While calls for secession have been heard, a primary force driving recurrent waves of disturbances in the south and elsewhere in recent months appears to be the poor economic management of Saleh's General People's Congress (GPC) and discontent at its untrammeled domination of the governance system.
Public sector and military employment is a fulcrum for southern protests because the security services constitute the largest single employer in a country in which up to 40 percent of the population live in poverty and unemployment stands at anywhere between 20-40 percent.
The analyst who requested anonymity explained that, "What is sparking them [the protests] is part of a much larger grievance against the regime. And what you are starting to see now is an increasingly common narrative between what is going on in the south and what's going on in the north [al-Houthi rebellion].
"At their heart, these demonstrations are about the inability of the government to provide basic services that include most of the people in the decision-making," she said, adding that the wave of southern protests is "building" and looks set to increase in "seriousness."
[ ... ]
The US has ordered all non-essential diplomatic staff to leave the country and has issued a travel warning for its citizens following a mortar attack on its Sana'a embassy compound on 18 March. According to a government official the main suspect in the bombing is al-Qaida militant Hamza al-Dayan.
Al-Qaida in Yemen has stepped up its attacks on government targets and foreign interests and nationals in recent months, conducting a series of audacious assaults that appear to confirm the severing of the long-rumored relationship with the Saleh government – which reputedly enjoyed a modus vivendi with the old al-Qaida leadership.
Stracke explained that US assassination strikes against al-Qaida leaders in the wake of the 2001 USS Cole attack in Aden harbor, and a related government crackdown on the group, led to a period of relative quiet from 2004-2005.
"This changed in 2006 when 23 [jihadi] prisoners escaped. And among them was the leader of the new Yemen al-Qaida group, Nasir al-Wuhayshi," she said.
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