Yemen opposition: talks over after Saleh govt snub

Sun Jun 12, 2011

* Yemen transition deal talks have failed, opposition says

* Saleh deputy refused to speak to groups demanding he go

* 21 Qaeda gunmen, 14 soldiers killed in fighting in south

* Russia to evacuate citizens from turmoil-ridden Yemen

(Adds details of further fighting, humanitarian crisis)

By Mohammed Ghobari

SANAA, June 12 (Reuters) - Talks to resolve Yemen's political crisis have failed after the deputy to wounded President Ali Abdullah Saleh refused to speak with groups demanding he cede power immediately, opposition figures said.

Saleh, forced to seek medical treatment in Saudi Arabia for wounds suffered in an attack on his palace nine days ago, has has refused to leave office despite nearly six months of street protests and many diplomatic attempts to remove him.

The ensuing political paralysis and long-standing conflicts with Islamist insurgents, separatists and rebel tribesmen, has fanned Western and regional fears of Yemen collapsing into chaos and giving al Qaeda a stronghold alongside oil shipping routes.

A member of the group of opposition parties demanding Saleh transfer power now said international efforts to broker an agreement to that end had collapsed because the acting leader, Vice President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi, would not talk to them.

"The American and European efforts for a dialogue between opposition parties and the ruling party has failed. The vice-president has refused to deal with or meet opposition parties," Mohammed al-Mutawakkil said.

"He justifies that by saying he is preoccupied with dealing with the fuel crisis and the ceasefire, as well as the security situation in the provinces."

A ceasefire has held in Sanaa since Saleh left a week ago, after more than 200 people were killed and thousands fled during two weeks of clashes between his loyalists and the forces of tribal leader Sheikh Sadeq al-Ahmar, who backs the protesters.

The capital, however, is all but paralysed by shortages of fuel and electricity, and violence in a southern province -- whose capital Islamist gunmen seized last month -- has worsened.

POPULATION FLEES CITY AMID FIGHTING

Yemen's army killed 21 al Qaeda members in the southern province of Abyan on Saturday, 18 of them in Zinjibar, the provincial capital that fell. Ten soldiers were killed in fighting there and another city, Lawdar, state media said.

Residents of Zinjibar said fighting continued early on Sunday, leaving at least four soldiers and several gunmen dead.

Yemen's health ministry said it would send 10,000 tonnes of medical supplies to people who have fled Zinjibar, including some 10,000 in the southern port of Aden.

A Yemeni NGO, Seyaj, called for help evacuating some 500 people trapped in the town due to continued fighting.

Opposition parties have said they will form their own transitional assembly in a week if Saleh does not cede power. It is not clear whether those parties have any significant influence over many of the protesters.

Saleh has three times backed out of plans crafted by oil-rich Gulf neighbours to quit after a transitional period.

His opponents have accused him of handing over Zinjibar to Islamists to reinforce his threat that the end of his three-decade rule, as demanded by protesters, would amount to ceding the region to al Qaeda.

Saleh has not been seen in public since the palace attack, which left him with burns and shrapnel wounds. Yemen's ambassador in London said on Saturday that he was recovering and in a "stable condition".

Saudi medical sources and Yemeni officials said Prime Minister Ali Mohammed Megawar and another cabinet member injured in the palace attack had been taken for more surgery, and described their condition as "serious".

Interfax news agency reported two planes had been dispatched to evacuate Russian nationals who want to leave the country. About 1,000 Russians citizens are in Yemen.

Yemen clashes kill 7

(AFP)

ADEN, Yemen, June 12, 2011— A Yemeni colonel, two soldiers and four suspected Al-Qaeda militants were killed in clashes in the flashpoint southern city of Zinjibar on Sunday, a military official and medics said.

"I lost one of my men, Colonel Salem al-Zuba," who was killed in fierce clashes with Al-Qaeda gunmen, an officer of the besieged 25th mechanised brigade told AFP.

A medic at a military hospital in Aden said the bodies of two soldiers were brought in from clashes in Zinjibar, which was mostly overrun by suspected Al-Qaeda militants last month.

