Saturday Papers (or the South Shall Rise Again)

Al-Sharq al-Awsat leads the way with an article about AQAP’s statement. One thing that few people seem to be picking up on is the difference in names between AQAP’s statement and the Yemeni government’s one. The government claimed it was al-‘Ujayri and even published a letter/last will and testament that he addressed to his mother while the AQAP statement gives the bomber’s name as Abu ‘Abidah al-Jarah, quite obviously a kunya, but still a strange one for a boy supposedly from Taizz to take.

Al-Hayat has more coverage of al-‘Awfi’s confession – nice picture of him looking much different than he did in the January video for AQAP.

News Yemen reports on the fighting in Ja’ar and the injury count, which will almost surely rise. For those that don’t know Ja’ar supplied more than its fair share of men to the fighting in Iraq. The last time things really got bad was last summer, which eventually ended with the deal that the government cut in January to put a number of militants on the government payroll, but the – 0k, a – problem with this approach is that the only people it makes happy are those getting paid, and there are always more people not getting money who are more than happy to fight.

This is all why I strongly recommend this article from the National, particularly Abdulahi’s comments.

Finally, President Salih gave an interview to Faysal Mukrim of al-Hayat, I have not had a chance to read it yet, so no commentary, but feel free to opine in the comments.

Update: Mareb Press has more details of the fighting – and a bit of background of what the militants are accused of – and is reporting that four militants, including Muhammad ‘Atif are dead.