Anit-government protestors reach to catch a youth, after throwing him in to the air while celebrating President Ali Abdullah Saleh's departure to Saudi Arabia, in Sanaa, Yemen, June 6, 2011.Hani Mohammed/AP
Thousands of young Yemenis are again demonstrating in the streets of Sanaa, this time insisting that President Ali Abdulla Saleh not be allowed to return, and that a transitional council be established to run the country. But Yemen's interim leader, Vice-President Abdu-Rabbu Mansour Hadi, is holding firm - nothing happens until the President gets back.
"We will remain in front of the residence of the vice-president for 24 hours to pressure him for the formation of a transitional council," youth activist Omar al-Qudsi told Reuters.
"We will not sleep, we will not sit until the council is formed," the protesters chanted. They carried banners saying "Our Revolution Is Yemeni, Not Gulf Or American."
Mr. Saleh remains in Saudi Arabia being treated for wounds sustained in a blast Friday in his personal mosque.
Reports from Washington, quoting U.S. intelligence sources, said Mr. Saleh was suffering from burns over 40 per cent of his body. Some reports added that he also had bleeding inside his skull, others said a lung had collapsed. All the reports suggested it would be a very long time, if ever, before the President returns.
Saudi officials and spokesmen for Mr. Saleh, however, insist he'll be home within two weeks and still in command.
There's good reason why Saudi Arabia wants events to unfold this way. They want to avoid any suggestion that popular uprisings can unseat long-term leaders in the region.
That's why they shore up the ruling Khalifa family in Bahrain, why they support Jordan's King Abdullah and Morocco's King Mohammed. It explains why they even support Syria's Bashar al-Assad, and especially why they have tried so hard to negotiate a peaceful transfer of power in Yemen.
Riyadh has accepted the idea that Mr. Saleh must go, "as long as this is perceived not as the fruit of popular pressure, but a smooth power transition within the framework of its own Gulf Co-operation Council proposal," says Soumaya Ghannoushi, a researcher at the School of Oriental and African Studies in London.
Riyadh does not want another Arab autocrat airlifted out of the country the way Egypt's Hosni Mubarak fled from Cairo, lest this lead to ideas inside Saudi Arabia itself.
Furthermore, if anything were to happen to Mr. Saleh - unseating him from power, for example - while he's under Saudi care, the ruling House of Saud would lose tremendous face.
That hasn't stopped some parties from pushing for just that. British Foreign Secretary William Hague said on Tuesday: "The situation in Yemen is extremely uncertain following President Saleh's departure to Saudi Arabia … We urge the Vice-President to work closely with all sides to implement the Gulf Co-operation Council Agreement and to begin political transition now."
Outside the capital, the Yemeni army said it had killed dozens of Islamist militants, including a local al-Qaeda leader in the southern town of Zinjibar. A local official said 15 soldiers had been killed in the battles for control of the town seized by militants some 10 days ago.
Reports described Zinjibar, once home to more than 50,000 people, as a ghost town without power or running water.
Fighting also flared again in the city of Taiz, south of Sanaa, where anti-government gunmen have clashed sporadically with troops in the past few days.
For its part, the United States wants Mr. Saleh gone from office and the sooner the better. Mr. Saleh, who has ruled Yemen since midway through the Jimmy Carter presidency, was the beneficiary of tremendous U.S. support, mostly military. Having now seen its client exposed in all his despotic glory does not put Washington in a favourable light.
The Obama administration announced Tuesday it had suspended all training of Yemeni military personnel.
Washington seems to have its sights set on Hamid al-Ahmar becoming Yemen's next leader. The billionaire politician is considered the leader of the al-Ahmar clan and benefits from the support of the thousands of fighters in the Hashid tribal confederation.
Observers and democratic activists, however, view Mr. al-Ahmar as just as corrupt and dictatorial as Mr. Saleh.
Furthermore, if the GCC initiative is adopted, the presidency will be diminished in power, becoming more of an appointed, ceremonial role, and the elected prime minister will have the real clout, though be more constrained in what he can do.
"I don't see al-Ahmar in such a neutered role," said Abdel-Ghani Iryani, co-founder of the Democratic Awakening Movement. "He would have to be the boss, nothing less."