‘Went for a job, found a bloody war instead’ - By Sindhu J Mansukhani - The Free Press Journal - Mumbai, India

http://www.freepressjournal.in/went-for-a-job-found-a-bloody-war-instead/

‘Went for a job, found a bloody war instead’

— By Sindhu J Mansukhani | Apr 13, 2015 12:15 am 

Mumbai : Often there are times when luck just does not favour a person, and all things go wrong in every possible way. For 23-year-old S K Karim Mandal, luck seems to have left his side more than once – changing his life in one moment and throwing him in the middle of a bloody war in the next. Mandal, a resident of Kolkata in West Bengal was one of the many Indians who had gone to Yemen to try and make some money using the skills that he knew, but instead he found himself in the middle of gunfire, AK-47s, and a desperate attempt to return to safety.

FPJ spoke to the evacuee from Yemen who was in the first batch of people that came back to India from the strife-torn country. Excerpts:

How long back did you go to Yemen, and why?

I had gone to Yemen a little over a month ago, when an agent in Kolkata had arranged for my job there. I had got in touch with the agent through a friend who was also going to Saudi Arabia to work. The plan was to go and work for a newly established gear casting manufacturing company, and contribute for the household. My two elder brothers are married and live separately with their families, and so are my sisters. I am the youngest in the family and live in Kolkata with my parents. After getting in touch with the agent, I had paid Rs 41,000 for the Visa, air-travel and other such expenses for my transit to the other country. But the deal was I was cheated. I was never supposed to be in Yemen.

If not in Yemen, where else were you supposed to be then?

The deal with the agent was to send me to Oman for work and not Yemen. It was only after I reached Mumbai and saw my ticket that I realised that I am being sent to Yemen for work and not Oman. Since I had already paid for the ticket and the Visa, there was no option for me but to go ahead and work in Yemen itself. I had been there only for two weeks when the war started.

How did things change there when the war struck?

There was suddenly a curfew everywhere. I was living with eight other young men in a room provided to us within the premises of the factory itself. As soon as the war struck, the owner of the company fled and all work in the factory stopped. We were stuck inside the room, unable to go anywhere. Before the war started, we used to go out regularly, but later amidst the constant gunfire and battle we did not dare go out of the room or even open the door.

How did you manage to survive for so long without going out? How did you get food or fulfilled other daily needs?

The room was well-stocked with food to last several days. The fear was mostly due to being stuck in an unknown land with unknown people amidst so much violence. Our company’s owner used to visit us some times. But he used to say very odd things. When I told him I am scared, he told me that I feel so because I have always lived in peace in India. For them, such violence is common, that they are used to it and that it doesn’t scare them. How can one not be scared in such conditions?

He also gave me a gun, an AK-47, for protection. It was huge and meant for my protection. My boss even taught me how to use it. I used to carry it around when I used to go for namaaz at the mosque.

Were things that bad that even someone who was praying was not safe? Did you ever actually fire with the gun?

Oh no, they didn’t hurt me. Indians are well-liked and loved there. No one harms them. Nevertheless, the fighting was so reckless and intense that every time I went to read namaaz (which was the only time I used to get out of the room), every moment seemed like an apt one to use the gun.

How did you manage to contact the Indian authorities?

One day a few of us got out of the room and contacted the Indian Embassy in Sana’a. We told them that we need help and want to get out. Through the embassy we also came to know that there are more people like us who want to get out. The Embassy told us that we need to present our passport or its photocopy as proof of our nationality to get out, so we requested our boss to return our passports so that we can go home. We kept in touch with the Embassy through phone and were informed that a ship will be leaving from the Aden harbour on the evening of March 31. We promptly left for the harbour and embarked on INS Sumitra. A little over 12 hours after that we reached Djibouti in Africa. We stayed there for a while and flew back to India.

How was the atmosphere on the ship and in the aircraft? How did the other evacuees behave?

Everyone was very quiet and sombre. They did not talk much. Sure they were happy about being safe. But as we sat on the deck of INS Sumitra while sailing to Djibouti and later boarded the aircraft, no one talked much throughout the long trip. We were just thankful that our own people had finally come to rescue us from that unknown land.

And how was your homecoming in Kolkata?

My parents are very old. When my family came to know of my state, everyone had become tense. As their tension changed into relief they just took comfort in the fact that I was back and safe.

