SANAA (Reuters) – Yemen’s president Ali Abdullah Saleh will leave hospital soon, a government source said yesterday, as clashes between his loyalists and opponents flared in the capital he left when protests against his rule turned into open warfare.
The fate of Saleh, forced to seek treatment in Saudi Arabia for injuries suffered in a bomb attack in his palace in June, has thrown the Arab world’s poorest country into a political crisis threatening to tip into civil war.
Political deadlock born of six months of protests against Saleh and renewed conflicts with Islamists and separatists have raised fears in neighbouring Saudi Arabia and Washington that chaos in Yemen could embolden the country’s al Qaeda wing.
Saleh will leave hospital in the coming days, a Yemeni government source told Reuters. But the wounded leader, who has vowed to return to Yemen, will stay on in Riyadh in Saudi government housing for the time being, the source said.
His prime minister, Ali Mohamed Megawar, injured in the same attack, left hospital and moved into official Saudi accommodation earlier yesterday, the source said.
The announcement came as forces loyal to Saleh skirmished with those of the Ahmar family, a power within Yemen’s Hashed tribal confederation, in the capital, witnesses said.
They said the two sides traded fire in the Hassaba district of the capital, where prominent members of the Ahmar family reside. The exchange marked a second day of confrontation in the area, though there were no reports of casualties.
Separately, one protester was killed and three injured in the southern city of Taiz when forces loyal to Saleh opened fire to scatter an anti-Saleh demonstration, witnesses said.