Al-Razi hospital in the nearby town of Jaar, meanwhile, "received the bodies of four Al-Qaeda militants, in addition to five others wounded," a medic told AFP.

An unidentified spokeman claiming to represent the gunmen in Zinjibar told AFP by telephone that the jihadists "stormed part of the camp of the 25th brigade," a report denied by the officer.

Residents said fighter planes overflew Zinjibar on Sunday.

Protesters may not get a say in Yemen's future

Despite their tenacity and desire to fashion a new order, protesters face a threat that it is the contest between President Saleh's family and a rival clan that will decide what change, if any, comes.

By Alice Fordham, Los Angeles Times

June 12, 2011

Reporting from Sana, Yemen—

For months, the protesters have made their home in Change Square, a colorful patchwork of improvised tents, generators with snaking wires, bags of mildly narcotic khat leaves slung over handles of ceremonial daggers and stalls selling the ubiquitous snack of egg-and-potato sandwiches.

It looks and sounds like the camps pitched in Cairo and other cities during the "Arab Spring," with posters honoring those killed in attacks by state security forces, slogans urging President Ali Abdullah Saleh to relinquish power, and a festive atmosphere of proud activism after decades of autocratic rule.

Despite their clear tenacity and desire to fashion a new political order, however, the protesters face a real threat that Yemen's future could be decided without them, as Saleh's family competes with its main rival, the powerful Ahmar clan, to decide what change, if any, should come to Yemeni politics.

Saleh is now in Saudi Arabia being treated for injuries from a rocket attack on his presidential compound. But his possibly temporary exit was not the result of popular pressure from Change Square. It was propelled by the clashes in the streets of Sana, the capital, between Saleh's forces and fighters loyal to the Ahmar family, a battle that some analysts say was instigated by Saleh to marginalize the popular protesters.

With Saleh unlikely to return any time soon, slow negotiations on the way forward are taking place between the ruling party, international mediators and a coalition of opposition politicians who have kept their distance from the demonstrators who planted the seeds for Saleh's nearly 33-year reign to end.

And despite their resolve, there are differing opinions about the future in the protesters' encampment. Some lean toward the Islamist party Islah, and others are diehard democracy activists who want to build a new civil society, untainted by the military or the tribal conflicts and patronage that have long defined the country's politics.

Many observers believe that Yemen after Saleh will be far from the democratic state envisaged by Change Square's idealistic crowds. Saudi Arabia, Yemen's rich and influential neighbor, is likely to take the lead in attempts to stabilize the violent and impoverished country, and creating civic structures probably won't be a priority.

"Saudi Arabia does not want to see state collapse in Yemen, but neither does it wish to see the emergence of a genuinely democratic and inclusive political settlement that could threaten its own internal political arrangements," said Sarah Phillips, a Yemen expert at the University of Sydney in Australia.

Others say that Yemen's tribal society is incapable of democracy.

"You think there will be a populist Yemeni government that's going to focus on development?" said Anthony Cordesman of the Center for Strategic and International Studies. "There are no real political parties; the civil service is corrupted and weak."

In Change Square, the buoyant revolutionaries dismissed such pessimism.

Adel Muozzab, a doctoral candidate in governance and democracy, pointed out that guns weren't permitted in the camp, and that the peaceful revolution had persuaded even tribal sheiks to lay down their weapons.

"The youth is the best way to a modern state," he said.

Mahfouz Dabwan, a member of the army who defected to the protest movement, said that a lot of soldiers had done the same thing and that commanding generals had promised them they would be included in the new Yemen.

"Our steadfastness is our main guarantee," he said.

Ghadeer Dahwan, a 19-year-old student, said she wanted the new era to include equality for women.

"We must change the view of the community," she said, to approving interjections from women clustering around her. "They undermine women's rights and consider them fit just for cooking and cleaning."

Others, who had been part of the old guard, had no regrets of casting their lot with the people.

"I feel overwhelmingly happy among the people, because they are born again," said Fouad Dahabeh, an opposition member of parliament who resigned to join the camp three months ago. "The oldest and the youngest are learning at the same school, learning freedom, cooperation, how to sacrifice for others, bravery and freedom."

