the fatigued protesters.

Every where I looked, people were helping each other, helping strangers tie their masks, sharing water bottles, aiding those who were most affected by the gas.

There was one point, marching with the crowd from Mohendiseen, when we approached a major intersection and I heard roaring cheers. I jumped up on a car to see what had happened and was personally overcome by emotion. From three different directions, massive groups of protesters were approaching the intersection – the other groups coming from as far as Giza and the Nasr City. They did this without Internet or mobile phones.

Cairo, January 27, 2011/Photo by Vivian Salama

Groups of young men pushed to the front of the crowd and began to battle riot police, taking over their vehicles and chasing them away. Our group, now numbered in the hundreds of thousands, pushed slowly across the historic Qasr El Nil bridge in an attempt to move into Tahrir. There were moments when I worried that an attack by the military would trigger a stampede – we were stuffed tightly onto the bridge. But every time protesters began to push back, the young men in the crowd would grab the women in the crowd and push them against the bridge railing so to protect them from being knocked down.

Some were more prepared than others!! Cairo Jan. 27, 2011/Photo by Vivian Salama

It was a long night with protesters burning the ruling National Democratic Party headquarters and battling with soldiers in Tahrir. Riot police trucks were set on fire (and the Semiramis Hotel, where many journalists took refuge) was partially on fire for part of the evening. I was trapped in Tahrir for the night and forced to take a last minute room at the Semiramis. I woke up early the next morning to a different Cairo, where charred military tanks stood in the middle of Tahrir Square and smoke billowed from the NDP headquarters and, sadly, from the adjacent National Museum. It would take another two weeks (only!) to overthrow Hosni Mubarak but that first Friday was by far the most memorable. There is an Arabic expression that often refers to the Egyptian people as being “light blooded” (light hearted/good senses of humor). They definitely showed their spirit throughout the frustrating 19 days (and 30 years) it took to shake up their political system.

Tahrir Square, January 28, 2011/Photo by Vivian Salama

Tahrir Square, January 28, 2011/Photo by Vivian Salama

me in Tahrir (late January 2011)

I visited Bahrain in the weeks that followed and I spent a lot of time covering the uprisings in Yemen and, less so, the ongoing crisis in Syria. After years of battling misguided stereotypes of terrorism and violence, these protesters have showed the world that they desire freedom and a decent standard of living and they have the right to demand it just as those in Europe and the US demand of their governments.

The Tunisians, Egyptians and all the other citizens around the world fighting for democracy have a very long and bumpy road ahead.  The TIME Magazine Person of the Year issue questions whether there is a global tipping point for frustration. I believe what happened this year is, in large part, because of overpopulation and because of the global economic slowdown touched societies rich and poor – but toppled those that were already on the brink before markets crash. The world is smaller than ever thanks to the Internet and various technologies that allow us to share experiences with people on opposite corners of the world. As we continue to get closer, and the world, smaller, it will become impossible to distance ourselves from even the most seemingly remote events.

Cairo, January 27, 2011/Photo by Vivian Salama

Yemen’s Saleh Signs GCC Agreement; Basindwa Named Interim Prime Minister

An eventful week for my friends in Yemen who have worked tirelessly this past year covering the Yemeni Spring. Just when we thought President Ali Abdullah Saleh would continue his song and dance to avoid signing an Arab Gulf-brokered agreement, he did so November 23 in Riyadh, the opposition by his side. Today, prominent opposition figure Mohammed Basindwa was named interim Prime Minister ahead of elections scheduled for February 21.

The first step now is for Saleh to stick to his promise, hand over power , and get-a-steppin. Yemen’s economy, which was already on the brink of collapse before the revolution kicked off, is paralyzed and the country cannot afford any further delays to the long and difficult road toward recovery. (The International Monetary Fund said last month that Yemen’s economy will shrink by 2.5% this year and by 0.5% in 2012)

From a security perspective, the breakdown of law and order has also given extremist groups ample breathing room to go about their business. The sooner a transition takes place — with the rather optimistic assumption that it goes smoothly — the sooner issues like the economy and security can be addressed.

For now, we wait and see whether Saleh will, indeed, take his final bow as he has vowed. Since it’s likely that Saleh makes very few moves without a nod of approval from Saudi Arabia and the US, it’s important that both countries continue exert pressure on him to expedite the transition and step down once and for all. GOOD LUCK, YEMEN!!

THANK YOU FOR PLAYING. GOODBYE.

RELATED ARTICLES I WROTE:

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Saleh Calls for Yemen Elections as Violence Against Protesters Intensifies

Yemen Shortages Worsen as Street Violence Leaves Locals Searching for Food

Yemen is “Collapsing” Amid Stalemate, Former Premier Nuaman Says

Al-Qaeda’s American-Born Agent Al-Awlaki Killed in Yemen

The bad guys are dropping like flies this year…!!

