How Did All Hell Break Loose At The Presidential Palace Last Week?

By Hassan Al-Haifi
Posted 110 June 2011
About half an hour after this observer came home from the Friday prayers on Friday, at around 1345 Hrs on the 3rd of June 2011, my daughter called to advise that there is heavy fighting in their area. She noted that there were rockets that were "as big as planes" flying over their heads, and that she has never seen ordnances of that size before. My daughter lives on the hills overlooking Hadda Street, overlooking the Al-Rahman Mosque. Those mountains overlooking Hadda are said to be storehouses and launch sites of large scale rockets, presumably belonging to the Republican Guards. At that moment, I concentrated on the effort to calm my daughter down and direct her and all those in her house to head for the Basement of the house, especially my three granddaughters and her faithful mother in law, who is one of the most God fearing individuals I have ever known, may God preserve her. Just then, the news immediately spread that the Presidential Palace has been hit and it was prematurely announced that President Ali Abdulla Saleh was dead. I lived on the other side of town in the Village of Rawdha about 12 km North of Sana'a, whereas the Presidential Palace compound and the Hadda area is on the other side of Sana'a due south.
It is important here to note a few points:
1) The time of the rocket launches was nearly 2:00 PM, which means that the Friday prayers would have ended in just about anywhere in Sana'a and its vicinity. Thus no one would be found in mosques except those who missed the Friday prayers. The rocket that eventually struck the President and all those killed or injured with him did not hit them at the mosque, but somewhere else.
2) There was no talk of the incident occurring at the mosque until almost after sunset, and thus it is obvious that the tale of the explosion at the mosque only materialized much later than the time of the attack.
3) The fact that such large rockets were actually observed being used on the attack seems to belie the assumption that the explosion was from within the compound of the Presidential Palace. The latter may be true of the explosion at the Presidential Palace mosque, which occurred later than the fatal explosion that rendered the President severely wounded, and a number of his guests at the compound dead and wounded.
4) Being as such highly explosive and precision guided rockets were used in the attack, it is not farfetched to believe that the attempted assassination was well planned, organized and executed. This would mean that very well placed personnel within the Republican Guards indeed executed the attempt at a very high level (since such rockets do belong to the RG). It is not also farfetched to assume that they would be family members from the Presidents most closest of kin, either at fraternal or even offspring level.
5) The assumption of the Republican Guards comes in light of the fact that they are the ones with the rocket capability of executing such a delicate operation.
If an investigation is carried out along these presumptions, it would easily lead to determination of the culprits. It should be noted that there was a lot of family infighting that led to some of the big members of the Presidential family leaving their posts and home in anger and hiding out in their local village a few days before the attack on the Presidential Palace Compound. The members involved were senior members of the Republican Guard command.
The mosque explosion was indeed an "inside job", but meant to create an aura of martyrdom to the incident, just in case His Excellency did not survive, or even more if he did survive. What we call in Arabic Yousef's shirt! [The prophet Joseph (PABUH) was said to have been eaten by wolves, and His brethren presented their father, Jacob (PBAUH) with a cloak that was drenched with blood to give weight to their story that Joseph was killed by wolves].
This article does not suggest that the fatal attack at the Presidential Palace could have only occurred this way, as all the details remain a mystery. But judging from the observations and actual timing of the attack and the other mitigating circumstances, it is not impossible to believe that they would not veer too far from the actual slate of events. "God is the Only Knower of all things unknown".