Civil Disobedience and Sabotage

A lot is going on around town and not all of it is happening at the demonstration area in Change Square.

Sit-inners are getting more and more frustrated and have been marching by the tens of thousands through town calling for more people to join them as well as continuing their demands of complete removal of the President, his sons and cronies rejecting all dialogue and mediation as a useless until their demands are met.

The protesters are often being met with lethal force, and  are fighting back with rock throwing and many are armed with traditional daggers, which are not merely for decoration.

Acts of civil disobedience have been various, ranging from simple grafitti to spreading sit-ins to other areas of the capital, but the more dangerous actions have been coming from the big players, actions such as skirmishes between the two armies (government loyalist forces and the forces of General Ali Muhsin). One of these exchanges was reported to have happened at the Amran Road check point. (Road to Amran from Sana'a to the north). It has been reported that artillery was used by both sides as the Ali Muhsin army attempted to gain control of the area.

The call by protesters to partake in civil disobedience has opened the door for the government to sabotage vital services and then blame it on protesters, such as the cutting of power lines in Marib. These power lines provide a large portion of the energy needs of the capital Sana'a.

Government forces are also restricting gaz trucks into the Capital, causing mass cooking gas shortages and inflated prices as bottles are now exceeding 3000 riyals.

An interesting story has come out of Abyan about who was responsible for the ammunition factory explosion with resulted in the deaths of 150 people. A previously unknow Jihadi group in Jaar (the town housing the ammunition factory) has come forward claiming responsibility and saying that their group is not al-Qaeda but share the same vision as al-Qaeda and the Taliban, and also say their people wear the same clothes as Afghani people. I found this quite strange that this group has now emerged, I cannot hold the reports of this group with any credibility and will hazard a guess that this is a fabricated group made up by the Government to cover their possible involvement or implicity in the explosion.

Some interesting claims have been made that students from al-Eman University have been trained by the Ali Muhsin army and instructed to attack the Sana'a International Airport as well as government media. I am unable to confirm if such a plan was underway, but this is not the first time that students of al-Eman University have been accused of receiving military training from the army base that borders the university.

Meanwhile the value of the riyal is falling which is a problem for a country that imports almost all its food. This has been a long term prblem in Yemen and we could blame qat growing for that - agricultural sabotage and a government that seemed to encourage qat chewing perhaps as a means to pacify the population all these years.