SANAA, Yemen—Armed opposition tribesmen have seized control of part of Yemen’s second-largest city, security officials said on Wednesday, illustrating the breakdown of authority in the country amid a potentially explosive deadlock in the capital.
With the wounded President Ali Abdullah Saleh out of the country for treatment, the United States, Saudi Arabia and the Yemeni opposition are pressing for a formal end to his rule and the formation of a new government. But so far there’s been little response from Saleh’s ruling party, and his allies appear to be digging in, insisting the president will return soon.
That has left Sanaa locked in an uneasy cease-fire between government forces and opposition tribesmen barricaded in their positions after two weeks of heavy battles between them killed dozens. On Wednesday, tribesmen collected 10 more bodies of their fallen fighters from the streets of their main stronghold, Sanaa’s Hassaba district, where most of the battles took place, a tribal spokesman said.
The United States fears that this power vacuum will give freer rein to al-Qaeda’s branch in Yemen—one of the terror network’s most active franchises, behind two attempted terror attacks on US targets.
In a videotape released on Wednesday, the deputy of slain al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden sought to adopt the anti-Saleh movement. “We are with you in your uprising,” Ayman al-Zawahri said in the video posted on Islamic militant web sites. He warned Yemenis not to be tricked by the Americans and their Gulf allies “who want to replace one American agent with another,” urging the opposition to continue until Saleh’s regime falls and “they put in its place a just regime that rules by Islamic law.”
On a visit to Egypt on Wednesday, Chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff Adm. Mike Mullen said Washington was particularly concerned about al-Qaeda’s branch gaining a greater range of operations.
“It is incredibly dangerous and made that much more dangerous in the ongoing chaos,” Mullen said. “I would certainly urge leaders from every side of this challenge to be calm and try to resolve the issues peacefully.”
Hundreds of thousands of Yemenis, inspired by uprisings elsewhere in the Mideast, have been protesting daily since late January demanding the ouster of Saleh, who has ruled Yemen for nearly 33 years. Their campaign has been largely peaceful, but fighting erupted in Sanaa between Saleh loyalists and fighters from Yemen’s most powerful tribal confederation, the Hashid, after troops moved to attack the residence of the Hashid leader, Sheik Sadeq al-Ahmar. AP
