Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh yesterday attacked the opposition parties in his country saying they would be worse than his regime if they took power.

"They [the opposition] say 'return the price of a bag of wheat to what it was before 1990'", Saleh said, addressing a sports rally in Husainiah, Hodeidah, west of Yemen.

"They deceive themselves that they are the alternative, the alternative would be worse than now, if a bag of wheat is 7,000 Yemeni riyals (Dh130) now it will be 20,000 riyals," he said, in an obvious reference to recent price hikes which have angered people in the poor country.

Saleh said Yemen would be like Somalia without unity, the biggest achievement of Saleh's 30 years in power.

Terrorism

"They do not know the policy of the state, be careful of terrorism, do you want Yemen to be like the besieged Sudan, do you want Yemen to be like Somalia, or like Iraq or Afghanistan, say to them no, no, and one thousand times no, no, no return to partition or tribal divisions," Saleh said.

Last Thursday, the three main opposition parties, Islamists, Socialists and Nasserites, abandoned a big rally in the south.

Minutes after it started a group of people carrying the flags of the former south Yemen stormed the rally in Al Dahale'e.

The opposition is sometimes accused of encouraging protests in the south where retired military and security soldiers have been using slogans against national unity while demanding their rights since early last year.

"Our slogan is unity or death, and he who does not like this, let him drink from the Red Sea and Arabian Sea," Saleh warned.

The president invited Gulf countries to participate in next year's sporting rally, featuring camels and horses held every year in Husainiah, in the costal province of Hodeidah.

"We invite our brothers from the GCC states to participate in this sporting rally which develops year by year," he said.

He also urged his government to pay more attention to young people by focusing on improving technical and vocational education and English language skills.