Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh suffered fresh defections yesterday when a diplomat and a former minister backed pro--democracy protesters demanding an end to his 32 year-rule.
Abdel-Malik Mansour, Yemen’s representative to the Arab League, told Al Arabiya television he was siding with the protesters and water and former yemeni environment minister Abdul-Rahman al-Iryani, sacked with the rest of the Cabinet on Sunday, said he was joining “the revolutionaries.”
The latest defections came after top generals, ambassadors and some tribes on Monday backed anti-government protesters in the Arabian Peninsula state in a major blow to Saleh’s efforts to ride out demands for his immediate exit.
Photo: AFP
France became the first Western power on Monday to call publicly for Saleh to stand down, with French Foreign Minister Alain Juppe describing his departure as “unavoidable.”
Attention was set to shift to the US and Saudi Arabia, two key allies who see Yemen as a bulwark against a dynamic al-Qaeda network that has made skillful use of Yemen’s poverty, tribal system and central government dysfunction.
MEDIATION
On Monday, Saleh asked Saudi Foreign Minister Saud al-Faisal to mediate and state media said he had dispatched his foreign minister to Riyadh with a message for Saudi leaders.
US President Barack Obama, grappling with sweeping change across the region from Egypt to the war zone of Libya, has called for “peaceful transition” in Yemen, where the lack of a clear successor to Saleh has increased global nervousness.
Residents said explosions and shooting were briefly heard on Monday evening near a presidential place in Yemen’s eastern port of Mukalla. The nature of the shooting was unclear, but it highlighted a growing tension across the country.
General Ali Mohsen, commander of the northwest military zone and Saleh’s kinsmen from the al-Ahmar clan, said on Al Jazeera on Monday that he was backing the protesters and warned of civil war — security men later raided the channels’ office in Sana’a.
“We announce our peaceful support for the peaceful revolution of the youth,” Mohsen said — words that sparked wild cheers from many of the thousands of protesters who have been gathered near Sana’a University for weeks. “Repressing peaceful demonstrators ... is pushing the country toward civil war.”
The chief of the Ahmar tribe, Sheikh Sadeq al-Ahmar, also seemed to give up on Saleh, voicing support for protesters.
ARMY BACKING
Yet Yemeni Defense Minister Mohammad Nasser Ali set the scene for a possible military confrontation over Saleh and his network of power, declaring that the army still backed Saleh.
“We will not allow under any circumstances an attempt at a coup against democracy and constitutional legitimacy,” the minister said on state TV, dressed in military fatigues and referring to Saleh as the “brother president.”
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