Security officials release new confession of US-Israeli spy ring that targeted and destroyed agriculture sector
(June 14, 2024)
SANA’A, June 14, 2024 – Security authorities on Thursday night published new confessions of a group of members of a US-Israeli spy network and announced their arrests.
Confessions of members of an organisation with direct links to the CIA, broadcast through various media outlets, revealed that they were targeting the agricultural sector with various addresses with the cooperation of the British and Dutch embassies.
The confession revealed the most important actors that operated targeting Yemen’s agricultural sector (represented by the US Department of Agriculture in addition to FAO) and noted that there have been previous studies by Western countries on the components of agricultural production in Yemen’s northern, northeastern, central and southern governorates.
According to the confessions of a group of cell members, the American strategy was prepared to target Yemen’s agriculture and livestock industry from an early stage, back to the late eighties of the last century, with the USAID and its members playing a key role in targeting the agricultural sector.
The spy unit member explained that just as USAID was trying to contain Agricultural Research Service researchers and disrupt the variety and seed improvement process, USAID field forces were still working from outside Yemen to collect information and data on the agricultural sector and continue to target the sector.
Members of U.S. and Israeli intelligence said American officials had worked to set up seed testing centers to facilitate the importation of large quantities of weak seeds, and that the seeds brought in were infested with pests, including fire blight and other pests that cause thorny weeds that damage crops.
The spy network’s confessions confirmed that instead of sowing vegetable and other crop seeds, it was sowing thorny seeds in the lower Bon and Jafran rivers, while USAID targeted fertile soil and pollinated it with seeds pollinated with disease-carrying bacteria and harmful fertilizers, under the pretext of distributing improved seeds that would double agricultural production.
According to the U.S.-Israel Intelligence Network Group, the purpose of scattering some of the pollinated seeds was to make the soil unsuitable for growing wheat and other grains, and we at USAID worked to obtain sanitary certification for a variety of low-quality, disease-infested seeds.
The spy network confessions deal with the key role of British projects in the process of wheat cultivation reduction, one of which was the key role in the introduction of hybrid improved seed varieties that were more toxic and disease-prone.
The spy, Amer al-Agbari, acknowledged that he had visited the US and met with officials from the US Agency for International Development, who briefed him on a comprehensive program for breeding and spreading scale insects aimed at disrupting wheat cultivation in Yemen.
Al-Aghbari admitted that since his return to Yemen, he has participated in the expansion of citrus cultivation, transporting seedlings grafted with scale insects and distributing them in the northeastern and central provinces, as well as bringing thousands of insect- and disease-grafted citrus seedlings from the United States.
“We tried to prevent the spread of scale insects as they damage fruit leaves and reduce fruit production. Among the spread pests are mealybugs and aphids, with the approval of experts from the Ministry of Agriculture,” he said.
“We have been carrying out activities to set up many crop nurseries in different provinces with the aim of transmitting diseases and endemic trees, while the US authorities imported large quantities of highly toxic pesticides and sprayed them in the targeted provinces,” Al Agbari said.
He spoke about how US agencies directly coordinated a German pesticide import project from 2010 to 2012, with the support of the competent authorities at the time.
“When we joined the forest development project, we were serious about planting trees that would interfere with agricultural production or move insects from one area to another,” he said.
Al Agbari said the forestry development project had attracted local cadres to propagate different types of seedlings that spread insect diseases, hinting at work in the USAID strategy including targeting post-harvest operations that are just as dangerous as the first project.
“Post-harvest targeting activities are focused on disrupting storage and sales processes and related special arrangements, and post-harvest targeting activities prevent farmers from meeting some requirements related to the packaging and optimal storage of their products,” he said.
He also acknowledged USAID’s previous funding to establish Yemen’s main research station in the Jadhr region.
Regarding the fruit tree seedlings, Al Agbari explained that tens of thousands of grafted fruit tree seedlings affected by insect diseases and agricultural pests had been transported to Jadl Farms, also known as Al-Ala Farms.
He recalled that USAID, through its horticultural improvement projects, had made efforts to bring in different pest-infested seedling varieties from the US and Israel, and that the cash crop harvesting process was coordinated between USAID projects and those from the UK and the Netherlands.
Al-Aghbari confirmed that he was working for the UN Environment and Resources Project, whose activities were then carried out to find defects in the construction of flood barriers, as a result of violations in the construction of these barriers, which had recorded agricultural land erosion activities in several areas of Shabwa governorate.
Al Agbari said the Dutch project played a major role in the process of hitting livestock farming in some governorates, especially Al Bayda, noting that one of the activities targeting livestock was the issuance of health certificates for imported livestock herds, which led to the spread of animal diseases.
Intelligence officer Sheikh Al-Hamdani confirmed that the US Agency for International Development’s Economic and Agricultural Growth division in Yemen has been working to infest fertile crops with diseases and pests under the guise of pest control.
He pointed out that diseases are spreading among certain crops and agricultural products under the pretext of eradicating pests and insects affecting crops, explaining that the pretext for US agencies is to intervene in agricultural pest control through implementing partners such as international organizations.
Al Hamdani acknowledged that USAID’s Economic and Agricultural Growth sector has systematically targeted livestock, and said that reviews of some of the agency’s activities targeting livestock – such as vaccinating animals against diseases that cause suffering and death – had shown that they were counterproductive.
He noted that animal diseases were spread through vaccinations and vaccines overseen and funded by USAID, whose activities target poor families who depend on fishing and poultry farming through projects ostensibly to provide aid.
EM
Resources: Saba
