But others in the ruling party consider Mohsen a hero, viewing his decision to join the protesters as a watershed moment.
“I strongly believe Ali Mohsen has put himself in the right side of history where he has taken the side of the people to see a safe transfer of power,” said Mohammed Abu Lahoum, a senior ruling party official and a respected leader in Yemen’s largest tribal confederation. “The step that Ali Mohsen took should be an encouragement to the president and others. Betting against the people, you will always lose.”
Over the past three decades, at practically every big moment in Yemen, Mohsen backed Saleh. As young soldiers, they were in the same tank regiment. In 1978, Saleh rose to power in what was then North Yemen with the help of Mohsen, whose forces also prevented an attempted coup against Saleh a few months later.
U.S. officials and analysts allege that Mohsen helped recruit jihadists to fight with Bin Laden in Afghanistan during the Soviet occupation. He later allegedly helped Bin Laden resettle Arab jihadists in Yemen.After North and South Yemen unified in 1990, Mohsen was instrumental in the north’s victory in the 1994 civil war, a conflict in which he deployed Arab jihadists to fight on Saleh’s behalf in the south. He is regarded in Yemen as a close ally of neighboring Saudi Arabia, which has long feared that Yemen’s instability could affect its national security.
In a 2005 diplomatic cable released by WikiLeaks last week, Thomas Krajeski, then U.S. ambassador to Yemen, wrote that Mohsen was known to follow an ultraconservative brand of Sunni Islam known as Salafism and “to support a more radical Islamic political agenda than Saleh.”
Although he is officially only commander of Yemen’s northwest region, Mohsen became more powerful than any governor; he is believed to control more than 50 percent of Yemen’s military resources and assets. In stark contrast to Saleh, whose portrait hangs everywhere in the country, Mohsen is secretive. His name, wrote Krajeski, is “mentioned in hushed tones among most Yemenis, and he rarely appears in public. Those that know him say he is charming and gregarious.”
“Ali Mohsen acts as Saleh’s iron fist,” Krajeski added.
But even as he depended on Mohsen’s loyalty, Saleh viewed him as a rival.
According to analysts and diplomats, Saleh never allowed Mohsen to have a public face or interact closely with U.S. and other Western diplomats.
He also sought to weaken Mohsen by keeping him occupied in fighting six wars against northern Houthi rebels in Saada Province over the last decade.
Ahmed Mohamed Ali Othman, a political analyst and opposition figure who knows both men, said he believed that Mohsen had joined the protesters as a last resort “because he knew Saleh wanted to get rid of him.’’
But others say it remains unclear what Mohsen hopes to gain by his defection. Sufi, Saleh’s spokesman, said Mohsen had close ties to Yemen’s Muslim Brotherhood, the political arm of Islah — Yemen’s most organized Islamist opposition party, which many predict could wield great power in a post-Saleh country — and that he may have been acting in its interests.
Many say that Mohsen seized an opportunity to at once exact revenge and distance himself from his former partner.
While opposition leaders have welcomed Mohsen’s decision, many remain wary of his checkered past and alleged corruption. In interviews, many protesters at Change Square, the epicenter of the populist rebellion, said they appreciated Mohsen’s support, but also viewed him as a big part of the current regime, of why they needed a new Yemen.
“We need a civilian government running the country,” said Mosab Qirshee, 23, a student. “We don’t want Ali Mohsen to lead us next.”
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