Yemen’s military is currently undergoing restructuring in an attempt to curb the power of the son of a former president, Ahmed Ali Abdullah Saleh. Saleh currently holds the position of Brigadier General in the Yemeni army. According to Yemen state media ,Saba, Monday, the current President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi issued decrees which transfer the command of some of the Republican Guard units to a newly created Presidential Protective Forces led directly by the President himself. The presidential decree also incorporates dissident army units, previously broken away from Saleh’s forces after the protests last year intensified, into the newly created PPF and other regional commands. Many of Saleh’s elite Republican Guards were placed under different regional commands, an obvious attempt to decentralise power away from Saleh by scattering soldiers loyal to him. Since Hadi came to power in an uncontested election, he has been making attempts to remove Saleh loyalists from the army in order to bring unity to their ranks. In April Hadi managed to remove 20 Saleh loyalist commanders, including members of Saleh’s family.
