President Ali Abdullah Saleh accused the Joint Meeting Parties (JMP) of having relations with Al-Qaida. Saleh said that many detainees of Al-Qaida in Yemen were released, pointing out that they were released due to conditions set by the JMP.
On his part, the spokesman of JMP, Mohammed Al-Qubati denied that there are any relations between Al-Qaida and the JMP. In his statement, President Saleh said, "we released a number of detainees of Al-Qaida many times, and they declared their repentance, but they rebel again and go back to do destructive works." He added that releasing detainees of Al-Qaida was one of the conditions of negotiations of JMP. He explained that JMP don’t like to say that in public, because they know that the all international community is fighting terrorism. Saleh described what the JMP is doing as dangerous, accusing the JMP to be behind Al-Qaida in Yemen. But, Saleh couldn’t recognize that he embarrassed himself by clearly saying that he released the detainees of Al-Qaida many times. This shows a bond between Saleh and Al-Qaida.
This accusation is not a new thing to come from Saleh against JMP, as he used to doing so. In 2006, he accused the body guard of Faisal Bin Shamlan, the candidate in the presidential elections of September 2006, of being a member of Al-Qaida.
Saleh tries to play his cards well by accusing the JMP to be with Al-Qaida in Yemen. He wants to use this as a pressure paper on his opponents internally, as well as to get the political and financial support externally.