Saudi- Saleh sabotaging transition deal, says his archrival 

(MENAFN - Arab News) A dissident Yemeni general said Monday that President Ali Abdullah Saleh wants to sabotage the Gulf-sponsored political transition plan that calls for him to formally resign in February.

The president intends "to overthrow the Gulf initiative and its implementation plan," said a statement from dissident Gen. Ali Mohsen Al-Ahmar, one of Saleh's archrivals who defected from the army earlier this year in support of the mass protest movement demanding Saleh's ouster.

The proof is in the "continued bolstering of military units loyal to Saleh," the statement said noting the "refusal" by pro-Saleh troops to withdraw from the streets of Sanaa despite orders from the newly formed military commission created to restore order on the streets of the capital.

Residents in Sanaa said pro-Saleh snipers remain perched on rooftops and government troops in the volatile Hasaba district are still engaged in intermittent battles with tribal forces.

On Sunday, residents said the army fired shells near the home of the powerful tribal Shiekh Hemyar Al-Ahmar, another Saleh opponent.

The latest clashes prevented the further dismantling of military barricades and checkpoints from Sanaa's streets, a clause in the Gulf plan intended to end the violence that since January has left hundreds dead and thousands more wounded.

In a statement published by Yemen's official news agency over the weekend, Saleh said he would "not allow the collapse of state institutions," in response to an increased number of protests within government institutions designed to unseat Saleh loyalists that continue to hold key positions.

Meanwhile, a Yemeni security official said armed guards trying to break up a strike at a government office have killed one of the protesting workers.

Employees of the Central Agency for Control and Audit in the southern province of Aden are among civil servants holding strikes nationwide to demand the removal of corrupt officials and loyalists of the outgoing president.

The unrest from within government agencies presents a new threat to the Saleh regime. The official said the employee of the auditing agency was killed Monday.

In a separate development, a French journalist was found strangled with an electrical wire in his hotel room in Sanaa on Monday, security officials said.

The dead man was tied to the bed when his body was discovered. The security officials declined to identify him or given any motive for the killing.

The hotel, Al-Maali, is near the presidential palace in an area controlled by Yemen's Republican Guard, an elite force commanded by Saleh's son. A hotel worker, who did not want to be named because he feared reprisals, said the victim checked into the hotel about five days ago.