US fears growth of al Qa'eda in Yemen as country fractures

The turmoil in Yemen makes the country's al Qa'eda franchise even more of a threat, the United States' top military officer said yesterday.

Al Qa'eda in Yemen "has grown into a very virulent deadly federated point in the al Qa'eda organisation," Admiral Michael Mullen, the head of the US joint chiefs of staff, said during a news conference on a visit to Cairo.

"It is incredibly dangerous and made more dangerous in the ongoing chaos," he said.

Yemen's president, Ali Abullah Saleh, who was flown to Saudi Arabia for treatment on Saturday after an attack on his palace, has been a important ally in the US effort to contain terrorism.

In Taiz yesterday, tribesmen stopped their assault on Yemen's second-largest city. Security officials said Taiz, a city of about a million located 250 kilometres south of Sana'a, was quiet yesterday. Tribal fighters entered the city late last week and attacked government troops, apparently to protect protesters or to seek revenge for deaths in the crackdowns.

The Yemeni Observatory for Human Rights, a non-governmental orgnaisation, said in a statement that the government attacks on the citizens of Taiz is taking a "sectarian dimension where pro-Saleh forces are using paid killers" from other provinces.

Saudi Arabia has donated 3 million barrels of crude oil to Yemen, the state news agency Saba reported yesterday. A blast on Yemen's main pipeline in March has stopped the flow of crude, leaving its biggest Aden refinery dry and leading to fuel shortages across the country. With no crude flow, Yemen increased its imports of oil products, but the Saudi oil minister, Amir al Aidarous, was reported as saying that cash problems had stopped shipments. "The spot purchase of oil derivatives stopped as companies refused to sell, because the finance ministry and the central bank could not pay the amount required."

In Sana'a yesterday, fighters of an opposition tribal leader withdrew from several government buildings as about 30 corpses from recent fighting were recovered. The fighters of Sheikh Sadeq al Ahmar, leader of the Hashid tribal confederation, withdrew from government buildings, said Abdulqawi al-Qaisi, spokesman for Sheikh al Ahmar.

"We have withdrawn our men from several buildings and handed them over to the committee overseeing the ceasefire and truce. The government snipers and thugs are supposed to leave the buildings they have been occupying and then more buildings will be vacated," said Mr al-Qaisi.

The bodies were retrieved from different locations in the Hasaba neighbourhood. Some were found at the Hasaba police station, according to witnesses and sources at Shekh al Ahmar's office. About 140 people have been killed since the fight erupted on May 23.

Also in Sana'a, anti-government youth protesters yesterday demonstrated in front of the residence of Vice President Abdu Rabu Hadi, demanding that he announced the end of Mr Saleh's regime.

"We are giving politicans a final warning to announce that Saleh is out politics and a new era will start," said Wasim al Qershi, a spokesperson for the organising committee.

Tawakul Karman, a protest activist, said at a press conference yesterday that they have given Mr Hadi some time to choose whether to be with the revolution or against it.

While western and Gulf diplomats are pushing for all parties to endorse the Gulf Cooperation Council-brokered plan on power transition, Ms Karman said that the youth leaders reject it. If the Joint Meeting Parties (JMP) embraces "the Gulf initiative and participates in a unity government, they will be dealt with as a part of the regime that has also to leave".

Meanwhile, the JMP refuses to negotiate with the ruling party because it has no leader at the moment.

"The vice-president has not been given the authority to take place of Saleh by parliament or by Saleh himself," Hasan Zaid, the general secretary of the opposition Haq party, said yesterday. "Saleh is seriously injured and no one in the ruling party has been given legal authority to lead."

But opposition leaders are forgetting that the General People Congress party is an institutional party with more than 15 million members, said government spokesman Abdu Ganadi. "The opposition are happy that Saleh is out of the country, but they forget that all of the ruling party members are as powerful as Saleh."

Mr Ganadi said that Yemenis will not accept change the way the opposition wants it. "Let the opposition continue dreaming while the ruling party continues building."

A Gulf Cooperation Council official in Sana'a said yesterday they are working to arrange a meeting between both sides. The JMP has not met with Mr Hadi, but welcomes the vice president's role in trying to end the crises, said Mohammed Qahtan, the JMP spokesperson.

Analyst say the vice-president is afraid to act. Mr Hadi "does not have the power and authority to take lead during the current situation," said Ali Garadi, the editor in chief of the independent Ahale newspaper.

He said that during the last 18 years in his post, the vice president was not able to say no to Mr Saleh, and he still fears him. The vice president needs the green light from Saleh to lead the dialogue, and he does not have that yet."

foreign.desk@hthenational.ae

* With additional reporting by the Associated Press, Reuters and Agence France-Presse