Yemen’s Saleh ‘in Saudi Arabia’

President Saleh had promised to step down but failed to sign a deal to do so

Yemen’s President Ali Abdullah Saleh has flown to Saudi Arabia for medical treatment, a day after he was wounded, Saudi officials say.

Uncertainty surrounded Mr Saleh’s whereabouts for much of Saturday.

Sources in Yemen told the BBC that Mr Saleh had a piece of shrapnel below his heart and second-degree burns to his chest and face.

An uprising demanding that Mr Saleh leave power has led to violence bringing Yemen close to civil war.

The Yemeni president arrived in the Saudi capital Riyadh aboard a Saudi medical plane.

A Gulf nation diplomatic source told BBC Arabic that the decision to transfer Mr Saleh to Riyadh was taken after Saudi doctors consulted with a German medical team.

A source told Reuters news agency that Mr Saleh walked off the plane after arriving in Riyadh, but had visible wounds to his face, neck and head.

A second plane carried members of the president’s family, AFP news agency said, quoting an unnamed Saudi official.

Mr Saleh and several senior officials were praying at the al-Nahdayn mosque inside the presidential compound in the south of Sanaa on Friday afternoon at the time of the attack.

The mosque was originally thought to have been hit by rockets, but there are now suggestions someone may have planted a bomb there.

The attack on the mosque left seven of Mr Saleh’s bodyguards dead and several officials wounded

The president broadcast an audio message on Friday after he was wounded but did not appeared in public.

In the broadcast, he blamed the attack on an “outlaw gang” of his tribal foes – an accusation denied by Sheikh Sadeq al-Ahmar, the head of the Hashid tribal federation, whose fighters have been clashing with security forces.

More than 160 people have been killed in the fighting that began on 23 May and has brought Yemen to the brink of civil war.

After reports of a Saudi-brokered ceasefire, Sanaa was calm for much of Saturday.

But overnight fighting resumed, with the sounds of heavy shelling in the northern parts of the capital, freelance journalist Iona Craig, in Sanaa, told the BBC.

The prominent Ahmar family has been financing the opposition and helping sustain protesters, who have been demanding Mr Saleh’s resignation since January despite a crackdown that has left at least 350 people dead.

Western and regional powers have been urging Mr Saleh to sign a Gulf Co-operation Council-brokered deal that would see him hand over power to his deputy in return for an amnesty from prosecution.

He has agreed to sign on several occasions, but then backed out.

With Mr Saleh out of the country, it is not clear who is in charge. The constitution calls for the vice president, Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi, to take over, including command of the armed forces and security services.

But Mr Saleh’s son Ahmed commands the elite Republican Guard and other relatives control security and intelligence units.

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