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Exactly What I said
  Written By:  Hakim Almasmari ( Editor-in-Chief)*
  Article Date: September 22, 2008 

 

  

Last month in my editorial, I stressed that President Saleh was desperately trying to end all his problems with the different sides. He started with the Sa’ada peace treaty, which everyone believes the country lost a lot in the negotiations. Then he released nearly all opposition political prisoners from prison, even the ones who were sentenced to prison by court.

Al-Qaeda on the other hand wanted a piece of Saleh Ramadan giveaway by demanding authorities to release its members from prison, or risk great attacks that could devastate the country. The president did not take their threat seriously, which resulted in over 5 Al-Qaeda attacks over the last 3 months inside Yemen, the last being the unexpected U.S. Embassy attack that killed 17 and injured over a dozen.

I agree with President Saleh for not negotiating with Al-Qaeda, but on the other hand if you are not going to sit on the negotiation table, than you better start saving your people from their attacks, instead of waiting for the attacks to happen.

Seventeen people died because the government was not able to give them safety. For those who say that terrorism is not easy to fight and casualties are bound to happen, I agree with them as well, but I want them to know that Yemen is the only non war zone  country in the world which has witnessed 5 different Al-Qaeda attacks in less than three months, which only means that Al-Qaeda knows that the government has no strategy to stop them, therefore, making innocent locals and visiting foreigners vulnerable of being attacked.

* Editor-in-Cheif could be reached at:  editor@yemenpost.net