By Mohammed Hatem and Vivian Salama

Sept. 30 (Bloomberg) — Anwar al-Awlaki, a U.S.-born Islamic cleric who masterminded the attempted bombing of a Detroit-bound airplane in 2009 with explosives hidden in underwear, has been killed in Yemen, the Defense Ministry said.

A U.S. government official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, confirmed al-Awlaki’s death. Al-Awlaki was targeted and killed 8 kilometers (5 miles) from the town of Khashef in the province of Jawf, the Yemeni foreign press office said in an e-mailed statement today. Intelligence services say he inspired a shooting rampage that killed 13 people last year at an army base in Fort Hood, Texas.

Al-Awlaki is identified by the Office of Foreign Assets Control list of “specially designated nationals” as a 40-year- old native of Las Cruces, New Mexico, with dual U.S. and Yemeni citizenship. Last year, President Barack Obama approved an order making him the first American ever to be placed on the Central Intelligence Agency’s hit list.

“He is an excellent role model for what al-Qaeda wants its recruits to be in terms of English language, having exposure to the United States or the West, and adhering to the doctrine of al-Qaeda,” said Theodore Karasik, director of research at the Dubai-based Institute for Near East and Gulf Military Analysis.

Yemen’s government is under considerable strain following almost nine months of anti-government protests aimed at toppling President Ali Abdullah Saleh, Karasik said.

‘International Fame’

Al-Awlaki reportedly survived an attack by a U.S. drone in Yemen in May, according to Arabiya television, which cited a member of his tribe. He was an avid blogger and used the Internet to communicate with followers around the world, something that “propelled him to international fame,” IHS Global Insight analysts Gala Riani and Jeremy Binnie said today.

Obama, speaking at the start of a swearing-in ceremony for the new chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Army General Martin Dempsey, in Fort Meyer, Virginia, called al-Awlaki’s death a “major blow” against al-Qaeda that “marks another significant milestone in the effort to defeat al-Qaeda and its affiliates.”

U.K. Foreign Secretary William Hague said in an e-mailed statement that countries must “keep up the pressure on Al-Qaeda and its allies and remain vigilant to the threat we face.”

Boost for Obama

Al-Awlaki’s death follows that of al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, killed on May 2 in a U.S. raid on an Islamabad, Pakistan suburb.

“If an unmanned vehicle killed the militant, it will have offered an immediate return on Obama’s recent decision to increase the use of UAV’s in Yemen,” Riani and Binnie wrote in an e-mailed report. “These foreign and security credentials are likely to boost Obama’s bid of re-election next year.”

Pakistani-American Samir Khan, an al-Qaeda militant living in Yemen, died in the same attack that killed al-Awlaki, Yemeni state-run Saba news agency reported, citing an unidentified security official.

Yemen, bin Laden’s ancestral home, was the site of a 2000 attack on the USS Cole that killed 17 U.S. sailors. Since the start of anti-government protests inspired by uprisings that toppled the leaders of Egypt and Tunisia this year, concerns about the deterioration of security in Yemen have grown. Former U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates said in April that he saw Saleh’s possible fall as a “real problem.”

Al-Qaeda Offshoots

In the decade since the Sept. 11 attacks on the U.S. that killed almost 3,000 people at the World Trade Center in New York City, the Pentagon just outside Washington and a field in Shanksville, Pennsylvania, al-Qaeda offshoots have sprung up around the Islamic world, from the Maghreb and sub-Saharan Africa to Iraq and the Arabian peninsula.

An Obama administration official said al-Awlaki directed Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, who is accused of trying to blow up a U.S. jetliner in December 2009 with explosives hidden in his underpants. Al-Awlaki instructed Abdulmutallab to detonate the device over U.S. airspace to maximize casualties, the official said. He also sought to use weapons of mass destruction, including cyanide and ricin, to attack Westerners, the U.S. official said.

The threat posed by al-Qaeda’s Yemen branch was further highlighted last October when two parcel bombs sent from the country to U.S. synagogues were seized in the U.K. and Dubai. The bombing attempts, in which devices were concealed in printer cartridges, prompted the U.S. and European countries to bar flights or cargo from Yemen.

Body Bombs

Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, the Yemen-based group, has been examining how to develop body bombs stitched into a terrorist’s belly, breasts or buttocks, Seth Jones, a senior political scientist for the RAND Corp., a Santa Monica, California-based policy research organization, said in a July 18 interview.

Yemen, which gets about $300 million a year in security and humanitarian assistance from the U.S., stepped up operations against al-Qaeda after the parcel-bomb attempts, including air strikes targeting the group’s camps. Military aid to Yemen includes Huey helicopters, Hummer vehicles and night-vision goggles, the Pentagon said in August 2010.

