Yemeni President Says US and Israel Behind Unrest

Yemeni president says US and Israel behind unrest

SANAA, Yemen -- Yemen's embattled president on Tuesday accused the U.S., his closest ally, of instigating the mounting protests against him, but the gambit failed to slow the momentum for his ouster.
Hundreds of thousands rallied in cities across Yemen in the largest anti-government protests of the past month, including a gathering addressed by an influential firebrand cleric whom the U.S. has linked to al-Qaida. "Go on until you achieve your demands," Sheik Abdul-Majid al-Zindani told tens of thousands of demonstrators in the capital of Sanaa.
Some warned that the current political turmoil and possible collapse of President Ali Abdullah Saleh's regime could give a further opening to Yemen's offshoot of the global terror network, known as al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula. The Yemen branch, believed to have been involved in the attempted 2009 bombing of an American airliner, is seen as particularly active and threatening to the U.S.
Saleh has been a weak but important U.S. ally in the fight against al-Qaida. Yemen gets U..S. military aid and has allowed American drone strikes on al-Qaida targets. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton visited Yemen in January and urged Saleh to do more.
However, on Tuesday, Saleh seemed to be turning on Washington. In a speech to about 500 students and lecturers at Sanaa University, he claimed the U.S., along with Israel, is behind the protest movement.
"I am going to reveal a secret," he said. "There is an operations room in Tel Aviv with the aim of destabilizing the Arab world. The operations room is in Tel Aviv and run by the White House."
Saleh also alleged that opposition figures meet regularly with the U.S. ambassador in Sanaa. "Regrettably those (opposition figures) are sitting day and night with the American ambassador where they hand him reports and he gives them instructions," Saleh said.
The Obama administration rejected the claims. White House spokesman Jay Carney called on Saleh to focus on implementing the political reforms demanded by his people instead of "scapegoating."
Saleh's relationship with the U.S. has been ambivalent, and he has at times attempted to play down his military alliance with Washington. Anti-U.S. sentiment remains strong in Yemen, as elsewhere in the region, and Saleh's comments appeared to be an attempt to discredit the protesters by suggesting they are serving foreign interests.
"Part of this is putting blame on others, part of it is trying to manage the situation," said Christopher Boucek, an analyst at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, a U.S. think tank. "He (Saleh) does not want to feed into grievances that gave rise to the opposition against him, such as being too close to the U.S."


Read more: http://www.miamiherald.com/2011/03/01/2091887/yemeni-president-says-us-and-israe...

Read more: http://www.miamiherald.com/2011/03/01/2091887/yemeni-president-says-us-and-israe...