New American Plan in Yemen

Chiara Onassis | 16 March 2012

SANA’A: According to sources close to the government, US ambassador to Yemen, Gerard Feierstein would have approached President Abdu Rabbo Mansour Hadi with a new proposal which would solve Yemen’s military restructuration stand-off.

When former President Ali Abdullah Saleh agreed in November last year to ink in Riyadh, the Saudi capital, the GCC brokered power-transfer initiative, he promised upon his resignation from power to entrust Hadi with the restructuration of the country’s armed forces and the demotions from their posts of his family members.

Members of the Opposition forcibly defended this point of the proposal as they knew that Saleh stepping down from power would mean nothing if his regime was allowed to leave on through his support network and his control over the army.

However ever since the presidential elections, Hadi has been dragging his feet, arguing that since Yemen was currently fighting off al-Qaeda it would more beneficial for Yemen to wait off a bit and reconsider the matter until after the terror threat had passed.

Al-Islah, Yemen’s Islamic political faction and Saleh’s political nemesis is now calling for revolutionaries to resume their fight against Saleh as they say they were lied to and tricked onto believing that the regime had gone when really it had only been replaced by new figures.

Amidst rising tensions, the U.S came up with a new plan, the departure of the “old guard” no exception made.

The idea would be for President Hadi to simultaneously dismissed from their posts all of Yemen’s military power players, from Ahmed Ali Saleh, Saleh’s eldest son and Commander of the mighty Republican Guards, to defected General Ali Mohsen al-Ahmar, the 1st Armored Division Commander in Chief.

Regime’s loyalist pointed out that Hadi would never agree to such an agreement since it would mean angering a great number of his fellow GPC (General People’s Congress) members and would directly put al-Ahmar’s brothers in an undisputed power position.

Al-Ahmars, a powerful tribal family who has been at odds with the regime for years, has been battling Saleh since the beginning of the uprising, being suspected of having fomented the assassination attempt against President Saleh in June last year.

 “If all of Saleh family members are forced to leave, al-Ahmar will be left in control of Yemen, which we will never agree to. This family is seeking to destroy the Republic and return to a tribal system which will benefit them. President Saleh will never allow such a thing! If we have to fight for it…so be it” said a member of the GPC.