The Christian Science Monitor is reporting: “Yemen slipped closer to a full-blown civil war today as opposition tribesmen attacked the compound of President Ali Abdullah Saleh for the first time. While the president appears to have narrowly escaped serious injury, the escalating fighting represents an unprecedented challenge to his 32-year rule.”

ABDUL GHANI AL-ERYANI, agiryani at gmail.com
LARA ARYANI, lara.aryani at gmail.com
Al-Eryani is a founding member of the Democratic Awakening Movement. Aryani (they are father and daughter) is a lawyer based in New York City. She just wrote a piece titled “Crafting Chaos: Presidential Games and Yemen’s Escalating Violence” for Jadaliyya.com.

Aryani said today that while the pro-democracy movement has been lead by peaceful protesters with a great deal of youth activism, other elite factions are now using the rhetoric of the protesters but have different goals. She states that these elite factions, allied with various political players and tribal leaders, are likely responsible for the attack on the presidential palace.

Al-Eryani gives some credit to the U.S. for apparently pushing for a political settlement, but asserts that U.S. weapons supposedly slated to fight terrorist groups have been used by Saleh against his political opponents. Al-Eryani also states: “Saleh has not been doing state building. He’s had a war in the north, political crisis in the south and many problems in between to keep his opponents off balance. He makes himself appear indispensable, which is a typical practice of dictators. Most recently, he handed over an area to violent extremists — who some have claimed to be Al-Qaeda, but are actually allied with the Saleh regime — to pretend that he is fighting terrorists.”

For more information, contact at the Institute for Public Accuracy:
Sam Husseini, (202) 421-6858; or David Zupan, (541) 484-9167