Thaindian News

Washington, Apr. 8 (ANI): A classified U.S. diplomatic cable leaked by the whistle blowing web site WikiLeaks has revealed a secret plan to overthrow Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh two years ago.

According to the cable, a billionaire Yemeni sheikh, Hamid al-Ahmar, met with an American official and vowed to trigger a revolt if the autocratic Saleh did not guarantee fair parliamentary elections in 2011.

Today, Saleh is barely clinging to power amid a popular uprising in Yemen that is unfolding more or less along the lines that Ahmar predicted, the Washington Post reports.

Several previously undisclosed U.S. diplomatic cables, provided by the anti-secrecy site WikiLeaks, show that influential Yemenis and U.S. allies repeatedly warned U.S. diplomats of Saleh’s growing weakness in 2009 and 2010. But despite those warnings, the Obama administration continued to embrace Saleh and became increasingly dependent on him to combat an al-Qaeda affiliate that was plotting attacks against the United States from the Arabian Peninsula.

Ahmar is said to have told the U.S. official in August 2009 that his scheme would hinge on persuading a powerful Yemeni general, Ali Mohsen al-Ahmar (no direct relation) to abandon the president and join the opposition.

Last month, the general did just that, with Hamid al-Ahmar, now considered a potential presidential candidate, playing a key behind-the-scenes role.

Since January, spontaneous public revolts have seized the Arab world, sweeping aside autocrats in Tunisia and Egypt while threatening others in Libya, Bahrain and Syria.

The classified cables from the embassy in Sanaa, however, make clear that Yemen’s revolution was different: It was plotted and predicted long in advance. (ANI)