In Yemen, Monday began with what appeared to be an attempted coup by the president's kinsman, General Ali Muhsin al-Ahmar who announced that he was siding with the protesters – and tanks duly appeared on the streets of Sana'a.

Since Ali Muhsin is the person Yemenis (including President Salih) probably fear the most and is a prime example of all that is wrong with the regime, his decision to support the popular struggle was a mixed blessing. Meanwhile, troops loyal to Ahmed Salih, the president's son, took up positions around the palace – apparently to protect Salih from Ali Muhsin's forces.

During the course of the day, large numbers of military officers, officials and Yemeni diplomats based abroad – having seen which way the wind was blowing – jumped ship and withdrew their support from Salih.

However, a Yemeni diplomat in Washington later told al-Jazeerathis did not necessarily mean they were joining the opposition:

"What's going on in Yemen is not about opposition parties. It's about those young people in the university, militants, and a lot of people so the opposition is not the one who's leading this. It's a national movement, it's everybody protesting and we've joined that.

"I'm still in my office, I'm doing my job because we're serving the Yemeni people. Yes, we are representing the government but at the same time we're representing Yemeni people. The government of Yemen changes from time to time but the diplomatic corps are still there." 

Despite all that, defence minister Mohammed Nasser Ahmed (who had been formally dismissed by Salih along with the rest of the government at the weekend) claimed that the military remained loyal to the president. 

The foreign minister also made a hasty trip to Saudi Arabia, carrying a letter from Salih.

It is unclear at present whether Salih is still seeking to cling on or trying to negotiate a dignified departure with an orderly transition. Either way, the Saudis seem to be heavily involved behind the scenes and perhaps acting partly on behalf of the United States.

This may be the reason why Salih is not gone already: there are hints that the Saudis may want him to stay, while the US – if not actually wanting to keep him in power – is worried about the future without him. There are still those in the US who regard Salih as an important ally against al-Qaeda, not fully appreciating that he is a very tricky customer, as the WikiLeaks documents demonstrated (here and here).

This morning, al-Jazeera is reporting that its offices in Sana'a were attacked by gunmen who fled with some equipment.

There are also posts on Twitter saying that a deal has been reached overnight between Ali Muhsin and the president. At the time of writing there is no indication as to the nature of this deal.

Posted by Brian Whitaker, 22 March 2011