Given al-Awlaki’s popularity, revenge attacks may be carried out in the U.S. and Yemen, IHS analysts Riani and Binnie wrote. “His death will likely be considered a victory for both governments,” they said.

–With assistance from Massoud A. Derhally in Beirut, Lebanon, and Margaret Talev and Roger Runningen in Washington. Editors: Jennifer M. Freedman, Karl Maier

NATO Extends Libya Mission After Vowing to Intensify Attacks

By Vivian Salama

Click here to view original

The North Atlantic Treaty Organization and its military partners extended their mission in Libya by 90 days as the coalition intensifies attacks on forces loyal to Muammar Qaddafi.

“This decision sends a clear message to the Qaddafi regime: We are determined to continue our operation to protect the people of Libya,” NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen said in astatement released today. “We will sustain our efforts to fulfill the United Nations mandate. We will keep up the pressure to see it through.”

The conflict between Qaddafi’s troops and rebels trying to end his four-decade rule has left most of the east in opposition hands and curbed oil exports. NATO said May 20 its increased air campaign has “effectively” pushed Qaddafi into hiding.

Air forces from the North Atlantic Treaty Organization fired on a vehicle storage facility in Tripoli, the capital, yesterday and destroyed three surface-to-air missile launchers, the alliance said in a separate statement today. They also struck logistical targets in the cities of Misrata, Zawiyah and Brega, NATO said.

The campaign has “largely paralyzed” the regime’s command-and-control structure, spokeswoman Oana Lungescu told reporters at NATO headquarters in Brussels yesterday.

The mission was authorized by a UN mandate to impose an arms embargo and no-fly zone, and protect civilians from attack.

Benghazi Bomb

A car bomb exploded today near a hotel in the rebel’s de facto capital, Benghazi. The blast occurred near the Tibesti Hotel, used by visiting foreign officials and journalists. There were no immediate reports of fatalities. Police fired into the air to disperse a crowd that had gathered after the explosion.

In Rome, former Libyan oil minister Shokri Ghanem confirmed to the Italian news agency ANSA that he had abandoned the Qaddafi regime last month and will join the opposition, after trying unsuccessfully to change the regime from within. There is “a lot of pressure both internal and external” on the regime, he said.

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton will attend a June 9 meeting of the 22-nation contact group on Libya taking place in the United Arab Emirates, State Department spokesman Mark Toner said yesterday.

An international fund has been established to provide humanitarian aid and other assistance to the rebel forces fighting Qaddafi’s regime, with Qatar contributing $400 million to $500 million and Kuwait $180 million, Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Hamad bin Jassim bin Jabor al-Thani said May 5.

Financial Pressure

The contact group pledged last month to step up pressure on Qaddafi to leave power and called for financial assets linked to the regime that have been frozen by international sanctions to be turned over to the fund.

Jordan will fly 100 Libyans wounded in the uprising to the country’s capital, Amman, for hospital treatment next week, the head of Jordan’s Private Hospitals Association said yesterday. The action is sponsored by the group, with the treatment of each patient costing an average of 12,000 dinars ($16,900), he said.

The unrest in Libya, holder of Africa’s largest oil reserves, caused supplies from the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries to decline in April, the International Energy Agency said May 12. Supplies from the North African nation “will remain absent from the market for the rest of 2011,” the agency said.

Crude for July delivery settled at $100.29 a barrel, down $2.41, on the New York Mercantile Exchange, after jobs and manufacturing data pointed to a slowing economy. Prices climbed $2.11 to $102.70 yesterday, the highest since May 10. Oil slipped 9.9 percent in May, the first decline in nine months.

Gulf Rulers Welcoming Arab Democracy Anywhere But Home May Store Up Unrest

By Alaa Shahine and Vivian Salama

Bloomberg (click here to view original)

Persian Gulf rulers say they understand that this year’s wave of pro-democracy uprisings has changed the Middle East. So far, they haven’t allowed it to change their own countries.

(l to r) Bin Ali, Saleh, Qaddafi, Mubarak

None of the region’s monarchies has taken steps to broaden political participation that match the spending pledges they have offered since the start of the unrest that toppled Tunisia’s Zine El Abidine Ben Ali andEgypt’s Hosni Mubarak. Instead, the rhetoric about a new era in the Arab world, and the cash handouts for homes and social security, have been accompanied by police repression.Protests have already reached Bahrain, Oman, Kuwait and the eastern province of Saudi Arabia this year. The reluctance of the Gulf Arab leaders, who control about two-fifths of the world’s oil, to loosen their grip on power may leave more of them vulnerable to the wave of unrest that has already pushed crude prices up more than 20 percent.“What we have learned from the uprisings in general, and from Tunisia and Egypt in particular, is that it’s really a matter of when,” said Shadi Hamid, director of research at Brookings Institution’s Doha Center, in a telephone interview. “Autocracies don’t last forever.”Oman’s Foreign Minister Yusuf Bin Alawi Bin Abdullah told Arab counterparts in Cairo last month that regional leaders need “new thinking” to deal with the “Arab renaissance.” In Abu Dhabi, then-GCC Secretary-General Abdul Rahman Al-Attiyah said that “political participation has become a key demand for development.”

