Context
Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh has urged the opposition to attend negotiations in Saudi Arabia to end weeks of violence and turmoil which claimed at least three more lives yesterday. Faced with massive protests demanding his ouster, Mr. Saleh accepted the invitation of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) to attend peace talks in Saudi Arabia and asked his opponents to follow suit.
Meanwhile, Yemeni Foreign Minister Abu Bakr al-Qirbi has warned that Al-Qaeda is trying to take advantage of the political turmoil in the country to plan new attacks. He confirmed that a key town near the port of Aden is now under the control of Al-Qaeda-backed insurgents and said that the organization is trying to expand the scope of its operations as the Yemeni government was destabilized by fighting with protestors.
