US seeks to punish Opponents of Yemeni President

The White House has issued an executive order meant to impose a freeze on the assets of Yemeni political figures who ‘seek to impede’ the activities of the country’s new US-backed president.

In a Wednesday message to the US congress, US President Barack Obama noted that the sanctions will target those individuals seeking to hamper the transition of power to the government of Yemen’s President Abd Rabbu Mansour Hadi, without alluding to any specific names. 

The US, which has long been under fire for its drone attacks in Yemen, has stepped up its unmanned aircraft strikes in the country since President Abd Rabbu Mansour Hadi, a UK-trained field marshal, took office in February after a single-candidate presidential election. 

Many observers view Obama’s new order as the manifestation of mutual dependence of Washington and Hadi. 

“This is the US and Hadi entering into an even closer embrace,” said Gregory Johnsen, a Yemen scholar at Princeton University.

Johnsen argued that the US needs Hadi in a gesture to distance itself from the elements of the former dictator Ali Abdullah Saleh’s regime, “So that it can do what it wants in Yemen.” 

“Hadi needs the US because (he) himself doesn’t have a very strong base of support within Yemen,” he added. 

Saleh formally stepped down and handed power over to Vice President Hadi on February 27. The power transfer occurred under a Saudi-backed deal brokered by the [Persian] Gulf Cooperation Council in April 2011 and signed by Saleh in Riyadh on November 23, 2011.