Source: Los Angeles Times

Is Saleh the only man who can ‘save’ Yemen? Analysis by James M. Dorsey

Sunday, 12 June 2011

By JAMES M. DORSEY

AL ARABIYA

Yemeni military forces opposed to embattled President Ali Abdullah Saleh are coopting Mr. Saleh’s effort to portray himself as the only person that can prevent his country from descending into chaos and anarchy.

The forces, commanded by Gen. Faisal Ragab, a battalion commander who defected to the opposition last March, are battling Islamist militants in southern Yemen in an effort to demonstrate that they are as capable as Saleh loyalists of taking on militants associated with Al Qaeda. The militants have seized control of two towns in the central part of Yemen.

The fighting comes as many question whether severe wounds suffered by Mr. Saleh during a deadly attack on his presidential compound in the Yemeni capital Sana’a will allow him to return from treatment in Saudi Arabia as Yemen’s leader.

It also comes as the Obama administration has reportedly intensified its attacks on suspected Islamist militants in Yemen using armed drones and fighter jets. US jets killed on Friday Abu Ali al-Harithi, a mid-level Qaeda operative, and several other militant suspects in southern Yemen.

The US has also tried but failed to kill Anwar al-Awlaki, an American-born Yemeni cleric associated with Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), the Al Qaeda affiliate, who was an outside contender to succeed killed AL Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden.

Powerful military commander Brigadier-General Ali Mohsen al-Ahmar, the head of the first armored brigade who defected in March, sought this weekend to stir the pot further by repeating allegations that AQAP was a creature of Mr. Saleh’s making to secure Western military and economic support.

Few doubt that Mr. Saleh has repeatedly manipulated the terrorist threat in Yemen and played both ends against the middle to curry US and European favor. But, by the same token, AQAP is viewed by Western counter-terrorism officials as real as well as the most active and dangerous of Al Qaeda’s affiliates alongside its North African counterpart, Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM).

In a bid to prevent rebel troops from undermining Mr. Saleh’s projection of himself as a bulwark of the struggle against the militants, the Yemeni Defense Ministry claimed that its forces had killed 21 Al Qaeda militants in Lawdar and Zinjibar. The ministry said further that 19 soldiers were also killed in the fighting in the two towns in Abyan province, a stronghold for various Islamist groups, including AQAP.

General Ahmar’s allegation was as much a shot across the bow in the infighting within Mr. Saleh’s tribe, family and ruling party over how to fill the power vacuum created by the president’s departure for medical treatment as it was an effort to bolster US and European confidence that a post-Saleh Yemen would continue the fight against Islamist militants.

The general is a member of the Ahmar clan, a sub-unity of Yemen’s most powerful tribal confederation, to which Mr. Saleh also belongs, as well as a cousin and brother-in-law of the president. The Ahmars fought fierce battles against Saleh loyalists in Sana’a but deny that they were responsible for the attack on the presidential compound.

Mr. Saleh “constantly tries to take advantage of manufactured crises at home to apply blackmail abroad. He claims to be a safety valve for Yemen and neighboring countries, but it is a lie,” General Ahmar, whose troops are protecting anti-government protesters in Sana’a, said in an interview with pan-Arab daily Al Hayat.

General Ahmar charged that Mr. Saleh’s nephews, Tarek Saleh, the commander of the presidential guard, and Amar Saleh, a senior national security official, were the president’s point men in manufacturing a fake terrorist threat in Yemen.

“Just after Saleh spoke of Al Qaeda seizing control of provinces, the regime handed over Abyan to terrorist gunmen. I fear that the regime might hand over control over other provinces to terrorist groups,” General Ahmar said.

The general’s remarks were echoed by another senior military officer, General Abdel Hakim al-Salahi, who is a military advisor of the Abyan governor and a member of Mr. Saleh’s ruling General People’s Congress.

