'US, Saudis lead Yemen to civil war'

Yemeni anti-government protesters (file photo)

Source: Press TV
http://www.presstv.ir/detail/171310.html

A former Pentagon official predicts that a civil war may break out in Yemen as a result of US and Saudi efforts to support the country's dictatorial regime to keep it in power.

“We're headed for a civil war in Yemen … As long as the US and Saudi Arabia is backing the president, he's going to feel emboldened to continue on,” Michael Malouf told Press TV.

Malouf noted that from the US and Saudi standpoint, Yemen “is a very strategic area and they will try to help him (Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh) as much as possible to hang on.”

That is why Washington and Riyadh do not call for the removal of the “autocrats” in troubled Yemen, the former Pentagon official opined.

However, he warned that “the longer Saleh stays on, the intensity of the conflict is going to grow internally” and that will result in a civil war in the crisis-hit country.

Saleh has been in office for more than three decades, with several opposition members arguing that his long-promised political and economic reforms have not materialized.

Inspired by the revolutions in Tunisia and Egypt, anti-government protests began to sweep Yemen in January.

More than 50 people have so far been killed and scores of others wounded during armed attacks by Saleh loyalists since the beginning of the popular revolution in January.