The political opposition blames President Ali Abdullah Saleh for losing control of Zinjibar; some even allege it’s a set-up. But others fear Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula has taken advantage of months of protests to gain ground.

President Ali Abdullah Saleh of Yemen

Yemen’s embattled government claimed Sunday that the capital of Abyan province in the south had been overrun by the country’s Al Qaeda affiliate, while the political opposition and dissident generals blamed the president for losing control of the city.

The allegations about Zinjibar, Abyan’s capital, raised fears that the radical group Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula was taking advantage of the four months of popular protests against President Ali Abdullah Saleh to stealthily gain ground.

A spokesman for Saleh’s ruling General People’s Congress party said Al Qaeda gunmen had seized Zinjibar’s government buildings Saturday after a shootout with Yemeni troops.

Yemen’s opposition military council, which is made up of commanders who have broken with Saleh after the wave of demonstrations began in late January, blamed the president for “handing over certain governorates to rogue elements.”

One Saleh critic, Gen. Abdullah Ali Elaiwah, a former defense minister, called for army units to join in the fight to bring down the president. “We call on you not to follow orders to confront other army units or the people,” he said in a statement from the rebel generals.

Troops loyal to the president have withdrawn from swaths of the country in recent months to concentrate on holding Sana, the capital. Last week alone, the elite Republican Guard — headed by Saleh’s son Ahmed — battled supporters of powerful tribal leaders in Sana and surrendered a base just outside of the city on Friday before airstrikes were called for.

A truce was brokered over the weekend that stopped the fighting in Sana.

It was impossible to know for sure if the group in Zinjibar was in Al Qaeda’s grasp. Myriad separatist groups exist in the south, including rival jihadist militant organizations such as the Aden-Abyan Islamic Army, as well as clans resentful of Sana. The country experienced a civil war between north and south in 1994.

Some opposition leaders even accused the president of deliberately sending out Islamist gunmen to Zinjibar as part of a ruse to help Saleh stay in power.