General Salahi accused Mr. Saleh of having “a very clear plot aimed at creating chaos in Yemen’’ that would have allowed Islamist militants to take control of at least five southern provinces “in order to spark the fears of the West and terrorize the people of Yemen.’’ He said the Islamists included militants who had sided with the president during Yemen’s 1994 war with southern separatists as well as Islamists associated with Al Qaeda.

Mr. Saleh’s military opponents hope that by demonstrating their determination and ability to fight the Islamists, they will not only reassure Western nations but increase pressure on Saudi Arabia not to allow Mr. Saleh to return to Yemen. Despite persistent reports that Mr. Saleh was more seriously wounded than officially acknowledged, doctors at the hospital where he is being treated, the Riyadh Armed Forces Hospital, say that he is recovering rapidly and will soon be able to travel.

Saudi and Yemeni officials insist Mr. Saleh has every intention of returning to power and that his stay in the kingdom is purely humanitarian.

Mr. Saleh’s return rather than restoring stability is likely to fuel the three-month old anti-government protests and could rekindle fighting with his tribal opponents.

By fighting the Islamists, dissident military units are positioning themselves to be part of a deal between segments of Mr. Saleh’s erstwhile power structure, including the Ahmars, who want to see the president deposed but are seeking to maintain as much of the old system at possible.

It’s a deal that would effectively cut out the anti-government, pro-democracy protesters camped out in Sana’s Change Square and serve Saudi Arabia’s purpose of preserving the status quo to the degree possible, but challenge US President Barack Obama’s call for real political and economic change.

(James M. Dorsey, formerly of The Wall Street Journal, is a senior researcher at the National University of Singapore’s Middle East Institute and the author of the blog, The Turbulent World of Middle East Soccer. He can be reached via email at: questfze@gmail.com)

Yemen: Unraveled, unwieldy and uncertain

Harriet Isom

June 12, 2011

Every week another country of the Middle East captures our attention. A week ago, it was a bomb blast at Friday prayers that injured the embattled ruler of the country, Ali Abdullah Saleh, and many of his top officials, requiring their evacuation for medical treatment in Saudi Arabia.

Whether Saleh, a wily, tenacious ruler for 33 years will now agree to step down is anyone’s guess.

This is a country reeling from weeks of demonstrations against Saleh, military battles between rival elite families and unraveling control of Yemen. Yemen also is riled by Southern secessionists, a northern Shiite minority rebellion and plentiful jihadists, including the Yemeni branch of al-Qaeda. Maybe even the Somali pirates will be moving freely into southern Yemen. It’s a worrisome situation.

Yemen is one of the oldest centers of civilization in the Near East, home of the legendary Queen of Sheba. It lies strategically at the southern end of the Arabian Peninsula at the exit of the Suez Canal/Red Sea into the Gulf of Aden. Today’s population of 23 million is organized around tribes whose rivalries run deep. Most tribes have heavily armed militias; outside the major cities, order is kept by tribal chiefs with their own complicated loyalties. Its terrain has been a key isolating factor in its history. Except for the narrow coastal band, the country has an average elevation of 6,000 feet. If it were less volatile, Yemen today would undoubtedly be a major tourist stop. Its capital, Sanaa, is 2,500 years old and a declared World Heritage City. Even though a small country, Yemen contains two regions with extraordinarily different histories that hinder successful unification today. The northern Yemeni region was under the Ottoman Empire and then local caliphs; it joined the U.N. as an independent country in 1947. Republican forces gained control in 1962, whom Saudi Arabia opposed, but ultimately accepted in 1970. Saudi Arabia thereafter has provided substantial budgetary support, including funds, to fight the Shiite minority in the northern border region and al-Qaeda forces who want to overthrow the Saudi monarchy. Saleh comes from this northern half.

The southern Yemeni region, in contrast, came under British rule when the port of Aden was captured in 1839. Nationalist groups turned to terrorism in the 1960s to drive out the British and succeeded in 1967. A radical wing of the Marxist party gained power and sided with the Soviets, who sustained it with aid until the Soviet Union collapsed in the early 1990s. Southern Yemen then merged with the northern half. Succession sentiments have not died out, however, especially since Saleh’s northerners have monopolized political power and the diminishing oil receipts. Overall, this united Yemen remains the poorest Middle Eastern country.

