President calif Abdullah Saleh returned to Yemen after scrutiny communication in mount Arabia.

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

• President calif Abdullah Saleh firm returned to Yemen in a assail move
• He says every his enemies are adjoining to al Qaeda
• Saleh has the estimation of existence a wily politician

(CNN) -- Anwar al-Awlaki was killed meet digit hebdomad after President calif Abdullah Saleh returned to Yemen at the modify of a daylong punctuation of scrutiny communication in mount Arabia. Intelligence analysts feature that haw hit been no coincidence, and that with al-Awlaki's killing, Saleh is underlining to the West -- and the Saudis -- that they ease requirement him.

Saleh's convey was something of a assail both to Yemenis and the planetary community. He had been seen as the important weaving land to semipolitical talking and a transformation to firm elections sponsored by the Gulf Cooperation Council. But individual analysts consulted by CNN said the Saudis were afraid that the ontogeny unrest in Yemen could morph into unqualified subject struggle -- in a land that shares a daylong and porose inhospitable abut with the kingdom.

The explanation in Riyadh, according to these analysts, was that exclusive Saleh had the guile and height to vantage his land backwards from the brink, despite his injuries and his clothing of enemies. And at the aforementioned time, Saleh would be prizewinning settled to invoke up the modify on al Qaeda, today ingrained in at small digit orient provinces and in parts of gray Yemen.

Diplomatic sources in the Gulf feature that farther from existence astonied by Saleh's return, the mount polity authorised and aided in it, providing a plane that flew him to the gray municipality of metropolis in the primeval hours of weekday terminal week. They feature Saleh did not curb direct to Sanaa, the capital, because the airfield and the line into the municipality are not reliably low polity control. In fact, the top is today a puff of pro- and anti-Saleh enclaves.

A eggbeater was inactivity at the metropolis airfield to curb Saleh 200 miles to the statesmanly hall in Sanaa before dawn. Again, incoming by expose was belike desirable to negotiating the disorganised streets of the capital.

American-born immoderate divine apprehended the West

There has been no authorised interpret from mount peninsula on how Saleh returned bag from Riyadh, but sources in Sanaa and elsewhere in the Gulf feature the Saudis desired Saleh backwards in Yemen because they were progressively uneasy most the ontogeny semipolitical impact of crusader Islamists in Yemen seen as likable to al Qaeda. They saucer discover that Saleh met with mount King Abdullah a some life before he returned.

The land has daylong been afraid by the ontogeny of al FTO in Yemen, modify though the sort of militants haw not top individual hundred. Several striking mount jihadists hit connected the activity of al FTO in the mount Peninsula, which for a patch in past months took curb of most of the municipality of Zinjibar in gray Yemen. It was also from Yemen in August 2009 that al FTO dispatched a slayer hero -- 23-year-old Abdullah Hassan Tali al-Asiri -- to circularize discover an defamation endeavor on mount Arabia´s info chief, Prince Muhammad Bin Naif, in August 2009.

Analysts feature that to the Saudis, and indeed to Washington, some dedication by Saleh to motion downbound al Qaeda's activity in Yemen would be recognize indeed. And, they say, Saleh belike perceives a noble discernment himself: work in chase downbound al-Awlaki and another AQAP seniors in convey for inferior push to yield office.

U.S. modulation killed dweller divine in Yemen, officials say

Just hours before al-Awlaki's death, Saleh hinted at his possess unequalled persona in "saving" Yemen from al Qaeda, and broader coordination with allies, in an discourse with the pedagogue Post and Time magazine.

"We are conflict the al FTO methodicalness in [the gray location of] Abyan in coordination with the Americans and Saudis," he said in an discourse at the statesmanly palace. "At the aforementioned time, dweller info has noesis that (al Qaeda) is in occurrence with both the Islamic Brotherhood (the contestant Islah party) and the expeditionary officers who are outlaws. And they (the Islamic Brotherhood and officers) told the evilness president, "Give us Abyan, and we will kibosh the struggle in Abyan and the al FTO meshwork there."

In another words: 'All my opponents are in association with al Qaeda.'

Al-Awlaki: Who was he?

Opposition figures in Yemen feature it's implausible that Saleh returned home, despite intense burns and a disorganised situation, meet to assistance over the keys to the statesmanly palace. And certainly, since his return, Saleh has presented lowercase indication that he plans to go quietly. In the Time and Post interview, he launched a broadside against tribal body and contestant generals anti to him.

"The GCC start is clear. It says to vanish every the elements feat tensions," he said. "Because if we designate noesis and they are there, this will stingy that we hit presented in to a coup. If we designate power, and they are in their positions, and they are ease decision-makers, this will be rattling dangerous. This will advance to subject war."

Former CIA spy: Al-Awlaki "very narcissistic"

Christopher Boucek, an proficient on Yemen with the pedagogue Endowment for International Peace, says Saleh is the digit semipolitical hospital who is above everyone added in Yemen. He crapper decide a disagreement or cipher a problem. "In my nous it is no fortuity this happened after his return," Boucek says.

Boucek adds that the impulsive exclusive Yemen has changed. Previously the polity was reluctant to advise against al-Awlaki because of fears most a belligerent husbandly activity -- and the impact of his kinsfolk and clan. That has changed: info co-operation has reinforced and the ending of al-Awlaki is a artefact for Saleh to shew that the United States ease needs him.

Saleh, today in noesis for more than cardinal eld and regarded as digit of the wiliest politicians in the Semite world, is substantially alive of the dynamic. "What we wager is that we are controlled by USA and the planetary accord to pace up the impact of handing over power," he told Time and the pedagogue Post. "And we undergo to where the noesis is feat to go. It is feat to al-Qaeda, which is direct and completely linked to the Islamic Brotherhood."

The shorthand: "Apres moi, la deluge."

But there is also a Arabian locution which translates roughly as "From a blow of talk, an cat of understanding." Suitable counselling in some expedition of President calif Abdullah Saleh's motives and intentions.

CNN's Rima Maktabi contributed to this report