Yemen: Saleh now in Saudi Arabia

5 June 2011
Last updated at 00:33 ET

President Saleh had promised to step down but failed to sign a deal to do so

Yemen’s President Ali Abdullah Saleh has flown to Saudi Arabia for medical treatment, a day after he was wounded, Saudi officials say.

Uncertainty surrounded Mr Saleh’s whereabouts for much of Saturday.

Sources in Yemen told the BBC that Mr Saleh had a piece of shrapnel below his heart and second-degree burns to his chest and face.

An uprising demanding that Mr Saleh leave power has led to violence bringing Yemen close to civil war.

The Yemeni president arrived in the Saudi capital Riyadh aboard a Saudi medical plane.

A Gulf nation diplomatic source told BBC Arabic that the decision to transfer Mr Saleh to Riyadh was taken after Saudi doctors consulted with a German medical team.

A source told Reuters news agency that Mr Saleh walked off the plane after arriving in Riyadh, but had visible wounds to his face, neck and head.

A second plane carried members of the president’s family, AFP news agency said, quoting an unnamed Saudi official.

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Lina Sinjab
BBC News, Sanaa

Yemen will wake up with President Saleh already out of the country. He arrived in Saudi Arabia late in the night, flown out of Sanaa together with other officials also injured in Friday’s attack on the presidential compound.

Government officials have accused armed tribesmen allied to Mr Saleh’s opponents of carrying out the attack which killed seven people, but they have denied it.

Mr Saleh, in a much weakened position, has left the country that he has ruled for 33 years, amid political turmoil and calls for him to leave office permanently.

There is a question mark over whether the defiant president, who promised to give up power several times, will return.

Ceasefire reported

Mr Saleh and several senior officials were praying at the al-Nahdayn mosque inside the presidential compound in the south of Sanaa on Friday afternoon at the time of the attack.

The mosque was originally thought to have been hit by rockets, but there are now suggestions someone may have planted a bomb there.

The president broadcast an audio message on Friday after he was wounded but did not appeared in public.

In the broadcast, he blamed the attack on an “outlaw gang” of his tribal foes – an accusation denied by Sheikh Sadeq al-Ahmar, the head of the Hashid tribal federation, whose fighters have been clashing with security forces.

More than 160 people have been killed in the fighting that began on 23 May and has brought Yemen to the brink of civil war.

The prominent Ahmar family has been financing the opposition and helping sustain protesters, who have been demanding Mr Saleh’s resignation since January despite a crackdown that has left at least 350 people dead.

The attack on the mosque left seven of Mr Saleh’s bodyguards dead and several officials wounded

Western and regional powers have been urging Mr Saleh to sign a Gulf Co-operation Council-brokered deal that would see him hand over power to his deputy in return for an amnesty from prosecution.

He has agreed to sign on several occasions, but then backed out.

With Mr Saleh out of the country, it is not clear who is in charge. The constitution calls for the vice president, Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi, to take over, including command of the armed forces and security services.

But Mr Saleh’s son Ahmed commands the elite Republican Guard and other relatives control security and intelligence units.

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Yemen: Scores dead as violence resumed in Yemeni capital

AFP - thirty-seven people, most of them fighters, have been killed in the night of clashes in Sanaa between opposition and the security forces, a doctor at Jumhuriya hospital said Wednesday.

There was a violent fighting in the capital throughout the night, an AFP journalist said.

Clashes between the tribes loyal to Sheikh Sadiq al-Ahmar, leaders of the powerful Confederation of Rachid and security forces exploded in Sanaa on Tuesday, shattering a truce announced Friday.

The Government of veteran President Ali Abdullah Saleh accused fighters from the Ahmar break the truce.

Site of the Ministry of defence said 26sep.net that the members of his tribe had seized both at the headquarters of the decision general people's Congress and the main offices of the water utility.

But sources close to said Ahmar Saleh forces are to blame, because they had open firing on the compound of the tribal chief in the North of the capital.

Ahmar announced Friday that it "is a truce between us and Ali Abdullah Saleh" mediation to take place, taking the floor at a funeral of 30 of its fighters killed in four days of clashes with the forces of Saleh in the capital last week.

But he added: "If the regime Saleh wants a peaceful revolution, we are ready for this." If he chooses to war, we will fight him. ?

In March, Ahmar has promised its support to the demonstrators showing since January for the departure of the Office of Saleh, who has been in power since 1978.

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Yemen: Three French aid workers missing in the Yemen

AFP - Three French aid workers in Yemen, two of them women, were reported missing on Saturday in Hadramawt province in the country's southeast, a Yemeni security official and Paris told AFP.
              
The official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the three were reported missing when they failed to return to their residence in Seyun for lunch, adding that "their mobile phones were suddenly switched off."
              
"Units of the security forces were immediately deployed to search for them," added the official, who said in response to a question that he could not rule out that they had been abducted.
              
"The most likely thing is that they have been kidnapped," he said.
              
The three have been working in Seyun since mid-April for Triangle Generation Humanitaire, a French NGO working in Yemen since 1998.
              
The foreign ministry in Paris confirmed that three French nationals had gone missing in Yemen on Saturday, and added that the French authorities were doing everything possible to find them.
              
