But as if to underscore the problems Mr. Hadi faces, hours after he took the oath of office and promised to continue the war on Al Qaeda, militants attacked government targets in the southeastern port of Mukalla, killing at least 21 soldiers.

The swearing-in ceremony, in a room in Parliament packed with legislators, diplomats and journalists, was strikingly cheerful. Members of the former ruling party and the opposition, who fought bitterly over the past year, greeted one another with smiles, handshakes and kisses on the cheek.

When Mr. Hadi entered, the room burst into applause. He took the oath standing between two men who led enemy camps last year, Yahya al-Rayie, the Parliament speaker and a loyalist of former President Ali Abdullah Saleh, and Himyar al-Ahmar, whose tribesmen fought government forces on the streets of northern Sana.

“I know that there are complex and interlocking crises: economic, social and security,” Mr. Hadi said afterward.

He called the fight against Al Qaeda “a national and religious duty.” And in an indirect reference to his predecessor, the autocratic Mr. Saleh, he urged officials from both sides to work together to “build a strong state through establishing institutions that are not based on a single personality.”

Mr. Hadi, 65, had been chosen as a consensus candidate by the former ruling party and the opposition, and was confirmed in a one-candidate election on Tuesday. The election was part of a United States-backed deal to end the political crisis and remove Mr. Saleh from office.

Despite the lack of choice, the turnout was heavy, said by the government to be 65 percent, suggesting that after more than a year of protests and unrest in which hundreds were killed, Yemenis were eager to embrace change.

“We consider this a historic day for Yemen,” said Ali al-Mamari, a legislator who quit Mr. Saleh’s party last spring after government supporters used violence against peaceful protesters. “All year there was a revolution, but now a new revolution started that is without weapons, without conflict, to transform our country into a civil state. I am incredibly happy.”

The challenges remaining, however, are immense.

“This transfer of presidential power is historic for Yemen,” said April Alley, a regional analyst for the International Crisis Group. “But it’s the days ahead that are going to really matter.

“There are the economic and security challenges that are immediate,” she said. “And also there are political challenges when it comes to pulling the country back together, dealing with the separatist movement in the south and a different set of grievances with the Houthis,” rebels who control Saada Province in the north.

FULL ARTICLE (New York Times)

KAREEM FAHIM and LAURA KASINOF

SANA, Yemen — After months of street protests calling for his resignation, President Ali Abdullah Saleh traveled to Saudi Arabia on Wednesday to sign an agreement that would require him to immediately transfer his powers to his vice president, a move that could pave the way for an end to Mr. Saleh’s 33-year rule.

Under the deal, Mr. Saleh would retain his title until new elections in three months and receive immunity from prosecution. But it remained to be seen whether Mr. Saleh, who has backed out of signing such an agreement on several previous occasions, would actually follow through. It was also unclear when, and if, the president intended to return to Yemen.

Within hours of the announcement, what seemed to be artillery fire echoed in the city.

Yemeni political analysts and Western diplomats said they had reason to hope that this time would be different.

His opponents and Yemen’s foreign allies, including the United States, have put increasing pressure on Mr. Saleh to sign a deal, warning that the country, stalled by protests and wracked by successive rounds of bloody factional fighting, is on the brink of collapse. The fighting has crippled the country’s already sputtering economy and the central government is rapidly losing what little control it had of outlying provinces.

Mr. Saleh was also facing the threat of international sanctions. “There was no more room for him to maneuver,” said Abdul-Ghani al-Iryani, a Yemeni political analyst and the head of a nonpartisan group that campaigns for democracy.

The sanctions, he said “would end up suffocating his regime and even maybe put him behind bars.”

But few people thought the agreement would signal the end of Mr. Saleh’s political ambitions. “He figures the rest of the maneuvering can be kept for after the signing,” Mr. Iryani said.

The president’s surprise trip to Riyadh, the Saudi capital, had been rumored for days but was not announced beforehand. It came after several days of intense negotiations between opposition politicians and the president’s representatives, brokered by a visiting United Nations envoy.

Yemeni opposition leaders, who would join members of Mr. Saleh’s party in a new unity government, were scheduled to fly to Riyadh later on Wednesday for the signing of the agreement, which was brokered by several Persian Gulf states.

Even with such an accord, formidable challenges remained. Youth activists have said the agreement and in particular the immunity clauses would not satisfy thousands of demonstrators still camped in city squares throughout the country, demanding trials for Mr. Saleh and members of his government in connection with the killings of scores of demonstrators.

The youth activists framed the agreement as a deal between political elites, rather than a step forward for their revolt. April Longley Alley, a senior analyst with the International Crisis Group who studies Yemen, said that while the agreement facilitated the exit of Mr. Saleh, “Yemenis from across the political spectrum are looking for much broader and deeper political change.”

FULL ARTICLE (The New York Times)