What are you planning to do now? You will have to plan something all over again to start earning money.

Yes. I have heard there’s a company in gear casting manufacturing company in Sewree, Mumbai. I have been told by some friends that there might be a job available there. If that doesn’t work out, I am trying to save up money again and maybe work in Riyadh. Manufacturing gear casting is all that I know.

Sindhu J Mansukhani

Hijacking the Arab revolution - By AIJAZ ZAKA SYED | ARAB NEWS

http://arabnews.com/opinion/columns/article338090.ece

 

 

By AIJAZ ZAKA SYED | ARAB NEWS

Hijacking the Arab revolution

SO it has come down to this. After Afghanistan, Iraq and Pakistan, Libya now finds itself in the line of fire of the Coalition of the Willing.

Of course, unlike Afghanistan and Iraq, the West is not fighting “Islamist terrorism” in Libya or is on the quest of the holy grail called Weapons of Mass Destruction. The mission now is to “save lives” and take out the monster that just refuses to fade away like the other friendly, neighborhood dictators in Tunisia and Egypt.

He must hang on in there like a bad dream, an evil spell over Libya. Those who thought Muammar Qaddafi would soon follow his fellow travelers into the sunset were clearly mistaken. The demented author of the Green Book seems to sincerely believe he’s God’s gift not just to the people of Libya but to the whole of humankind. But then Col. Qaddafi, distinctly delusional that he is, isn’t the only one to live in this make-believe world.

There are many out there who have persuaded themselves their leadership is crucial to the survival of their people and their departure would bring on the end of the world. Such is the power of delusions of grandeur. You tend to believe you are at the center of universe.

Those larger than life statues, from Baghdad to Benghazi, are not the celebration of a monstrous ego but the manifestation of a perennial insecurity of the powerful. They have to constantly reassure themselves about their own power.

Some of the biggest and most obscene tributes to human vanity are found in Muslim lands. Islam came to banish all man-made idols and we have replaced them with men who view themselves as divine. They worship themselves and expect their people to do so. Qaddafi is not the only one to believe in his immortality and his right to rule Libya forever. He must kill his people, if need be as he has been doing all these years, to govern them.

There are others out there who have convinced themselves that if they deprive their people of their noble leadership, they will all perish and go to hell. Après moi le déluge, After me the deluge!

After four decades of absolute power, Ali Abdullah Saleh of Yemen believes his people are not still “ready” to govern themselves or determine what’s good or bad for them. ‘I am prepared to step down,’ he reasons, ‘provided people of Yemen prove they have a capable leadership to take over from me.’ Touche!

Bashar Assad of Syria, who and his father between themselves have ruled Syria for nearly half a century, doesn’t fit the description of a tyrant. He insists he and his people are “on the same page.” There’s no problem whatsoever.

What about those angry demonstrations? And why are the Syrian troops firing on peaceful protesters?

Of course, it’s the doing of “conspirators and outsiders,” you know. There’s no trouble in the Baathist paradise of Syria. In fact, a Syrian government spokesperson told CNN’s Hala Gorani with a straight face, President Assad himself has wanted to introduce “reforms” since he took over from his father 11 years ago. Then why hasn’t he? What are we waiting for? End times or another crusader coalition?

Truth be told, whether it is Libya or Syria or numerous other Arab republics, they have all suppressed, abused and persecuted their people for decades — or the lifetime of a tyrant. In addition to perpetual abuse of power and all-pervasive corruption, they all have one thing in common. They’ve all repressed popular democratic movements that turn to Islam for guidance and inspiration, rather than dance to the tunes of London and Washington. And they have all done this with the blessings of Western champions of democracy and freedom.

In Egypt, both Hasan Al Banna, the legendary founder of the Muslim Brotherhood, and his successor Sayyid Qutb were assassinated by the powers that be, not to mention the thousands of its activists who were incarcerated and tortured for years for believing in a better world. From Gamal Nasser to Anwar Sadat to Hosni Mubarak, the most admired grass-roots movement in the Arab world has remained banned and suppressed for half a century.

This is the same story all across the Arab world. From Egypt and Yemen to Syria and from Algeria and Tunisia to Libya, the Islamists have been hunted like animals for decades. In 1982, Syrian forces massacred thousands in the city of Hama in a crackdown on Ikhwan. The memories of Hama massacre are still fresh.

