Thursday Papers

Faysal Mukrim of al-Hayat has an article covering the opening of the trial of the 16 al-Qaeda suspects. The article is fairly good, and it gives the names of all 16 and the kunyas of most, which is nice since it should allow someone – I’m not going to say who – to do a search through the back issues of Sada al-Malahim to see if they can identify more of the authors. I don’t have time to do it at the moment, but at some point I will go back to my list to cross-check names, always an enjoyable task.

Mukrim also mentions the fact that Hamza al-Qu’ayti managed to establish two camps in Hadramawt. I would be curious to see what other intelligence the Yemenis got out of the two they captured in Tarim back in 2008, and where those camps were located. Of course, in typical fashion, it seems as if Yemen is charging the 16 with nearly every attack they can think of, much in the style of throw everything against the wall and see what sticks. Not the strategy I would pursue, particularly if I was worried about what outside observers would think, but I understand why it is doing it that way.

There are a couple of small mistakes in the article, for instance al-Qu’ayti escaped in 2006 not in 2005, but at least Mukrim mentions the attack in Sayy’un, which was conspicuously absent from a Mareb Press report I read yesterday but now can’t find on-line.

Husayn al-Jarabani of al-Sharq al-Awsat covers the same story with much the same discussion.