Yemen's president, in hospital in Riyadh, will not cede power until he returns to oversee a transition, a Yemeni cabinet official said on Sunday, extending a period of political limbo. The fractious Arabian Peninsula state has been paralysed by six-months of mass protests against President Ali Abdullah Saleh's three-decade rule.
After surviving an assassination attempt last month, Saleh went to Saudi Arabia for treatment. As Saleh clings to power and the political impasse drags on, the southern Abyan province has descended into violence with militants suspected of ties to al Qaeda seizing two cities.
The cabinet official visiting the president on Sunday told Reuters Saleh planned to support a Gulf Arab transition plan that has already collapsed three times when the president backed out of signing at the last minute.
Opposition groups and the hundreds of thousands protesting across Yemen want an immediate change in government, which Vice President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi has run in Saleh's absence.
A military base just outside the militant-controlled provincial capital of Zinjibar said it has been under siege for more than a month. It appealed on Sunday for help from the state, which has yet to send reinforcements.
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