Yemen in chaos

Yemen lurched toward civil war this week as tribal forces overran the capital and Islamist militants seized a southern province. After President Ali Abdullah Saleh refused last week to step down, fighters loyal to his main rival, tribal leader Hamid al-Ahmar, began battling government troops in the streets of Sanaa. As dozens of fighters, soldiers, and civilians were killed, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said the conflict would end only when Saleh and his government “move out of the way.”

The same message came from thousands of anti-Saleh protesters camped out in Sanaa’s central square and protected by Gen. Ali Mohsen al-Ahmar, a powerful military leader who defected to the opposition in March. Undeterred, Saleh’s forces attacked unarmed protesters in the city of Taiz with guns and Molotov cocktails, killing at least 50, while Islamist militants took control of the southern coastal province of Abyan. If the fighting is not contained soon, said Yemeni political analyst Abdul-Ghani Al Iryani, “things will escalate into a civil war.”

Saleh’s behavior is “downright bizarre,” said Robert F. Worth and Laura Kasinof in The New York Times. Three times he promised to sign a deal, brokered by the Gulf States, to cede power to his vice president; three times he reneged at the last minute. He still “seems to believe he can outfox his opponents,” even though much of the country is in “open revolt.” Saleh’s intransigence is directly to blame for the chaotic “free-for-all” in Yemen, said the Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, Arab News in an editorial. “Even after 33 years of uninterrupted and absolute power,” Saleh refuses the “dignified and smooth exit” he has been offered. “He is certain to go down—but it seems in the process he will take hundreds, perhaps thousands, with him.”

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“The biggest winner” in a civil war would be al Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula, said The Wall Street Journal. The Yemen-based group has already tried twice to blow up U.S. airplanes. So if Saleh does step aside, we’ll still have to “engage closely on security” with whatever motley combination of forces takes his place. We can’t afford to stand back and watch Yemen “break up and turn into an even bigger terrorist haven.”