http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/22/world/middleeast/truce-slows-fighting-in-yemens-capital.html

September 21, 2011

8 Months After First Protests, Yemen Enters Dangerous New Phase

By LAURA KASINOF and ROBERT F. WORTH

SANA, Yemen -- Eight months after the first protesters began calling for revolution in Yemen, the beleaguered country has entered a new round of violence, in which street demonstrators appear to have become little more than sacrificial pawns in a long-term rivalry among members of Yemen's political elite.

A shaky cease-fire largely held on Wednesday, after three days of gun battles and artillery barrages that left dozens of unarmed protesters dead. But the violence appears to have shattered the latest round of diplomatic efforts to ease out Yemen's long-term president, Ali Abdullah Saleh.

That may have been precisely the point. The negotiations appeared to be making progress last week, and foreign diplomats issued statements suggesting that a deal to transfer power was just days away. Then, on Sunday, protesters in Sana, the capital, advanced toward government troops and began throwing rocks -- at whose instigation is not clear -- and the soldiers responded with deadly force.

Five more protesters were killed in scattered violence on Wednesday, including three by snipers and one by a mortar attack.

The bloodshed of recent days threatens to spiral into a wider conflict between the country's most well-armed factions: a powerful tribal clan, a renegade general and the family of Mr. Saleh. Each faction is struggling to impose its will, even as outlying provinces slip further and further from anyone's control. Mr. Saleh, who once deftly balanced (and exploited) the country's divisions, remains in Saudi Arabia recovering from wounds sustained in a bomb attack on his palace compound in June.

"Unfortunately, part of this is a power struggle amongst armed elites that do not have the best interests of Yemen on their minds, but are doing this rather for personal and political gain," said a Western diplomat in Sana, who spoke on condition of anonymity under standard diplomatic protocol.

Mr. Saleh has repeatedly agreed to step down in recent months, only to reverse himself at the last minute, in a pattern that has infuriated his rivals and foreign mediators, and engendered a toxic atmosphere of distrust. In his absence, his son Ahmed Ali Saleh, who commands the highly trained Republican Guard, mostly maintained an uneasy peace with his chief rivals. Those include Hamid al-Ahmar, a telecom billionaire and scion of the country's leading tribal clan, and Gen. Ali Mohsin al-Ahmar (no relation), a powerful general who defected to the opposition in March.

The rivalry between General Ahmar and Mr. Saleh's son runs especially deep. For years, they undermined each others' roles in a war against rebels in Yemen's remote far north, prolonging the conflict and the suffering it caused to hundreds of thousands of noncombatants. The two men are now said to be at odds over their respective roles in any government that emerges after President Saleh's departure.

General Ahmar has been protecting the protesters camped out in a sprawling tent city in Sana since March. For the most part, he -- and the powerful Islamist party with which he has links, known as Islah -- have kept the demonstrators contained in their camps, preventing provocations that would surely lead to violence.

In recent weeks, many protesters, frustrated after months of deadlock and eager to advance their movement, said they wanted to march beyond the area where they had been confined for so long. Initially, General Ahmar and his troops, and the Islamist party protest organizers, prevented such a display.

But on Sunday, the protesters scheduled a march into an area full of gun-toting pro-government thugs. The demonstrators had long made clear that they were willing to die for their cause, and the long sit-in appeared to have deepened their commitment. Martyrdom is glorified in Yemen and the protesters, especially the younger ones, seem to truly feel that they are part of something bigger than themselves when they face deadly attacks.

This time, General Ahmar allowed the marchers to proceed. Many Yemenis question his motives in doing so, and suggest that he may have deliberately provoked a bloody response from government troops so as to make them look like killers, or to derail a settlement that might not be to his advantage.

The general is fully aware that government troops "will respond violently, which will backfire on" the Saleh family, said a high-ranking Yemeni diplomat who spoke on condition of anonymity, fearing reprisals. General Ahmar "knows that there is always a possibility that Ahmed Ali may be able to play a political role in any future agreement," the diplomat said, and would like to damage his rival's reputation before that can take place.

Many other Yemenis say the government, and not General Ahmar, is at fault. Few doubt that the first shots were fired by government troops and plainclothes proxies. General Ahmar's own soldiers came under fire and took over an important intersection in the city. They later lost control of the crossing, but not before more protesters had been killed in the cross-fire.

The backdrop to the violence was a renewed effort to negotiate a transition. Talks between moderates from the ruling party and opposition run for weeks. In another step, Mr. Saleh announced this month that his deputy, acting president Abed Rabbo Mansour al-Hadi, officially had the power to negotiate and sign the transition agreement. Mr. Hadi was said to be in the ruling party's moderate camp, and the announcement fostered optimism.

The head of the Gulf Cooperation Council, Abdul Latif bin Rashid al-Zayani of Bahrain, traveled to Sana on Monday to oversee what was supposed to be an agreement between the two sides on the initiative's implementation. But he left Wednesday without a deal.

Laura Kasinof reported from Sana, and Robert F. Worth from Washington.