E-mail updates
Follow on Twitter
Subscribe to RSSThe crackdown in Yemen reached a high pitch on Monday. At least 56 people have been killed over the past two days, in what is described as the most violent pushback yet against pro-democracy demonstrators. NBC's Brian Williams reports.
SANAA, Yemen - At least 10 al-Qaida militants tunneled out of a jail in Yemen on Monday, the second such escape so far this year.
A prison officer said at least 10 convicts got out through an up to 130 feet-long tunnel, which took the inmates from under the western side of the Aden prison to near a gas station outside the prison walls, The Associated Press reported.
BBC News reported that 12 militants had escaped.
The discrepancy in the number of escaped prisoners could not be immediately reconciled. Officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the media.
Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh agrees to transfer power amidst a nine-month uprising that has shaken the poor country. Meanwhile three Americans remain detained in Egypt. NBC's Thomas Roberts talks to the mother of one of the arrested Americans.
Yemen, the Arab world's poorest nation, has been wrecked by months of political turmoil and unrest. A popular uprising against longtime President Ali Abdullah Saleh's rule — inspired by other Arab Spring revolts that toppled autocratic rulers in Egypt and Tunisia — has been met by a fierce government crackdown.
The crackdown triggered widespread defections earlier this year by soldiers and officers who joined the protest movement. Powerful tribes and their armed fighters also turned against Saleh and waged battles against his forces.
Yemen's President Ali Abdullah Saleh was injured after the presidential palace was hit by shells on Friday, Al Arabiya TV reported Friday. NBC's Richard Engel reports.
Yemen is also home to al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula, which the U.S. considers the terrorist network's most active and dangerous offshoot. Islamic militants with links to the group have taken advantage of the country's turmoil to seize control of several towns in southern Yemen.
After months of street protests demanding he step down, Yemen's President Ali Abdullah Saleh has signed an agreement transferring power to his vice president. NBC's Savannah Guthrie reports.
According to the United Nations, suspected al-Qaida fighters have displaced 45,000 people in southern Yemen.
Yemen has seen spectacular jailbreaks before.
In 2003, 11 al-Qaida militants convicted for the 2000 bombing of the USS Cole, which killed 17 American sailors and injured 39 others, escaped from the Aden prison.
In 2006, 23 al-Qaida militants broke out of a detention facility in Sanaa, including Nasser al-Wahishi, who went on to become the leader of al-Qaida's Yemeni offshoot.
And in June, nearly 60 suspected al-Qaida militants tunneled their way out of a prison in the southern Mukalla city.
Msnbc.com staff and The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Read more content from msnbc.com and NBC News:
- Last flight out: US vacates Pakistan base
- Russia's Medvedev orders election probe
- Brazil: 50 tons of corn stolen from moving train
- Ex-Panama strongman Noriega heads home to prison
- Tripoli airport closed after militias clash
- Brazil's 'Green City' a model for rest of Amazon
Leave a Comment:
Wouldn't surprise me if Yemen supplied the shovels.
Al Qaida in Yemen is like Jesse Jamesin the US. They are the criminals that everyone loves. These AQAP guys are being taken care of by the people in Yemen.
Now that Saleh is gone, Yemen, the poorest of the ME countries will certainly elect an Islamist government. While Saleh mistreated his people, he was a US ally in the fight against Al Qaida. This dilemma has played out and will pay out in the ME over and over.
I didn't know al qaida was in the Bike Building business . Perhaps they should be on the discovery channel to compete with OCC . I was thinking a goat themed Bike ...
Okay, first off, where do you put that much dirt while digging a 130 foot tunnel that someone doesn't notice it? Unless you fill up the basement nobody ever goes into, someone should have noticed a pileup of dirt that didn't belong there. Of course they had help! Somebody probably tunneled into the prison from the outside so they could haul off the excess dirt.
I'm asking the same question about the tunnels leading from Mexico to the US and visa versa? I am not talking about a couple of wheelbarrows full. It takes dump trucks to move all that dirt. You would think someone might be wondering why trucks even have dirt in them with construction being the way it is right now, but I guess that depends on where you are located in the United States. Wouldn't surprise me if you don't have to take dirt along with your drugs/guns as you leave.
Guards turn a blind-eye?? I would guess so. Let's say the tunnel was 3 ft by 3 ft and that it was 130 ft long. That would result in 1,170 cubic feet of dirt being piled up some where inside the prison!! Pretty hard to diguise or miss that!!!.
thats about 5 concrete trucks worth of material,,,
They manage to do it in the great escape. LOL
safe to say the tunneling was done from the outside so as to be able to haul off excess dirt, sounds like the need to build a better prison if they're going to house al-Qaida criminals and the sort.
And the prison officers didn't notice anyone digging a tunnel 130ft to the prison. Does no one do perimeter checks at this prison.
This is what happens when you play "the Shawshank Redemption " in an al quaida prison on movie night .
No actually.They need to screen for new guard positions.Secondly the guards that were working all shifts in that prison,should serve prison time for negligence of duty.
Prisons in Yemen must be constructed on sand, walled with sticks and have no guards.
These so-called al qaida terrorists were likely just local farmers picked up to make the thugs in Yemen look like they were really playing a role in this so-called "war on terrorism", while getting a handsome sum from the US treasury .... hogwash, when is Washington going to wake up and realize that if we play phoney wars then the rest of the world is going to play the same phoney game with us for our money.
Actually they weren't the actual prisoners. They were their sex slaves that were tired of being taken advantae of. Their spokesperson said, "Baa-baaaa-ba-ba-baaa."
Again?!
If I get jailed I want to get jailed in the Middle East, it must smell like freedom in those jails. That way I can escape with their supplies, get on the lamb and rejoin my unit.