Yemen President Signals He May Quit This Year, Warns of Civil War Threat

Yemen’s President Ali Abdullah Saleh warned defecting generals that they risk dragging the country into a “bloody civil war,” and signaled he’s ready to quit this year if the uprising eases and elections are held.
In an address on state television, Saleh said military commanders who have joined the protest movement against his regime should “return to reason” and avoid opening divisions within the army. The president is “ready to leave power by the end of the year after a new government based on parliamentary election is formed,” his press secretary, Ahmed al-Sufi, said in a phone interview today.
Demonstrators at Taghyeer Square in Sana’a, the site of a massacre by pro-regime gunmen four days ago, today resumed calls for an immediate end to Saleh’s three-decade rule. “Leave, leave!” thousands chanted. The internal revolt against the president brought new defections, with ambassadors to Egypt and the Arab League becoming the latest diplomats to join the protest movement, according to Al Arabiya television.
Opposition efforts to oust Saleh, a U.S. ally against al- Qaeda, have intensified since the March 18 crackdown against protesters. At least 46 people were killed and scores injured in the capital as police and snipers opened fire in the worst violence since the unrest started two months ago. The wave of regional protests has already ousted longtime rulers in Tunisia and Egypt, and unleashed a civil war in Libya.

Army Defections

The killings prompted senior military officers including Ali Muhsin al-Ahmar, commander of the first armored division, and Mohammed Ali Muhssein, commander of the eastern region, to switch sides and led three ministers, dozens of members of parliament and several diplomats to quit Saleh’s regime.
Yemen’s army units have taken up positions around key government buildings and bank offices in Sana’a, without intervening against protesters. The army said in a statement that it won’t permit a “coup against democracy.”
Saleh said yesterday that those calling for “chaos, violence, hatred and vandalism” are the minority and that most people support the constitutional legitimacy of his government.
Since February, Saleh has repeated promises for a new constitution, called for the formation of a unity government and said he won’t seek to extend his term when it expires in 2013. The opposition movement has dismissed those offers and insists he must step down.
U.S. Money
The U.S. has backed Saleh with about $300 million a year of military and economic aid. Ben Rhodes, the U.S. deputy national security adviser for strategic communications, said yesterday that the country needs “a government that is more responsive to the Yemeni people.”
Saleh’s government has been fighting insurgencies in the north and south of the country, as well as carrying out actions against al-Qaeda in line with U.S. demands. The conflict with Shiite Muslim Houthis in the north has in the past drawn in Saudi Arabia, which last week sent troops to help suppress a Shiite-led uprising in another neighbor, Bahrain.