And who could forget how Algeria’s veteran revolutionaries dealt with the Islamic Salvation Front when it swept the first ever multi-party democratic elections in 1991-‘92? The regime not just annulled the historic vote and the verdict it threw up, it unleashed a reign of terror against the Islamists for daring to take the democratic path to change. Nearly 300,000 lives perished in the subsequent civil war whose wounds are yet to heal.

History repeated itself when Hamas wrested power from the corrupt and clueless elites of Fatah in 2006. The Palestinians are still paying the price for this cardinal sin, locked away as they are in the largest prison on the planet.

All this of course wouldn’t have been possible without the active support and cooperation of our Western masters. Even as they have endlessly sung hosannas to the deity of democracy, they have aided and abetted their ever obliging allies to crush and destroy those foolish enough to believe in their rhetoric. Indeed, if the Middle East is still stuck with tyranny in 21st century and men in khaki rule forever, you know who to thank for.

So it’s rather touching to see Uncle Sam and his cohorts come around cheering on the juggernaut of change that is on the march in the Middle East. The folks who are still working with a racist and terrorist regime to wipe out an entire nation in its own land have no shame in pontificating about a people’s right to choose their destiny.

Those who have protected and pampered the Mubaraks and Ben Alis all these years see no irony in coming forward to claim credit for the tide that has turned the Arab world around. Talk of hunting with hares and running with hounds! Some Western pundits even have the cheek to thank the “Cowboy Crusader,” who gave us Afghanistan and Iraq and sent more than a million people to their death, for the Arab revolt.

Is there no limit to Western hypocrisy and duplicity? Why do they think they can fool all the people all the time? Don’t they see the writing on the wall? The tide has turned in the Middle East and Western powers will ignore it at their own peril. For those who have the courage to throw out their corrupt despots are capable of confronting their masters too.

A whopping majority in the Muslim world has no sympathy for Qaddafi whatsoever. They are waiting for his imminent fall and will celebrate his exit — and of others like him — just as they rejoiced over the departure of Ben Ali and Mubarak. But they aren’t going to welcome Janus-faced friends of their tormentors either. So expect no roses in Tripoli Mr. Obama and Mr. Sarkozy and Mr. Cameron!

— Aijaz Zaka Syed is a widely published columnist based in the Gulf. Write to him at aijaz.syed@hotmail.com

 -------------

Comments posted on Brookings website over Bruce Riedel’s article: Al Qaida’s Yemen Connection, America and the Global Islamic Jihad

http://www.brookings.edu/opinions/2009/1230_terrorism_yemen_riedel.aspx?comments=1

Comments posted on Brookings website over Bruce Riedel’s article: Al Qaida’s Yemen Connection, America and the Global Islamic Jihad

Jan 4, 201011:10 AM

The way 'failed states' are popping up, one recalls Powell's comments, you broke it, you own it. US will have to be alert to moves by vested interests to drag it into ever widening quagmire of failed states, in the name of its own 'security' and the ghosts of demons around the world, ever ready to attack the US and its pet 'Ally'. The Muttalab incident should point to a virtual civil war raging within the circle of US agencies confronting each other with differing or even divergent views on America's security. The more strong the US is portrayed, the more it is becoming prone to face challenges testing its reach and tenacity. Obama must go for a drastic change. He may decide to move the goal post.

—Ghulam Muhammed

http://www.brookings.edu/opinions/2009/1230_terrorism_yemen_riedel.aspx

Al Qaeda’s Yemen Connection, America and the Global Islamic Jihad

Terrorism, Middle East, Islamic World

Bruce Riedel, Senior Fellow, Foreign Policy, Saban Center for Middle East Policy

The Brookings Institution

DECEMBER 30, 2009 —

The attempt to destroy Northwest Airlines flight 253 en route from Amsterdam to Detroit on Christmas Day underscores the growing ambition of al Qaeda's Yemen franchise, which has grown from a largely Yemeni agenda to become a player in the global Islamic jihad in the last year. Since merging with the al Qaeda franchise in Saudi Arabia last January and renaming itself Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), it has stepped up operations in Yemen itself, struck into Saudi Arabia, and now operates on the global stage. The weak Yemeni government of President Ali Abdallah Salih, which has never fully controlled the country and now faces a host of growing problems, will need significant American support to defeat AQAP.