Yemen is well known as a fertile recruiting ground for jihadists who have been ultra-keen to fight in conflicts in Bosnia, Iraq, Somalia, Afghanistan and Pakistan. Indeed, more than half of the remaining detainees in Guantanamo Bay are Yemenis. It is also a safe haven for increasingly sophisticated militant jihadist planning and operations. The Yemeni branch of al-Qaeda is one such group, and today is judged to pose the greatest immediate threat to the U.S. and Europe, particularly since the demise of bin Laden in Pakistan. The American-born radical cleric, Anwar al-Awlaki, is a member and proving skilled in Internet recruitment.

Since the bombing of the USS Cole in Aden harbor in 2000, the U.S. has been pushing the oft times reluctant Saleh hard to counter al-Qaeda, and will certainly want any successor to do the same. Now fearful of the vacuum being created by the current power struggle, the U.S. took the initiative a few days ago to strike and kill al-Qaeda militants in southern Yemen with armed drones and fighter jets. Weeks earlier, drone aircraft had tried but failed to kill Awlaki.

Saleh’s long held position was in jeopardy as soon as the “Arab Spring” demonstrations began in Tunisia and spread to Egypt. Yemini youth protesters and a relatively well-organized opposition coalition have been ratcheting up the pressure on Saleh to step down. He has endured increasing military and tribal defections, but he still has supporters.

Saleh at first said yes to a brokered agreement for transition, arranged by Saudi Arabia and the Gulf States, one that gave him immunity so that he could step down with dignity. But then he never signed it, evidently fearful for the future of the dozens of family members he has installed in government and business. Long a survivor of Yemen’s scrappy politics, he opted to ride out this latest threat. His eldest son controls the powerful Republican Guard; other sons and family members run the best trained and equipped military and intelligence units. And while Saleh is in Saudi Arabia recovering from his wounds, they remain in Yemen. But the plot against Saleh has a bigger cast. For several years relations between the Saleh and al-Ahmar families have deteriorated. There is a generational transition going on in both families, whose patriarchs once had a power-sharing agreement. The blueblood al-Ahmar family believes it should have a turn ruling Yemen. Armed conflict between them erupted in Sanaa last week. Saleh blamed that family for the Friday bomb explosion (which it denies), and his forces attacked their locations. With effort, a cease fire was arranged.

Among the many prominent al-Ahmar brothers is a business tycoon named Hameed, who owns the Sabafon mobile network and a TV channel. The opposition coalition has been using this mobile network to send out messages to organize the protests. Hameed stunned Yemen last August by daring to go on al Jazeera TV to call on Saleh to step down and not to try to enthrone his son. He is expected soon to assume leadership of his father’s Islah party, the largest opposition party in Yemen.

Yet another influential player in this drama is Army Gen. Ali Mohsin al-Ahmar (a half-brother of Saleh and no relation to the al-Ahmar family above). He defected from Saleh in March in part, it is thought, to prevent Saleh’s son from succeeding his father. General Mohsin has deployed his armored tank division at strategic locations in Sanaa and can play a significant role in determining the outcome of any future armed clashes.

Yemen teeters on the brink of renewed violence from a variety of disgruntled sources. Armed tribesmen have just driven out government troops from Yemen’s second largest city, Taiz. Opposition leaders are calling for a presidential council to assume immediate rule. Saleh’s sons are poised to fight back.

Saudi and Gulf officials are working hard in Riyadh to broker a solution while Saleh is there. They appear to be continuing to urge his agreement to their earlier transitional government proposal as the best means of preventing violence in Yemen. The U.S. favors that process, beginning now. But, then, Saudi Arabia was furious at the Americans for abandoning Mubarak in Egypt to support a democratic transition. If Saleh balks, will Saudi Arabia really force him to step down? No one dares assume it will.

Stay tuned. There is much to watch and worry about in Yemen.

Ambassador Harriet Isom grew up in Pendleton and has retired to the family ranch. She was a career diplomat serving in Asia and Africa from 1961 to 1996.