‘Hydrocarbon Dictatorships’

Qatar’s ruler, Sheikh Hamad Bin Khalifa Al Thani, said in February that change was coming to the region and that Europe shouldn’t support “hydrocarbon dictatorships” in return for economic benefits, according to Al Sharq newspaper. He didn’t say which countries fall into that category.Qatar, Oman, Saudi Arabia and the other three Gulf Cooperation Council members are listed as authoritarian regimes in the 2010 Democracy Index of the Economist Intelligence Unit.The region’s leaders must convert ideas about change into concrete steps that will “improve the relationship between the state and the people,” said Prince Turki Al-Faisal, former Saudi ambassador to the U.S. “We have to change words into actions, actions that are arduous,” he said in a lecture in Abu Dhabi March 21.Some countries have begun to act. Sultan Qaboos of Oman agreed last month to boost the powers of the nation’s consultative council; the United Arab Emirates announced Sept. 24 elections to the Federal National Council, an advisory body; Saudi Arabia said it will hold municipal elections in September, while backtracking from earlier signals that women would be allowed to vote.

Saudi ‘Counter-Revolution’

Those measures, though, don’t involve real transfers of power, Hamid said. Repression has been a more typical response, with Saudi Arabia as “the leader of the Arab counter- revolution,” he said. “They are fighting change tooth and nail.”Saudi Arabia’s Information Ministry declined to comment and no one was available to comment at the Saudi Foreign Ministry or the U.A.E.’s federal government or Federal National Council, in response to repeated phone calls over two days.The prospect of unrest spreading to the world’s biggest oil exporter drove the benchmark Saudi stock index into a 13-day losing streak through March 5, the longest since 1996. Crude for May delivery rose above $112 a barrel last week, the highest since September 2008.

‘Not Very Worried’

The political upheaval in the Middle East has left markets “pricing in an element of uncertainty,” said Arthur Hanna, an industry managing director at Accenture Plc.Saudi oil wealth will help it escape the wave of unrest even though unemployment is high and civil rights limited, said Kai Stukenbrock of Standard & Poor’s. “We are not very worried about that scenario,” Stukenbrock, S&P’s director of sovereign ratings for Europe, the Middle East and Africa, said March 7.Simon Henry, chief financial officer at Royal Dutch Shell Plc (RDSA), also backed the kingdom to navigate through the political tensions. “It has the resources, it has the established capability to handle some of the unrest it may face,” Henry said on March 8.One risk to Saudi stability is the succession to King Abdullah, who turns 87 this year, Henry said. Crown Prince Sultan is also in his 80s. Next in line is Prince Nayef, the septuagenarian interior minister who filled central Riyadh with police to block a planned demonstration March 11, after rallies by Shiite Muslims in the oil-producing eastern provinces.

Bahrain Crackdown

Saudi rulers offered asylum to Ben Ali, backed Mubarak before his ouster, and sent troops to Bahrain to support a crackdown by Sunni royals that has left more than 20 protesters dead, mostly from the country’s Shiite majority.The violence in Bahrain showed unrest can be expensive even when it doesn’t lead to regime change. It pushed borrowing costs more than 150 basis points higher and Bahrain’s credit rating at Standard & Poor’s three steps lower, and dented efforts to compete with Dubai as the region’s business hub.Qatar and the U.A.E. both sent troops to Bahrain to help the government quell protests. InLibya, they are on the opposition’s side, backing a U.S.-led military campaign to help the rebels fighting Muammar Qaddafi. Qatar will “look at” the possibility of providing defense equipment to the insurgents, Prime Minister Hamad bin Jasim Al-Thani said yesterday.