"We received this information from our embassy in Sanaa about the disappearance of three of our nationals in Yemen," foreign ministry spokesman Bernard Valero said.
              
He said the French authorities were "in close contact with the Yemeni authorities, including the security forces" to locate the missing people.
              
Foreigners have frequently been kidnapped in the impoverished Arabian Peninsula state by tribes who use the tactic to pressure the authorities into making concessions.
              
More than 200 foreigners have been kidnapped in Yemen over the past 15 years, and most have later been freed unharmed.

Yemen: Yemeni capital fleeing continued fighting in streets

REUTERS - Yemenis have fled the capital on Wednesday to escape from Nigerian between loyalists and opponents of President Ali Abdullah Saleh, who said he did no concessions more to those seeking his eviction.

Sporadic machine-gun fire sounded for the third day in the ?difi?es streets around the Manor House of an influential tribal leader submitted by protesters seeking to overthrow the leader of long date, after the failure of repeated international mediation.

Black smoke rose from the compound of Sadiq al-Ahmar, at the centre of clashes which resulted 40 deaths since Monday, when his bodyguards first exchanged fire with the loyalist forces they accuse neighbouring school weapons storage.

Authorities closed the airport of Sanaa and flights have been diverted after clashes erupted with the loyal tribes to Ahmar, a security officer told Reuters, adding that some airlines had begun to cancel flights to the Yemen Tuesday.

"What happened was an act of provocation to we drag in the civil war, but it is limited to the sons Ahmar.". They bear the responsibility for the bloodshed of innocent civilians, "Saleh said selected media, including Reuters."

"Up to this second, they attack the Ministry of the Interior." But we do not want to expand the confrontation, he said. "They chose this and they took a wrong decision to confront the State with this type of violence."

Four people were killed and 11 wounded, the Ministry of defence said, blaming the Ahmar men. Witnessess and officials, said supporters of the Ahmar resumed several Ministry buildings near the compound.

The fighting, clashes more supported in Sanaa since the beginning of the protests against the dominance of Saleh in February, broke out Monday, one day after the President refused at the last minute to sign a negotiated contract for Gulf which would facilitate the power.

Saleh argued twice before, but reversal of Sunday, after armed men loyalist trapped diplomats Western and Arab to the Embassy of the United Arab Emirates United for hours, seemed sparked a major reaction.

General Ali al-Mohsen, a commander of the regional army who has sided with the demonstrators, called the armed forces to defy Saleh.

"Beware of follow this madman who is thirsty for blood," Mohsen said in a statement.

Both parties mutually reproach of violence, the opposition said could begin a civil war. The bloodshed is dimmed prospects for a political solution to a popular revolt inspired by demonstrations that swept the leaders of the Egypt and the Tunisia.

"I think that there is a real risk that violence can escalate, and we see a step toward a low-intensity civil war, said Shadi Hamid, analyst at the Centre Doha Brookings."

"There is a real loss of faith in the political process after Saleh refused to sign an agreement several times.". He added that really cast doubt on whether Saleh has any real commitment to let go of power voluntarily, "."

Control of the ministries

Saleh said the deal is still on the table, despite its repeated failures to sign: "I am ready to sign in a national dialogue and a clear mechanism." If the mechanism is valid, we will sign the transition of power deal and we will give up power. ?

"No concession over after today", said.

Sana'a, the capital, fighters in civilian clothes roamed the streets in some districts and sporadic bursts of machine-gun fire punctuated the air.

Long lines of cars winding out of the city bags stacked on their roof, while armed men blocked entrances to prevent the tribes to bring reinforcements, said witnesses.

The situation calmed down slightly in the afternoon as mediators tried to seal a truce. In the close quarters fighting, men fled with suitcases and women brought their babies on the streets, seeking safety elsewhere.

"It is possible to stay in Sanaa." Confrontations will reach all parts of the city, "said Abdullah Murad." which he left in car "I fear for my life." I will go to my village in Ibb. The situation is safe. ?

The United States and Saudi Arabia, the two targets of attacks foiled by an al-Qaeda wing based in Yemen, sought to defuse the crisis and to avoid any spread of lawlessness that would give more space to operate the global activist network.

Spokesman for the United Nations Secretary genera Ban Ki-moon Martin Nesirky said ban was deeply troubled by clashes in Sanaa and further calls the peace efforts and the immediate end to the fighting, while Britain reiterated calls Saleh to sign the contract of output.

But a peaceful outcome seemed ever less likely. Witnesses and officials, said supporters of Ahmar, head of the Federation tribal Hashed tribe of Sanhan which Saleh belongs, have been controlling several Ministry buildings near the Ahmar composed including trade and tourism, and offices from the Saba news agency.

The Ahmar fighters also attacked the headquarters of the Ministry of the Interior, the Court came under rocket fire, witnesses said.

Television in the Ahmar images make up showed tribes rushing through rooms opulent but dusty, their floors splashed with blood, as they helped colleagues wounded in the fighting.

"This is an attempt to drag the revolution of his Pacific way," the political opposition Hamid al-Ahmar, brother of Sadiq al-Ahmar, said television Al Jazeera.

"But this is understandable, and it will not affect the path of the revolution." The people's revolution.

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