SANAA: President Ali Abdullah was slightly wounded when shells struck his palace in Sanaa on Friday, a Western diplomat said, as Yemen slid toward civil war.
The attack targeting Saleh in a mosque located in the presidential palace killed an imam and three presidential guards, Yemen’s state news agency said on Friday.
Fierce fighting engulfed the Yemeni capital, where residents cowered in their homes and explosions rocked the city.
The senior diplomat in Sanaa said the prime minister, his deputy, the parliament speaker and other senior aides had been wounded in the attack. Four guards were reported killed.
"The president is well and he will address the people in one hour, there are some slight injuries among officials," Abdu Al-Janadi, deputy information minister, told Reuters.
The government blamed the shelling on Hashed tribesmen led by Sadeq Al-Ahmar, whose family has backed protesters demanding Saleh’s overthrow. Ahmar later denied responsibility and blamed Saleh for the attack, saying it was done to help justify a government escalation of street fighting in the capital.
Suspicion has also fallen on renegade General Ali Mohsen, who defected to the opposition in April and who sent his troops to the capital to protect anti-Saleh demonstrators.
A Yemeni opposition TV station, Suhail, reported earlier that Saleh had died in shelling that hit the palace mosque.
Forces loyal to Saleh later shelled the homes of the leaders of the Hashed tribal federation, security sources said.
Yemen has tipped swiftly towards civil war this week, with Hashed tribesmen battling Saleh forces in Sanaa and elsewhere. More than 370 people have been killed, at least 155 of them in the last 10 days, since a popular uprising began in January against Saleh’s nearly 33 years in power.
Defying world pressure, Saleh has thrice reneged on a deal brokered by Gulf states for him to quit in return for immunity from prosecution, even as he hemorrhages support at home.
Ceasefire call
The secretary-general of the Saudi-led Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) urged all parties in Yemen to end the fighting.
"The ministerial council of the GCC is following with concern and sadness the deteriorating situation and the continued fighting. This situation is regrettable and benefits no one," Abdulattif Al-Zayani told Al Arabiya television.
By clinging stubbornly to power, Saleh has exasperated his former US and Saudi allies who had once seen him as a key partner in efforts to combat Al-Qaeda’s ambitious Yemen-based wing, known as Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP).
Yemen’s increasingly bloody struggle looks sure to go on as long as Saleh refuses to step down and it will complicate the already formidable challenge of uniting the country and rebuilding shattered state institutions in any post-Saleh era.
Instability in Yemen could threaten regional security and possibly global oil supplies due to its proximity to the world’s largest oil exporter, Saudi Arabia, and vital shipping lanes.
"The dangers a collapsed Yemen poses for the region are too horrendous to contemplate," said Ghanem Nuseibeh, founder of Cornerstone Global Associates and senior analyst at Political Capital. "Although the border with Saudi Arabia is more secure than in recent years, it is still a relatively porous border.
"The consequences will be on the security front, as well as economic. AQAP in particular will find comfort in a failed Yemen, and threaten the rest of the GCC and (this) will have implications for piracy across the Gulf of Aden," he said.
Before the attack on the palace, protesters paraded the coffins of 50 people it said were killed by Saleh’s forces.
Heavy fighting spread for the first time to southern Sanaa, held by Saleh loyalists fighting disaffected military units and tribesmen in the north. Thousands of civilians have fled.
Taiz violence
Explosions were also heard in the southern city of Taiz, where the United Nations has said it is investigating reports that 50 people have been killed since Sunday.
Two policemen were killed in a rocket-propelled grenade attack, medical officials said, after security forces fired warning shot earlier at protesters gathering for Friday prayers.
The bloodshed has eclipsed a mostly peaceful pro-democracy movement inspired by successful revolts in Egypt and Tunisia.
Yemen is engulfed in multiple conflicts, with street battles between tribal groups and Saleh’s forces in Sanaa, popular unrest across the country and fighting against AQAP and other Islamist militants who seized the coastal city of Zinjibar.
One constant factor is Yemen’s crippling poverty. Jobs and food are scarce, corruption is rampant and two-fifths of the 23 million people struggle to live on less than $2 a day.
"Economic migrants will also pose a challenge for the region. We are getting very close to an irreversible situation," Nuseibeh said. Tribes might start fighting among themselves, especially those close to the Saudis and those which are not.
"The danger is that this civil war is not along north-south lines but more internalized, within regions. When the conflict turns tribal, as well as nationalistic along the former north-south borders, it becomes very difficult to stop." –Additional reporting by Mohammed Mukhashaf in Aden, Khaled Al-Mahdi in Taiz, Mahmoud Habboush in Dubai and Samia Nakhoul in London
