SANA, Yemen — Armed with guns, knives and swords, supporters of Yemen’s leader trapped U.S., European and Arab ambassadors at a diplomatic mission in new turmoil that swept across the capital Sunday as the president refused to sign an agreement calling for him to step down in 30 days.
Security forces broke up the crowd after several hours of letting them besiege the embassy. But President Ali Abdullah Saleh’s balking at the U.S.- backed deal threatened to wreck hopes for a peaceful resolution to the chaos that has consumed this key Arab nation.
If the mediation collapses, many fear further deterioration of the political situation, including an escalation of armed conflict between Saleh’s loyalists and military units that have joined the opposition.
At nightfall Sunday, tensions were high in Sana, the capital. Pro-government gunmen and soldiers locked down main streets around the capital with roadblocks, while tens of thousands of anti-Saleh demonstrators were massed at their protest camp in a central square.
Saleh refused twice before to sign an agreement. But this past weekend, it appeared he was finally relenting under intense pressure from his allies, the United States and Persian Gulf Arab nations that mediated the accord. The opposition parties signed the accord Saturday, and the president grudgingly promised to sign the following day.
Instead, the mercurial leader showed his determination to cling to the power he has held for 32 years.
His regime unleashed hundreds of armed loyalists into the streets of Sana in an apparently orchestrated campaign to demand that he not step down. They demonstrated outside several embassies and blocked the road in front of the presidential palace, chanting, “We will not permit the president’s ouster.”
The American ambassador, along with the ambassadors of Britain, the European Union, Saudi Arabia and other gulf Arab nations, had gathered at the United Arab Emirates Embassy, waiting to be taken to the presidential palace for the expected signing at noon.
They were besieged by a mob of hundreds of Saleh loyalists, wielding knives, swords and automatic rifles, who blocked the entrances to the mission, trapping the diplomats inside. At one point, they attacked a convoy bringing the chief mediator of the accord, Abdullatif bin Rashid al-Zayani, head of the Gulf Cooperation Council. They pounded on the car as it entered the compound, witnesses said.
Hours later, military helicopters ferried the U.S. envoy and al-Zayani to the presidential palace to witness the signing, witnesses said. Yemeni state TV showed several top figures from Saleh’s ruling party signing the accord as the president and American ambassador, Gerald Feierstein, watched. But Saleh refused to sign the document.
Saleh said later that he would not do so unless opposition leaders come to the palace and sign it in public, not “behind closed doors.”
“If they don’t comply, they are dragging us to a civil war, and they will have to hold responsibility for the bloodshed in the past and the blood which will be spilled later on because of their stupidity,” Saleh warned in an address on state TV.
Afterward, the U.S. ambassador returned to the Emirati mission. Diplomats said that by evening, security forces — who had done nothing to stop the siege throughout the day — dispersed the militiamen and the ambassadors left. U.S. Embassy officials could not be reached for comment.
The opposition appeared to dismiss Saleh’s demands that they participate in a public signing. Yemeni opposition official Abdul-Malak al-Mukhlafi said the mediators from the Gulf Cooperation Council — a grouping of six gulf Arab nations — had set down the details of how the deal was to have been signed and that any change in that process was considered a breach of the agreement.
“This regime is taking the world and its people lightly,” he said. “We ask the international and regional community to pressure the regime and force it to respect the will of the people, and to impose sanctions that will make it respond to the people’s demands.”
