WASHINGTON: A top Yemeni opposition party leader warned a US official less than two years ago about a secret plot to oust President Ali Abdullah Saleh, diplomatic cables show.

Hamid al-Ahmar, a wealthy businessman, vowed to trigger mass demonstrations against Saleh if the long-time ruler did not “guarantee” free and fair parliamentary elections due in 2011, according to the classified memos released by whistleblowing website WikiLeaks.

“The idea is controlled chaos,” Ahmar told an unnamed US embassy official, according to the cable dated August 2009. He had planned to emulate the 1998 protests that helped topple Indonesia’s then-president Suharto.

A series of previously undisclosed cables showed that the United States, while aware of Yemen’s fragile political state, dismissed warnings in 2009 and 2010 by powerful Yemenis and US allies that Saleh was growing increasingly weak.

The August 2009 US cable namely concluded Ahmar’s challenge would prove no more than a “mild irritation” to Saleh.

Washington had viewed the autocratic leader, in power since 1978, as a valuable ally in its fight against Al Qaeda in the region but the United States shifted its stance this week, urging Saleh to peacefully relinquish power.

The revelations, first reported by The Washington Post, came in the face of violent protests calling for Saleh’s departure that have gripped the impoverished country since late January, leaving about 125 people dead.

And The Wall Street Journal reported on Friday that the unrest had prompted the United States to freeze an aid package potentially worth a record $1 billion or more aimed at getting the off-again, on-again counterterrorism cooperation with Yemen back on track.

Prince Saud al-Faisal, Saudi Arabia’s foreign minister, told US Ambassador James Smith in October 2009 that Saleh’s “weak” and embattled government could collapse, which he said would be a “nightmare” for the Saudis.

In a May 2009 cable signed by outgoing US ambassador to Oman Gary Grappo, government ministers in Oman were said to have spoken “apocalyptically” about Yemen’s future.—AFP