‘Digging In Heels’

Dubai police on April 8 arrested Ahmed Mansour, a human rights campaigner, promptingHuman Rights Watch to criticize the U.A.E. for “digging in its heels” against democratic reforms. Two more activists, including an economics professor at the Abu Dhabi branch of France’s Sorbonne university, were arrested in the next two days. In Oman, two people have been killed as police broke up protest rallies.Saudi Arabia has also led the spending spree. King Abdullah ordered $128 billion of measures, including $90 billion on house-building and home loans, that will help the economy grow 6.6 percent this year, Standard Chartered Plc estimates.“The enormity of the stimulus package will help the region overall,” as it’s too much for the Saudi economy to absorb alone, and reduce the risk of civil unrest, Said Hirsh at London-based Capital Economics said in a March 21 report.GCC spending is another reason to expect high oil prices, according to John Sfakianakis, chief economist at Bank Saudi Fransi. Saudi Arabia needs a price of at least $80 per barrel, higher than previous breakeven figures, to finance its budget, he calculated.

‘Money Lying Around’

The GCC has promised $10 billion apiece to Bahrain and Oman to help assuage protesters. The U.A.E. allocated $1.6 billion for water and infrastructure projects in northern emirates that lag behind Dubai and Abu Dhabi.Spending conceived as a way of avoiding political change may end up fuelling popular demands, said Christopher Davidson, author of “Power and Politics in the Persian Gulf Monarchies.”

“You have the people in Saudi Arabia, for example, now asking: ‘If all that money was lying around all this time, why wasn’t it used on us earlier?’,” Davidson said. “These rulers are just reacting to the events around them, and their citizens know it.”

Al-Qaeda Fears in U.S. Buy Time for Saleh as Clashes in Yemen Escalate

By Vivian Salama and Glen Carey

Bloomberg

Click here to get original link

Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh is facing down mass protests and defections with backing from the U.S. and Saudi Arabia, who are betting it’s safer to let a key ally against al-Qaeda leave on his own terms.

Like Muammar Qaddafi in Libya, Saleh justified his violent crushing of anti-government protests by arguing his downfall would lead to anarchy and a greater threat from Islamic terrorists. The difference is Saleh, who called Yemen a “time bomb,” has support in Washington and Riyadh.

This year’s wave of Arab unrest has shown the U.S. is willing to dump longtime partners like Egypt’s Hosni Mubarak as well as more recent ones like Qaddafi. In Yemen, the poorest Arab state and already a base for al-Qaeda attacks, Saleh’s army, government and much of his tribal base have abandoned the president, yet the U.S. is reluctant to do so. The standoff adds to the risk of a Libya-style conflict as violence escalates.

“Two weeks ago, it was really looking like game over for Saleh, then all of a sudden he seemed to have gotten a second wind,” said Gregory Johnsen, a Yemen scholar at Princeton University. “The only two foreign voices that matter for Yemen are the U.S. and Saudi Arabia. They are scrambling now with the reality that Saleh’s days may be numbered.”

U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates said last week that he saw the possible fall of Saleh as a “real problem.” Mark Toner, acting deputy spokesman for the U.S. State Department, said on April 4 that while Saleh must respond to public demands, “it’s not for us to impose a solution.”

Crackdown Hardens

Saleh’s treatment of the protest movement, now in its third month, has hardened. The shooting of 46 protesters by police and snipers in the capital, Sana’a, on March 18 sparked a wave of defections from the regime.

This week, at least a dozen protesters were killed in the town of Taiz when they battled with police, and in Sana’a there were reports that soldiers from a rebel-led division clashed with Saleh’s supporters.

Saudi Arabia, holder of the world’s biggest oil reserves, this week invited Yemen’s government and opposition to Riyadh as part of an effort by the six-member Gulf Cooperation Council to resolve the crisis and preserve “stability and security” in Yemen. The official Saudi Press Agency said Saleh, 68, welcomed the mediation. He had earlier offered to stand down provided there was a transition plan, and then said he would make no more concessions to opposition “arm-twisting.”

‘Key Solution’

The prime minister of GCC member Qatar, Sheikh Hamad Bin Jasim Bin Jaber Al Thani, said the group is hoping to broker an accord that would involve Saleh stepping down, according to the state-run Qatar News Agency. The Joint Meeting Parties, Yemen’s main opposition coalition, welcomed its invitation to join the Riyadh talks and called Saleh’s departure “the key solution.”

Yemen is the ancestral home of al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden. It was the site of the 2000 attack on the USS Cole that killed 17 U.S. sailors, and the breeding ground for plots including the attempt to bomb a Detroit-bound plane in December 2009. In October, Dubai police said they intercepted two parcel bombs en route from Yemen to U.S. synagogues.

When a blast at a weapons factory in the south last week left about 100 people dead, the government pointed to al-Qaeda and the opposition charged Saleh with fomenting chaos and then posing as the only bulwark against it.

‘Complete Breakdown’

“If there is a complete breakdown of order in Yemen, al- Qaeda Arabian Peninsula could have more freedom of operation,” Gregory Gause, a professor at the University of Vermont, said in response to e-mailed questions.

