By Ahmad Shihadah
Impunity Watch Reporter, Middle East

SA’NA, Yemen – The British ambassador in Yemen survived an attack Monday morning by a lone suicide bomber who detonated his explosive belt as the ambassador’s convoy was passing, witnesses said.

he ambassador, Timothy Torlot, was unhurt, said Chantel Mortimer, a spokeswoman for the British Embassy. There did not appear to be anyone injured aside from the bomber himself, according to witnesses at the scene in Sana, the Yemeni capital.

Reuters reported that three people, including two policemen escorting the ambassador’s motorcade, were injured. The neighborhood where the attack occurred is packed with tea shops and markets.

“There was a small explosion beside the British ambassador’s car. He was unhurt. No other embassy staff or British nationals were injured,” said a spokesman for the British Foreign Office. “The embassy will remain closed to the public for the time being.”

No one had claimed credit for the attack by late Monday, but senior Yemeni officials said it bore the hallmarks of Al-Qaeda. The terrorist network’s regional branch, which has its base in Yemen, has claimed credit for numerous assaults on foreign embassies in Sana, including an ambitious suicide car bomb attack on the well-fortified American Embassy in September 2008 that left 16 people dead, including 6 attackers. Recent attacks have mostly been in outer provinces, but earlier this year, the group threatened to carry out a major attack in the capital.

American intelligence officials regard Yemen’s Al Qaeda branch, made up mainly of Yemenis and Saudis, as a major threat to U.S. regional interests. Washington has been skeptical of Saleh’s government, which for years appeared to tolerate militants as long as they carried out attacks in other countries. Sana’s sentiments appeared to shift in late 2009, however, when the terrorist group became a threat to Saleh, who also was contending with a civil war in the north and a secessionist movement in the south.

The British Foreign Office website states: “We believe that terrorists continue to plan attacks. Attacks could be indiscriminate, including against Western and British interests, such as residential compounds, military and oil facilities, and transport and aviation interests.”

For more information, please see:

BBC News – Al-Qaeda Blamed For Yemen Bomb Attack On UK Envoy – 26 April 2010

VOA – UK Envoy To Yemen Escapes Suicide Bomb Attack – 26 April 2010

The New York Times – Suicide Attack In Yemen Misses British Envoy – 26 April 2010

Los Angeles Times – Suicide Bomber Attacks British Ambassador’s Motorcade In Yemen – 26 April 2010

By Meredith Lee-Clark
Impunity Watch Reporter, Middle East

BEIT UMMAR, West Bank – In Beit Ummar, a Palestinian child was allegedly captured by Israeli soldiers on April 16. The child, fifteen-year-old Sabri Awad, was seized by the soldiers at the entrance to Beit Ummar after they suspected he was involved in stone-throwing. Awad told Al-Jazeera that the soldiers questioned him about the stone-throwing, which he denied, then the soldiers reportedly beat him for two hours. During the beatings, he was forced to drink fetid water, which Awad believed was sewage. Awad said that he vomited, after which the soldiers continued to beat him. Awad alleges the soldiers then threw him out of the Army jeep and sped away.

Media reports estimate that Israel is currently holding approximately three hundred Palestinian youth in custody, and that up to seven hundred Palestinian children and adolescents were detained by Israelis in 2009. Experts say that the full effects of such detentions are not fully known. Over 760,000 Palestinians have been imprisoned since 1967, which many experts say is one of the main sources of a trans-generational trauma that is pervasive throughout the Palestinian population, and one that will necessarily remain as long as there is occupation. Palestinian children who had at one time been in Israeli custody account for twenty percent of patients in the only torture victim center in the Palestinian territories. Even if the youth had not been tortured while in prison, mental health experts say that these young people tend to suffer more severe post-traumatic stress than adults who had been imprisoned.

In the same village where Sabri Awad was allegedly beaten, Israeli settlers from the Gush Etzion settlement opened their sewage pipe on April 21, flooding a Palestinian vineyard and destroying 70,000 square meters of prime agricultural land. Land experts who had surveyed the damage later said that both the land and the crops were effectively destroyed.

The Israeli Civil Administration later confirmed the incident, and said that compensation for the incident would have to be sought in court. A spokesman for the agency said that the sewage pump in the settlement had stopped working due to a power outage and that the resulting flood was a mistake.

The Israeli military has imposed a tight blockade on Beit Ummar and the surrounding areas since last week.

For more information, please see:

International Middle East Media Center – 58 Detained, One Wounded and 70 Dunams Drowned in Sewage – 23 April 2010

Ma’an News Agency – Vineyard Flooded with Settlement Sewage – 23 April 2010

Al-Jazeerah.info – Palestinian Child Reveals Abuse, Beating, and Drinking Sewage Water by Israeli Occupation Soldiers – 22 April 2010

Press TV – Palestinian Kid Forced to Drink Sewage – 22 April 2010

Al-Jazeera – Young Palestinians in Israeli Jails – 17 April 2010

Impunity Watch Reporter, Middle East.

BAGHDAD, Iraq – On April 19 it was revealed that an Iraqi security force that was direclty under the command of current Iraqi Prime Miniters Nuri al-Maliki held hundreds of detained from northern Iraq. The detainees were kpet in an undisclosed prison in Baghdad. It is alleged that dozens of the detainees were tortured. Iraqi and American officials have said that the torture ended after Iraq’s human rights minister and the United States intervened late in March.

According to Iraqi officials, Prime Minster Maliki order that the prison be closed, but said that he had already been aware that the prison existed. The move to close the prison brought about the release of over seventy detainees and the transfer of many others to other prisons. However, over two hundred detainees remain on the grounds of the Old Muthanna military airfield. All of the detainees are alleged to be Sunnis.

The minister of human rights, Widjan Salim, praised the Iraqi Prime Minister’s efforts in moving to close to prison. Ms. Salim commented that “he’s doing the best he can. The problem we have is not the prime minister, it’s with the judicial system.”

Iraqi officials have announced that they are investigating claims that the detainees at the secret jail were tortured by electric shocks and suffocated with plastic bags. Officials will also investigate claims that the prisoners were beaten by prison guards. Kamil Amin, the Deputy Human Rights Minister of Iraq, announced that three army officers have been arrested for their connection to the case.  The men detained were reportedly detained by the Iraqi army in October in sweeps targeting anti-government militias in Nineveh.

Al Jazeera obtained interviews with two men who claim to be tortured at the secret prison at the Muthanna air base. One individul claimed that “our hands were tied and eyes covered so we couldn’t see the torturers.” He explained that torture was dictated by the information provided by informants. The former detainee showed cigarette burns on his body and insisted that “we were all innocent.”

For more information, please see:

Al Jazeera – Iraqis Allege ‘Secret Jail’ Abuse –  22 April 2010

Morning Star Online – Investigation into Iraq Brutality Launched – 22 April 2010

New York Times – Secret Baghdad Jail Held Sunnis From the North – 21 April 2010