Yemen's president Ali Abdullah Saleh, lies in a hospital bed in neighboring Saudi Arabia, "severely burned", US officials say, "hit with shrapnel in an attack on his presidential palace." With Yemen spiraling into chaos, Secretary of State, Hilary Clinton issues a veiled warning to president Saleh: don’t go back.
"We think an immediate transition is in the best interests of the Yemeni people, because the instability and lack of security currently afflicting Yemen can not be addressed until there is some process that everyone knows is going to lead to the sort of economic and political reforms that they are seeking."
The US has been working with Saudi Arabia which bankrolls Yemen to press Saleh to step down. Yemen’s protests, fueled by desperation over economy and life support, have been overtaken by tribal and political conflict and Al Qaida’s most dangerous wing is exploiting that.
"I think the potential for things to go wrong in Yemen are severe."
Mid-east expert, Christopher Boucek, says Saleh’s downfall could be imminent.
"I cannot think the president Saleh is going back to Yemen to be president. The regime still maintains that he will return and they say he is gonna return, you know, within days, if not, weeks, but there is really no option I see for how he can go back and still be president."
Saleh has been an ally of the US in his counterterrorism fight against Al Qaida. Just this past January, Secretary Clinton made a surprised visit to Yemen to meet with him. "His fate", says a former state department official, "presents a real dilemma for the Obama administration."
"As the Arab Spring has happened and people have looked at democratic change, we've all talked about the time in which our principles, our ideal of democracy, will run up against our national security interests. This is the place where that probably happens most clearly."
A US official telled cnn, this unrest already is making it more difficult for US anti-terrorism efforts in Yemen. Al Qaida's official said, "even before the unrest began, had free reign in several parts of Yemen and probably right now it has even more free reign." A crucial role that the Yemeni government played was in the collection of the information about AQAP, and the fear right now is that collection of information could slow or stop.
Jill Dougherty, cnn, the State Department.