The U.S. gives Yemen $300 million a year mainly in military aid. It has done less to tackle the social problems that help militants flourish, said Will Picard, co-founder of the Yemen Peace Project, which is based in California and Sana’a and aims to promote dialogue between the countries.

The government in Washington “looks at Yemen through one lens, the lens of counter-terrorism,” Picard said. “It’s always going to be harder to impress Congress with water catchment systems and pre-natal health clinics than with predator drones and covert strike teams.”

Saudi Arabia funnels about $1 billion a year to Yemen in an attempt to keep the country “contained” and buy tribal support, according to Mustafa Alani, director of the security and terrorism program at the Gulf Research Center in Dubai.

Assassination Attempt

Al-Qaeda’s Yemen-based wing tried to assassinate the top Saudi anti-terrorism official, Prince Muhammad bin Nayef bin Abdulaziz, in 2009. The same year, Shiite Houthi insurgents in northern Yemen seized a sliver of Saudi territory and killed a Saudi soldier, prompting retaliation with air attacks.

King Abdullah sent troops into Bahrain, another neighbor, last month to help quash Shiite-led protests. The risk of military intervention in Yemen, though, is that “it is very easy to get in but would be very difficult to get out,” Alani said. “It’s like Afghanistan with the geography, a tribal system and a heavily armed society.”

Yemen is the second most-heavily armed in the world, after the U.S. on a per-capita basis, with 54.8 guns per 100 people, according to the Small Arms Survey 2007 by the Geneva-based Graduate Institute of International Studies. Tunisia, where protesters ousted their president in January and triggered the season of uprisings, placed last in the study.

‘Factions in Uniform’

The challenges also stretch beyond security. The country faces water shortages, declining oil output and a society where more than half the 23 million people are under 20 years old. About 40 percent of Yemen’s population, forecast to almost double by 2030, lives on less than $2 a day.

Yemen also lacks a unified military that could oversee a transition. Ali Mohsen al-Ahmar, the commander of the First Armored Division, has joined the opposition and his troops clashed with government supporters in Sana’a this week.

“We don’t have a military, we have tribal factions in uniform,” Abdul Ghani Aryani, an independent political analyst, said from Sana’a. “They cannot be a safeguard for social order and stability. They are only a source of threat.”

Cairo Protesters Converge in Message Aimed at Defiant Mubarak

By Mariam Fam, Vivian Salama and Ahmed A Namatalla

Bloomberg (Click here for original story)

CAIRO – Egyptians converged on the presidential palace and Tahrir Square in Cairo vowing to topple President Hosni Mubarak after he yesterday defied calls for his resignation for the second time this month.

Military helicopters flew over the palace before dusk, in the suburb of Heliopolis, after state television said the presidency would issue an urgent message “soon.” Earlier, the army beefed up its deployment downtown as tens of thousands of demonstrators poured out of Friday prayers and into the square downtown, swelling the ranks of those who camped there overnight. State television said Mubarak had left the capital.

Photo by Vivian Salama

With the army today reiterating its support for Mubarak, attention is shifting to how far it will go as the protests gather momentum. The violence has already claimed more than 300 lives, Human Rights Watch says, and has sparked concern that further unrest will grip a region that holds more than 50 percent of the world’s known oil reserves. The protests were inspired by the revolt that ousted Tunisian President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali on Jan. 14.

“The nightmare of a coup is very bad for everybody, for the young people, for the economy, and that’s the scenario we would like to avoid,” Finance Minister Samir Radwan said on BBC Radio 4’s “Today” program. “The military is highly disciplined, they have taken a decision not to fire at the young people, but of course this stalemate cannot continue forever.”

Emergency Law

A group of demonstrators gathered near the presidential palace and protests were also under way in the cities of Suez and Alexandria. Mubarak and his family left Cairo and arrived in the resort town of Sharm El-Sheikh, Al Arabiya television reported today.

The Supreme Military Council said today it will guarantee the implementation of the measures announced late yesterday in Mubarak’s televised speech, including constitutional changes and an eventual end to an emergency law that has marked his 30-year rule. In a sign the government may offer further concessions, the head of the ruling National Democratic Party, Hossam Badrawi, said today in an interview that an early presidential election may be possible.

Mubarak, 82, reiterated his intention to stay in office until the vote in September, while handing day-to-day powers to Vice President Omar Suleiman in a bid to placate opponents. Protesters erupted in a roar of disapproval as they listened to Mubarak’s evening address in Tahrir Square.

“In Cairo alone today it will be millions,” demonstrator Abdel Rahman Sabry, a 24-year-old engineering student, said in an interview. “Yesterday’s speech has really angered people. We tell him to go, he tells us: ‘I won’t go, you love me.’ Either he is crazy or we are crazy.”

