Yemen leader scraps offer to quit

Yemen’s president, clinging to power despite weeks of protests, has scrapped his offer to step down by the end of the year.

The announcement came as Islamic militants taking advantage of the deteriorating security took control of another southern town.

Opponents of President Ali Abdullah Saleh – a group which started with university students and has expanded to include defecting military commanders, politicians, diplomats and even Mr Saleh’s own tribe – had immediately rejected his offer a week ago to leave by the end of this year.

Its formal withdrawal by the president indicates that an attempt by both sides to negotiate a transfer of power to end the crisis has failed.

In a sign of what is at stake in Yemen if security further unwinds, Islamic militants seized control of a small weapons factory, a strategic mountain and a nearby town in the southern province of Abyan, said a witness and security officials.

A day earlier, militants believed to belong to Yemen’s active al Qaida offshoot swept into another small town in the area called Jaar.

In both cases, the militants moved in with no resistance because police had withdrawn weeks earlier – as they did in several other parts of the country – in the face of challenges by anti-government protesters.

Mr Saleh is a key ally of the United States in battling al Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula, which the Obama administration considers the top terrorist threat to the US

Washington is concerned that the co-operation could be at risk if Mr Saleh steps down, and US diplomats sat in on the political talks last week which failed to make progress on a possible transition of power.

“We have had a lot of counter-terrorism co-operation from President Saleh and Yemeni security services. So if that government collapses or is replaced by one that is dramatically more weak, then I think we’ll face some additional challenges out of Yemen,” said US Defence Secretary Robert Gates on ABC TV’s This Week. “There’s no question about it. It’s a real problem.”

Mr Saleh himself warned in a TV interview on Saturday night that “Yemen is a ticking bomb” and said that without him in power, the country would descend into civil war.

The protesters behind weeks of demonstrations are demanding Mr Saleh step down immediately and want a ban on future government positions for him and his family. For 32 years he has ruled over Yemen, an impoverished and deeply divided country stitched together by fragile tribal alliances.

Yemen is the poorest nation in the Arab world, is rapidly running out of water resources and oil and is buffeted by conflicts that include an on-and-off rebellion in the north and a secessionist movement in the south.