Yemen's Hijacked Revolution

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Last week in Yemen, in the worst bloodshed since anti-government rallies began in January, attacks by government security forces against peaceful protesters devolved into armed clashes in the heart of the capital. Although the spasm of violence looked like the latest case of a brutal government suppressing demonstrators as part of the Arab Spring, it was propelled by an internal power struggle that had percolated for several years -- and that took a complicated new twist with the surprise return of the country's wounded president on Friday.

A popular uprising has indeed gripped Yemen for months now, but the movement has been hijacked by three elite factions vying for control of the government. President Ali Abdullah Saleh's impromptu return may simply harden the battle lines, plunging the country into civil war. Since arriving in Sanaa, the president has continued to sidestep accelerating international demands for his immediate resignation and has accused his opponents of supporting al Qaeda.

Initially inspired by revolts in Tunisia and Egypt, students and other protesters began taking to the streets in cities across Yemen in January. They demanded greater democratic freedoms, an end to corruption and poverty, and the resignation of Saleh, who has ruled Yemen for 33 years. They are the public faces of the movement -- and they are also the primary victims of the violence the government has unleashed in response. State security forces and pro-government assailants have killed at least 225 protesters and bystanders during largely peaceful demonstrations, with dozens left dead in recent days alone.

Had influential governments such as the United States, the United Kingdom, and Saudi Arabia moved swiftly, they might have pressured Saleh to heed the protesters' calls. Instead, the international community dithered as Saleh feigned interest in a deal to step down from power. By June, when Saleh was badly wounded by an assassination attempt and fled to Saudi Arabia for medical treatment, the world's attention was already turning to uprisings in Libya, Syria, Bahrain, and elsewhere. Yemen's pro-democracy protests became overshadowed by a power play among the three top contenders to run the country: General Ali Muhsin al-Ahmar, a renegade army commander who was once the president's confidant; Hamid al-Ahmar (no relation), a billionaire entrepreneur from the prominent Hashid tribe; and Saleh's eldest son, Ahmed, who leads the elite Republican Guard.

General al-Ahmar and Hamid al-Ahmar threw their weight behind the protest movement early on: the general with his soldiers, and the businessman, by many media accounts, with his wallet. Yet it should be said that both men are entrenched in the very power structure that the protesters hope to uproot. Fending them off during the president's nearly four-month convalescence in Riyadh was Ahmed Saleh, whose Republican Guard has led many of the attacks on largely peaceful protesters. The onetime heir apparent to his father, Ahmed Saleh is an old rival of General al-Ahmar.

This internecine battle of the elites has not just displaced the grassroots coalition of young people and activists whose demonstrations first put pressure on Saleh; it has also sidelined Yemen's weak but functional political parties and parliament, as well as its resilient civil-society movement -- all of which are potential building blocks for a new, democratic Yemen. And the infighting has further challenged central authority in a country where the writ of law already runs shallow and al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula has found safe haven.

General al-Ahmar, who is related by marriage to the president, helped Saleh win a 1994 civil war against southern Yemen before leading the government's brutal six-year war, which began a decade later, against the Huthis, a Shia rebel group in the north. It was during the latter campaign that he developed a rivalry with Ahmed Saleh, who was already eyeing the presidency.

According to a U.S. Embassy cable released by Wikileaks, Yemeni generals in 2009 told their Saudi counterparts who had joined the fight against the Huthis to bomb a site that turned out to be General al-Ahmar's base. But the Saudi pilots became suspicious and aborted the strike. (It is widely believed that the general, along with his rivals in the Ahmar clan, are clients of Saudi Arabia, which wields vast influence in Yemen.)

General al-Ahmar defected to the anti-Saleh movement with his powerful First Armored Division in March, after pro-government snipers fired on a peaceful protest in Sanaa, killing at least 49 people. The general said he left to protest the bloodbath, but critics viewed the move as opportunistic. Since then, his soldiers have ringed the demonstrators' camp at "Change Square" outside Sanaa university to protect the protesters from attacks by the Republican Guard and Central Security, a paramilitary force led by the president's nephew, General Yahya Mohammed Abdullah Saleh.

For months, General al-Ahmar limited the role of his First Armored Division to protecting the protesters, but that changed September 18, when security forces again attacked demonstrators who, increasingly frustrated by months of political impasse, tried to march beyond their protected sit-in area. Witnesses said Central Security forces hosed the marchers with sewage, the marchers threw rocks in return, and security forces and snipers responded with gunfire. The attacks spawned street fights, and soon both the general's soldiers and the tribal fighters of the al-Ahmar clan were battling government forces, including Ahmed Saleh's Republican Guard.