·                               

ALSO IN THIS SERIES

alt="Save to My Portfolio" title="Save to My Portfolio" v:shapes="_x0000_i1027">Assessing the Obama Administration: Lead With Confidence

Darrell M. West, January 04, 2010

The Scouting Report Web Chat: Congressional Year in Review

Thomas E. Mann, December 30, 2009

More on “Negative Costs” of Reducing Greenhouse Gases

Ted Gayer, December 30, 2009

View All »

Protesters shout slogans as they march on a street in the southern Yemeni town of Radfan.

 alt="Protesters shout slogans as they march on a street in the southern Yemeni town of Radfan." v:shapes="_x0000_i1030">
View Larger

Reuters/STR New

Al Qaeda has long been active in Yemen, the original homeland of Osama bin Laden's family, and one of its first major terror attacks was conducted in Aden in 2000, when an al Qaeda cell nearly sank the USS Cole. A year ago, the al Qaeda franchises in Saudi Arabia and Yemen merged after the Saudi branch had been effectively repressed by the Saudi authorities under the leadership of Deputy Interior Minister Prince Muhammad bin Nayif. The new AQAP showed its claws last August, when it almost assassinated the prince with a suicide bomber who had passed through at least two airports on the way to his attempt on Nayif. 

The same bombmakers who produced that device probably also manufactured the bomb that Omar al Farooq Abdulmutallab used on Flight 253. In claiming credit for the Detroit attack, AQAP highlighted how they had built a bomb that "all the advanced, new machines and technologies and the security boundaries of the world's airports" had failed to detect. They praised their "mujahedin brothers in the manufacturing sector" for building such a "highly advanced device," and promised that more such attacks will follow. 

Yemen has sought to repress al Qaeda off and on for the last decade, with little success. The Saleh government has other more immediate problems on its plate, in particular a rebellion among Shia Zaydi tribes known as Houthis in the north that has escalated in the last two months with attacks by the rebels into Saudi territory. The southern part of the country, which only merged with the north in 1990 and fought a bitter civil war in 1994 when it tried to break away, is hostile to the Saleh government and is looking for a chance to split off again. The economy is weak and heavily dependent on dwindling oil reserves, and the majority of the 23 million Yemenis are illiterate and poor. 

The Obama administration has offered Saleh additional military assistance, and has encouraged the government to strike hard at al Qaeda hideouts in the last few weeks. The attacks have killed some AQAP leaders, but it is unclear exactly how serious a blow these attacks have inflicted on the group as a whole. AQAP has vowed revenge for the strikes, which it blames on an alliance between America, Saudi Arabia, Egypt and the Saleh government. 

AQAP has also provided refuge for the Yemeni-American cleric Shaykh Anwar al-Awlaki. Al-Awlaki was in contact with U.S. Army Major Nidal Hassan, who killed 13 soldiers at Fort Hood in Texas on November 5, 2009. In an interview with Al Jazeera released on December 23, Awlaki said he had encouraged Nidal to kill his fellow soldiers because they were preparing to go to Afghanistan and were part of the Zionist-Crusader alliance that al Qaeda says it is fighting. The next day, December 24, Awlaki was reported to be among those killed in a Yemeni-American strike on the AQAP leadership, but that is still unconfirmed. In claiming credit for the Christmas Day airline attack, AQAP also lauded the Fort Hood massacre and urged other American Muslims to emulate Nidal Hassan. 

Al Qaeda has always found weak and failing states like Yemen to be its best staging bases and sanctuaries. Along with Pakistan, Afghanistan and Somalia, Yemen offers an ideal location to operate with little outside interference. The president has been right to focus additional resources on combating AQAP, but the battle has just begun. If the Yemeni state becomes further destabilized, bin Laden’s cadre in the Arabian Peninsula will have more room to operate. 

The attack on the Amsterdam-Detroit flight also shows that al Qaeda remains obsessed with striking the American airline industry, a target it has gone after repeatedly since 1999. If AQAP has now been told by the al Qaeda core leadership to take on the job, we can probably assume that other al Qaeda franchises in North Africa, Iraq, Southeast Asia and elsewhere have also been pressed to attack.