Photo by Vivian Salama

‘Not Worthy’

As Muslims gathered in a mosque near Tahrir Square, the imam leading today’s prayers told them over a loudspeaker, “You are bringing down a corrupt regime that is not worthy of ruling you.”

The Supreme Military Council gathered yesterday before Mubarak’s speech to “safeguard the interests” of the nation, sparking speculation that a military takeover was in progress. The panel is now in permanent session, the first since the October 1973 war with Israel.

Global stocks fell for a third day, U.S. index futures declined, and the dollar and oil rose, after Mubarak spoke. The cost of insuring Egyptian government debt soared 42 basis points to 379, the biggest increase in two weeks, according to CMA prices. Egypt’s 10-year bond yield jumped 29 basis points. The global depositary receipts of Commercial International Bank Egypt SAE, Egypt’s largest publicly traded lender, fell the most this month, dropping 7.2 percent to $5.65.

“We were all hoping that the statement by the president yesterday should calm things down, but obviously it hasn’t,” Radwan told the BBC. “That makes for a very difficult situation where things continue to deteriorate.”

Dubai Neighbor’s Family Feud Raises Allegations Over Iran Trade

Dubai Neighbor’s Family Feud Raises Allegations Over Iran Trade

June 17, 2010, 6:26 AM EDT

Click here for the web link.

Bloomberg/Business Week

By Vivian Salama and Camilla Hall

June 17 — An hour’s drive up the Persian Gulf coast from the glitzy hotels and skyscrapers of Dubai, a family feud is threatening to unsettle the United Arab Emirates.

The source of the spat is a power struggle between two sons of the ruler of Ras al-Khaimah, the last of seven states to join what is now the U.A.E. The elder, Sheikh Khalid bin Saqr al- Qassimi, who was stripped of the title of crown prince in 2003, alleges his younger half-brother and current heir, Sheikh Saud, helps foster trade with Iran.

“Any instability would be destabilizing for the whole of the U.A.E.,” said Christopher Davidson, a professor of Middle East studies at Durham University in the U.K. “Such instability would also open the door for further external interference, given its strategic location close to Iran.”

Ras al-Khaimah is 60 miles (97 kilometers) from Iran on the Strait of Hormuz, an artery for a fifth of the world’s oil supply. The U.A.E. is a key American ally in the Gulf and Sheikh Khalid’s allegations, rejected by Sheikh Saud, come as the U.S. and United Nations implement additional sanctions against Iran, broadening an arms embargo and toughening trade limits.

The U.S. and its allies suspect Iran’s nuclear program is aimed at building a bomb. Iran says it nuclear installations are for peaceful purposes.

Emirates’ Image

Ships from Dubai leave for Iran laden with consumer goods every day. Iran accounted for 7.5 percent of U.A.E. exports in 2008, according to the CIA World Factbook. Trade between the two countries exceeded $12 billion in the 12 months to March 20, 2008, the Iranian state-run Fars News Agency reported.

“The U.A.E. will be extremely keen not to create an image that they are trying to get around the trade sanctions,” said Amr Hamzawy, research director and senior associate of the Carnegie Middle East Center in Beirut.

The ruler of Ras al-Khaimah, Sheikh Saqr bin Mohammed al- Qassimi, 92, is ailing in a hospital in Abu Dhabi, the U.A.E. capital, escalating concerns over the future of his territory. He deposed Sheikh Khalid, 66, in June 2003 and replaced him with Sheikh Saud, 54.

The Guardian newspaper reported last week that Sheikh Khalid was preparing a political coup against his brother. Khater Massaad, an adviser to Sheikh Saud and head of the Ras al-Khaimah Investment Authority, said Sheikh Khalid poses no threat to the leadership.

Sheikh Khalid bin Saqr al Qassimi

 

“There was never and will never be any coup in Ras al- Khaimah,” he said in an interview in the emirate on June 9. Sheikh Saud was appointed by his father, with support from U.A.E. founding patriarch Sheikh Zayed, Massaad said.

Trade Zone

Similar to Dubai, Ras al-Khaimah invested to compensate for its lack of oil and gas wealth, including opening the Saqr Port Authority and the RAK Free Trade Zone, which offers companies a 100 percent tax exemption. The sheikhdom is home to one of the world’s largest ceramics companies, RAK Ceramics, which exports to more than 150 countries, according to its website.

Since being removed seven years ago, Sheikh Khalid has sought backing in Washington, telling U.S. lawmakers that Ras al-Khaimah is being used to sidestep U.S. and UN sanctions against Iran, an allegation Massaad says is “nonsense.”

U.S. State Department spokesman Philip Crowley said the U.S. was “very satisfied with our close and ongoing counterterrorism cooperation with the UAE.”

