Journalists Killed in 2016 - Motive Confirmed: Ahmed al-Shaibani

Ahmed al-Shaibani
Yaman News, Yemen TV
February 16, 2016, in Taiz, Yemen

Al-Shaibani was shot in the central Yemeni city of Taiz on February 16, 2016, according to his colleagues and employers.

Al-Shaibani, a Yemeni journalist working for the independent Yaman News website and state-run Yemen TV, was fatally shot in the head by gunmen belonging to the Houthi rebel alliance while reporting on the shelling of a factory in Taiz, both his employers reported.

A graphic video published by the Yemen Shabab television channel on February 16 shows al-Shaibani and three other individuals in civilian clothes running across a street in a neighborhood badly damaged by fighting. Al-Shaibani, who is not wearing clothing identifying him as a journalist, can be seen running, clutching a satchel, when he suddenly falls to the ground with a gunshot wound to the head. Later, two men in military clothing attempt to pull al-Shaibani off the street, but they also come under fire.

Residents of Taiz have endured a months-long siege as a patchwork of pro-government and Islamist groups resist attempts to take the city by fighters belonging to Ansar Allah, also known as the Houthis, and forces loyal to former President Ali Abdullah Saleh. A month before al-Shaibani's death, a crew working for Al-Jazeera in the city were abducted for several days by unknown gunmen before being released.

Ahmed al-Basha, a Yemeni photographer who contributes to Agence France-Presse, told CPJ that he, al-Shaibani and a group of other journalists had gone to Al-Hasab neighborhood of western Taiz to report on a fire in a plastics factory that had been hit by a shell believed to be from pro-Houthi fighters. Al-Basha stayed behind with some of the journalists, as others, including al-Shaibani, left the factory site. As al-Basha returned from the factory, he photographed a puddle of blood in the street shown in the Yemen Shabab video, only to find out later the blood was al-Shaibani's.

Al-Basha told CPJ that what he believed to be pro-Houthi gunmen purposefully targeted the journalists, saying that he too had come under fire crossing that street as he returned from the factory. In a report filed two days before the killing, Sky News Arabic correspondent Mohammed al-Qadhi said that Houthi forces had deployed snipers on the street.

Al-Basha told CPJ that all the journalists who went to the factory had to cross the same street, including another Yemen TV journalist, Ahmed al-Bokari. Al-Bokari wrote on his Facebook page that he crossed the street first and was waiting on the other side as al-Shaibani attempted to cross. After al-Shaibani was hit, two anti-Houthi fighters were able to retrieve him under fire and transport him to the hospital, where he was pronounced dead.

Al-Shaibani's most recent reports for the website Yaman News were about the deteriorating humanitarian situation in Taiz and attempts to distribute humanitarian assistance.

The administrator of the general email account for Yemen TV, who did not identify himself by name, told CPJ in an email that al-Shaibani was on his first assignment for the station the day he was killed. After Houthi forces took control of the capital of Sanaa in September 2014, they commandeered government institutions, including Yemen TV and other state media outlets. Yemen's internationally recognized government in exile in 2015 set up a rival station, also named Yemen TV, for which al-Shaibani worked, according to news reports. Regional satellite broadcasters Nilesat and Arabsat removed the Houthi-controlled stations from their transmissions in favor of the station run by the government recognized by regional governments.