Yemen President Out of Hospital

Looks like we haven’t seen the last of Ali Abdullah Saleh after all. Yemen’s wounded (and for a while there presumed deposed) president has been released from the Saudi hospital where he was being treated, Saudi and Yemeni officials said today. He isn’t returning to Yemen yet—he’ll recuperate first at a Saudi government residence, according to Voice of America—but he intends to eventually, officials tell the AP.

“We don't know yet when he will return to the country,” one official said, “but soon God willing.” Yemen has even further descended into chaos in Saleh’s absence. Vice President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi is nominally in charge, but the real powers appear to be Saleh’s son, who controls the country’s elite military forces, and the tribal forces fighting against him. At the same time, insurgents linked to al-Qaeda have seized towns in the south. Click for an account of yesterday’s fighting in the capital. (More Ali Abdullah Saleh stories.)