Yemeni Forces Close In on Anti-US Cleric

[hightime]

SANAA, 29 June 2004 — Yemeni security officials said yesterday the country’s military forces were closing in on an anti-US cleric and scores of his armed followers in a remote mountainous area in the north of the country.

“Security forces in collaboration with armed forces today cornered cleric Hussein Badruddin Al-Houthi and his followers,” in Saada province, about 250 kilometers north of Sanaa, said a security source quoted by the state-run Saba news agency. According to the source, some Al-Houthi followers were arrested, while others surrendered to authorities voluntarily.

Mediation between the cleric and government forces reached a deadlock Sunday after authorities said the besieged religious leader refused to surrender. Authorities blame Al-Houthi for protests against the United States and Israel in mosques of Saada and the capital Sanaa.

The central government deployed hundreds of troops last week in Marran and launched a massive chase for Al-Houthi, a former MP and a leader of the Shiite sect.

http://www.arabnews.com/?page=4§ion=0&article=47520&d=29&m=6&y=2004

[ieoeja]

1. Thank you, President Carter

As the Yemeni once again repay us for helping their anti-communist leadership establish an independant South Yemen following a communist coup while allowing their pro-communist leadership to retain control of the North which was more important to the Yemeni, but of less strategic importance globally.

I know a guy who used to be in the Pentagon and who told me following the Gulf War that virtually everyone they talked to in the Arab world said they trusted us to do the right thing in that war because of how well they had been treated by Carter.