Thousands celebrate as Yemen’s wounded leader leaves

Photo/AFP

Anti-government protesters celebrate in Yemen’s second-largest city Taez (Taiz), a flashpoint of anti-regime demonstrations south of the capital Sanaa, on June 5, 2011, as hundreds of people took to the streets to celebrate the departure of long term President Ali Abdullah Saleh, wounded in a blast on Friday, and who left for treatment in Saudi Arabia.

SANAA, Sunday

Yemen’s opposition vowed on Sunday to prevent the return of injured President Ali Abdullah Saleh from a Saudi hospital, as tens of thousands of protesters celebrated despite doubts over who holds power in Sanaa.

“We will work with all our strength to prevent his return,” parliamentary opposition spokesman Mohammed Qahtan told AFP. “We see this as the beginning of the end of this tyrannical and corrupt regime.”

But a spokesman of the rival ruling General People’s Congress (GPC) told Al-Arabiya news channel: “President Saleh will return to Yemen within days.”

Mr Saleh, wounded by an explosion as he prayed at a mosque inside his presidential compound on Friday, was transferred to Saudi Arabia late on Saturday but has not stood down, a Saudi official said.

“President Saleh has arrived in Riyadh for treatment, but he will return to Yemen,” the official said on condition of anonymity.

The president, 69, flew to Riyadh on a Saudi medical aircraft and was immediately taken to a military hospital, while a second plane carried members of his family, he said.

Saleh suffered “burns and scratches to the face and chest,” a Yemeni official said, playing down the extent of his injuries, after the GPC said he was “lightly wounded in the back of the head.”

His regime has blamed the attack on powerful dissident tribal leader Sheikh Sadiq al-Ahmar, whose fighters have been battling government forces in the Yemeni capital since the power transfer plan crumbled last month.

The veteran leader’s eldest son Ahmed, commander of the elite Republican Guard, has remained in Yemen.

The opposition says Ahmed was already preparing to take over from his father before a popular uprising broke out in late January.

Saleh’s sons must be “forced to hand power over to (Vice President) Abdrabuh Mansur Hadi,” who under the constitution replaces the absent Saleh, according to Qahtan.

“We are ready to cooperate with Abdrabuh but the problem is whether his children are ready to hand power over to him,” said Qahtan.

A source close to the presidency told AFP that the vice president and Ahmed Saleh held a top-level meeting with several military officials late on Saturday, without disclosing the outcome of their talks.

Hadi also held met with the US ambassador to Sanaa, Gerald Michael Feierstein, the state news agency Saba reported, to discuss “the importance of cooperation with the (opposition) Common Forum” alliance.

State television, meanwhile, broadcast songs in praise of Saleh.

On the ground, however, tens of thousands took to the streets of the capital Sanaa to celebrate what they said was the end of embattled Saleh’s 33-year-long autocratic rule.

“Today, Yemen is newborn,” sang people who massed in Sanaa’s University Square — dubbed “Change Square” — the epicentre of anti-regime protests that have raged since January.

“This is it, the regime has fallen,” they chanted, as demonstrators slaughtered sheep for a traditional celebration.

In Yemen’s second-largest city Taez, a flashpoint of demonstrations south of Sanaa, hundreds were also out on the streets to celebrate, shouting: “Freedom freedom, Ali has fled.”

Saleh has refused to give up power despite four months of anti-regime protests that have left at least 200 people killed across the country.

His security forces have waged a brutal crackdown, while he has repeatedly refused to sign a plan brokered by the Arab monarchies of the Gulf for a peaceful transfer of power.

Fighting between gunmen, who say they have taken up arms to defend protesters, and Republican Guard troops near a presidential palace in Taez on Sunday left six soldiers and one of the gunmen dead, witnesses said.

(AFP)