Sheikh Saud bin Saqr al Qassimi

 

U.A.E. exports to the U.S. rose by 53 percent between 2000 and 2009, to $1.49 billion, according to government statistics. Last year, the two countries signed a bilateral agreement for peaceful nuclear cooperation.

Shared Concerns

“Sheikh Khalid does not believe you can put a price on the shared security concerns of the U.S. and U.A.E. when it comes to issues like terrorism and Iran,” Jason Kinney, a spokesman for Sheikh Khalid, said by e-mail on June 15.

The federal U.A.E. government has let the succession dispute in Ras al-Khaimah harm the U.A.E.’s reputation and raise questions about its overall stability, said Abdelkhaleq Abdulla, professor of political science at Emirates University in Al Ain. The government in Abu Dhabi wasn’t available for comment.

“The U.A.E. is now paying the price because the leadership was reluctant to jump in sooner,” to settle differences between the would-be rulers, Abdulla said.

–With reporting by Nicole Gaouette and Lorraine Woellert in Washington. Editors: Rodney Jefferson, Peter Hirschberg

To contact the reporter on this story:

Vivian Salama in Abu Dhabi at vsalama@bloomberg.net;

Camilla Hall in Dubai at chall24@bloomberg.net

Lahore attacks: Search for suspects continues

Pakistan is coming under attack for failing to arrest the suspects responsible for yesterday’s deadly attacks on the convoy carrying Sri Lanka’s national cricket team to the Gadaffi Stadium in Lahore.  Pakistan’s former Interior Minister and member of President Asif Zardari’s Pakistan People’s Party told the New York Times “This happened in the heart of Lahore, the cultural capital of the country. None of the attackers were shot or caught, and they were coming to the scene with big bags. That’s absurd.” Meanwhile, the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz, headed by Nawaz Sharif, has accused the government of putting politics before security.  The following are a few reports I did today:

TV-New Zealand Report

http://tvnz.co.nz/world-news/pakistans-war-militants-under-scrutiny-2517316/video 

photo by Vivian Salama

Vivian Salama, The National

LAHORE // By morning rush hour yesterday, the scene of Tuesday’s commando-style attacks on the Sri Lankan national cricket team had been transformed into a mass shrine.

“Long live the traffic warden!” the crowd chanted between recited prayers, many laying flowers only a few metres from where he was fatally shot.

The victims, identified by Pakistani authorities as elite force officers Tipu Sultan, Mudassar Kumboh, Faisal Butt, Sultan Farid and “Mahmoud”, as well Iqbal and one of the team’s drivers, Zafar Khan, were killed when 12 heavily armed gunmen ambushed a convoy carrying Sri Lankan players and coaches to Lahore’s Qadafi Stadium. None of the cricketers suffered serious injury.

(click here to read more….)

Sri Lankan Cricket team attacked in Lahore

I woke up to the news today that there was a commando-style attack in Liberty Chawk just around the corner from Gadaffi stadium.  The target was the convoy carrying Sri Lanka’s national cricket team to the stadium. The Samaa and CNBC studios are located right there in the square so they managed to get a bit of footage.  The images were eerily similar to the little footage released from the seige on Mumbai last November and Pakistani officials are already saying that there may be links between the two. India blamed the Mumbai attacks on Lashkar-e-Taiba, a banned Pakistani extremist organization and so there will inevitably be some repercussions in the days to come. Meanwhile, Lahore is on lockdown as police scramble to find the dozen or so suspects responsible for killing 6 policemen and one of the convoy’s drivers. 

Here are a few reports I did throughout the day:

Mortal Blow to a Nation’s Passion

Vivian Salama, The National

March 4, 2009

LAHORE // By midday, the Abdul Qadir International Cricket Academy is usually bustling with young boys sprinting around the field, demonstrating their sportsmanship and mimicking the game’s stars.

Yesterday, there was not a player in sight.

Fields across the city of Lahore remained deserted following an assault on the Sri Lankan national cricket team that left six police officers and one civilian dead and several players wounded. Boys who would normally stay out late into the evening playing with their friends opted to stay home, many of them devastated by news of the attacks. 

“[This] incident will definitely be damaging to the game of cricket,” said Abdul Qadir, a former captain of the Pakistani national cricket team, and owner of the Abdul Qadir International Cricket Academy, located a few steps from the Gadaffi Stadium, scene of yesterday’s attack.  (click here to read more….)

TELEVISION:

CBC (Canada)

http://www.cbc.ca/clips/mov/salama-lahore090303.mov 

France24 – the Debate

PART I - http://www.france24 .com/en/20090304 -the-debate- who-s-targeting- pakistan- 1

PART 2 - http://www.france24 .com/en/20090304 -the-debate- who-s-targeting- pakistan- 2