http://www.jewishworldreview.com/1110/suspect_freed.php3
A case of bombs and identity theft?
By Jeffrey Fleishman
Yemen bomb suspect is released, lawyer says
JewishWorldReview.com |
SANA, Yemen - (MCT) Yemen authorities on Sunday released a 23-year-old
engineering student who had been arrested a day earlier for her alleged
connection to al-Qaida and the foiled plot to mail packages of concealed
explosives into the U.S., according to her lawyer.
The Yemen government did not issue a statement on why Hanan Samawi, who was
detained Saturday after her cell phone number was traced to shipping orders,
was freed. The student's release could be a political embarrassment for
President Ali Abdullah Saleh, who had announced her arrest in a high-profile
news conference apparently designed to show that his government was moving
aggressively against al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula.
Samawi's lawyer, Abdulraham Barman, said he was told by Samawi's father
Sunday evening that she was no longer in custody. Barman did not elaborate.
A Yemen official in Washington, who asked not to be named, said authorities
released Samawi on conditional bail and believed it was a case of stolen
identity. The official said "they brought in several people from the
shipping company where the package was dropped off. They had them look at
the woman and see if they could identify her. All of them said it was not
her."
The official added that the woman who did drop off the package "used a
passport and an ID that had the full name of Hanan Samawi, and her address
and phone number. ... We believe it was someone who knew Hanan Samawi or
somehow their paths crossed."
Hours before the young woman's release, her classmates at Sana University
College of Engineering protested against the treatment she received from
police in her neighborhood in north Sana, the Yemen capital. Students were
angry that police had surrounded her house and drove away with her and her
mother, a scene many Yemenis found culturally reprehensible. They protested
under the sign: "Is this how you treat women in Yemen?"
In a country woven with deception and conspiracy, the president's
involvement in the case suggested the increasing pressure Saleh faces inside
and outside of Yemen. Was he taking charge to keep Washington from pressing
him for increased U.S. military intervention, or was it a sign that after
years of keeping the Americans at bay he was signaling closer cooperation
with the Obama administration?
"I think it's an orchestration to draw more attention to Yemen," Barman, a
human-rights lawyer, said earlier in the day. "The U.S. wants to be more
active here and this plot is a fabrication to justify coming military
strikes against al-Qaida."
Others viewed the president's quick action as a pointed message to
Washington: "We'll deal with it to your liking, but just keep out of our
hair. The president has the support of the Yemeni people to handle our own
affairs," said Abdul-Ghani Iryani, a political analyst. "The military option
will not work in dealing with a small group of bandits. You need police
work, not bombs and missiles."
While pundits and columnists parsed the global politics of terrorism, Yemeni
investigators hunted for suspects and details in a plot that spanned several
countries. Security forces were trying to determine how two packages
containing explosives and bound for Jewish centers in Chicago slipped
through detectors at the Yemen airport and wound up on planes in Britain and
the United Arab Emirates.
Al-Qaida has not claimed responsibility for the plot, but intelligence
officials say it bears the earmarks of Ibrahim Hassan Asiri, the group's
chief bomb maker. The explosive in the packages was PETN, which was also
used in a suicide bombing carried out by Asiri's brother in 2009 in a failed
attempt to assassinate Prince Muhammad bin Nayef, the head of Saudi Arabia's
intelligence agency.
Few on the Sana University campus believed that Samawi, a liberal thinker
and the daughter of a water engineer, was connected to a terrorist network,
even though a copy of her identification card also appeared on shipping
papers. Her female classmates, most of whom wore veils covering their faces,
described Samawi as an apolitical conscientious computer engineering student
awaiting graduation in July.
"Hanan wouldn't do anything like this," said a student who gave only her
first name, Sumiya. "She's only interested in computer engineering. She's
one of our best students, a normal girl. She listens to Western music. She
likes Yanni."
There is growing frustration among Yemenis with Washington's influence and
their own government's inability, despite military attacks on al-Qaida, to
significantly weaken the group. Many feel the country is adrift in a costly
and dangerous battle against terrorism while not solving issues such as
poverty, corruption and a failing education system that have allowed
militants to gain a foothold.
News clips tend to stay the same. Soldiers and heavy artillery move into
mountainous regions, airstrikes rattle ravines and al-Qaida fighters slip
away, disappearing into tribal lands and safe houses. Increased cooperation
between the U.S. and Yemen has resulted in some military successes, but,
analysts say, a new generation of militants is waiting.
"Right now there's no indication whatsoever that al-Qaida is losing ground,"
Iryani said. "As tanks roll into an area, new buds of terrorists bloom.
We've been going about it completely wrong."
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