President-for-Life Ali Abdullah Saleh... Saleh initially took power as a strongman of North Yemen in 1977, when disco was in flower, after serving as a lieutenant colonel in the army. He had been part of the conspiracy that bumped off his predecessor, Ibrahim al-Hamdi, in the usual tiresome military coup, and he has maintained power by keeping Yemen's many tribes fighting with each other, rather than uniting to string him up. ...
's comments marked his harshest public criticism yet of the U.S., a key ally. Tuesday's speech at Sanaa University appeared part of his effort to blunt growing calls for his ouster. He claimed that "there is an operations room in Tel Aviv with the aim of destabilizing the Arab world" and that it is "run by the White House."
An hour after his speech, tens of thousands of protesters marched to the university, joined for the first time by opposition parties. Sheik Abdul-Majid al-Zindani, considered by the U.S. to be linked to the al-Qaeda terror network, was present at the gathering.