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[johnslat]

SANAA, Yemen

"Police on rooftops fired live bullets and tear gas at protesters Sunday, wounding at least 100 people camping out near Sanaa University. The day's violence was the latest evidence that monthlong protests demanding the resignation of Yemen's longtime leader were spiraling out of control.
Embattled President Ali Abdullah Saleh has resorted to increasingly violent tactics to try and put down the burgeoning uprising against his 32-year rule, deploying dozens of armed supporters on the streets in an attempt to intimidate protesters.
Wielding clubs and knifes, police and regime supporters described by protesters as government sponsored thugs attacked activists, said Mohammed al-Abahi, a doctor in charge of a makeshift hospital near the university.
Among the wounded Sunday, more than 20 suffered gas inhalation, and one was in critical condition after being struck with a bullet, the doctor said.
In the main square and in surrounding streets, eyewitnesses spoke of people being beaten up, threatened and gone missing. Sunday's escalating violence came a day after security forces killed seven demonstrators in protests around the country.
The United States said it was concerned by the continuing violence in Yemen and called for it to stop.
"We call on the Yemeni government to quickly investigate these incidents," State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley said Monday. "People everywhere share the same universal rights to demonstrate peacefully and to freely assemble and express themselves."
Unfazed by the violent tactics, young activists camped out in the square near the university continued to expand the area of their sit-in and threatened to march on the presidential palace about three miles (five kilometers) away. Rock throwing battles between protesters and security troops broke out on the edges of the encampment.
They said the authorities were trying to draw the protesters into a cycle of violence to further justify a crackdown.
"This will not happen, even if they exterminate us all, our only weapon is peaceful sit-ins," said activist Abdel-Karim al-Khiwani.
Protesters continued to pour into the main square Sunday, but many said they were stopped by thugs wielding iron rods, sticks, knives and machetes.
Mohoammed Abdel-Qader, a 27-year-old university student, said he was on a nearby street walking with a friend toward the square when two men armed with sticks and knifes stopped them and told them they could not proceed to the university area for security reasons.
"When I tried to ask about the security reasons, he held up his stick menacingly and said: 'It's none of your business, go back where you came from'," he said.
In the southern Aden province, demonstrators stormed a police station, seizing weapons after the police fled, witnesses said. In Taiz province, clashes between demonstrators and police left at least four wounded, witnesses said.
Yemen has been hit by the wave of protests since mid-February. Even before that, the country's government was weak and struggling to confront one of the world's most active al-Qaida branches, a secessionist rebellion in the south and a Shiite uprising in the north.
The protests are part of a wave of unrest sweeping the region. Yemen's demonstrators are calling for Saleh to step down, a demand he has repeatedly rejected while also trying to assuage opposition groups.
Saleh has said he would not seek another term in office in 2013, and offered to form a national unity government with opposition figures. These overtures have failed to satisfy the protesters.
On Sunday, Saleh sacked a close relative from a senior military post. The relative later announced his support for the protests.
Maj-Gen Abdel-Illah al-Qadi told reporters he planned to visit protesters in Sanaa later Sunday. Al-Qadi's son, Mohammed, resigned earlier from the ruling Congress Party.
Resigned parliament member Abdel-Bari Degheish said a protester in Aden died Sunday from wounds he suffered a day earlier, bringing to seven the number of those killed during Saturday's demonstrations."

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110313/ap_on_re_mi_ea/ml_yemen

[eha]

http://english.aljazeera.net/video/middleeast/2011/03/201131452519405803.html

[johnslat]

And the latest:

From rooftops, snipers kill 46 Yemeni protesters

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/ml_yemen;_ylt=AtF.S1A5I3Qg_VqOAkQmoavZa7gF;_ylu=X3oDMTJzdGloN3RnBGFzc2V0A2FwLzIwMTEwMzE4L21sX3llbWVuBGNjb2RlA21wX2VjXzhfMTAEY3BvcwM1BHBvcwM1BHNlYwN5bl90b3Bfc3RvcmllcwRzbGsDZnJvbXJvb2Z0b3Bz


Regards,
John

[ntropy]

Let's not forget how Saleh came to power, arriving to a meeting with his "partner", the Prime Minister, with a bomb in his own briefcase, then leaving and blowing the man up.

[johnslat]

"Yemeni leader says he'll step down by year's end

SANAA, Yemen � Yemen's embattled U.S.-backed president pledged to step down more than a year early but refused to immediately resign on Tuesday, infuriating tens of thousands of demonstrators demanding his ouster.
The opposition said it would not accept President Ali Abdullah Saleh's offer to resign by year's end in response to nationwide anti-government protests, which have swelled dramatically since security forces opened fatally shot more than 40 demonstrators on Friday.
"The president's statements are just another political maneuver," said chief opposition spokesman Mohammed al-Sabri. "What was acceptable yesterday is not acceptable for us today."
The standoff pushed Yemen closer to open confrontation between the two sides, fueling Western fears that Saleh's 32-year-old regime could be replaced by chaos, or a leadership less likely to cooperate with U.S. military operations against the local branch of al-Qaida.
Anger at Friday's shootings splintered Saleh's remaining support among the country's most powerful institutions, and influential clerics, tribal leaders and military commanders all began calling for his departure. Some of the country's most senior army officials declared their loyalty to the opposition on Monday.
Saleh responded with a concession, pledging in a meeting with senior officials, military commanders and tribal leaders on Monday evening that he would to step down by the end of the year. He tried to placate demonstrators by promising this month not to run again, or let his son replace him, when his term ends in September 2013.
A presidential spokesman, Ahmed al-Sufi, said Salah also pledged not to hand power to the military.
The president hardened his position on Tuesday, saying the defection of commanders including his chief military adviser, Maj. Gen. Ali Mohsen al-Ahmar, was a "mutiny and a coup against constitutional legitimacy."
"Any dissent within the military institution will negatively affect the whole nation," Saleh said in a nationally televised warning to a meeting of Yemen's Supreme Council of the Armed Forces. "The nation is far greater than the ambition of individuals who want to seize power."
Protesters massed by the tens of thousands Tuesday afternoon in the downtown Sanaa plaza they have dubbed "Taghyeer," or "Change" square. Crowds ululated, chanted and painted each other's faces in the red, white and black colors of the national flag. Conservative tribesmen bought their wives to the protest, and the women bought their children, all basking in a carnival atmosphere.
"The revolution has crossed its most difficult period," said activist Bashir al-Sid, smiling. "All that remains is the easy part."
Demonstrators began demanding Saleh's ouster more than a month ago, inspired by the wave of people power sweeping through the Middle East. His troops and loyalists have killed more than 80 demonstrators throughout Yemeni cities, according to an Associated Press tally of eyewitness, opposition and official accounts.
Al-Ahmar's defection was followed by a flurry of resignations by army commanders, ambassadors, lawmakers and provincial governors.
Al-Ahmar, commander of the army's powerful 1st Armored Division, deployed tanks and armored vehicles at the Defense Ministry, the TV building, the Central Bank and Taghyeer square, the demonstrator's epicenter.
In response, the Republican Guards, an elite force led by one of Saleh's sons, deployed troops backed by armor outside the presidential palace on the capital's southern outskirts.
Calling Al-Ahmar's defection "a turning point," Edmund J. Hull, U.S. ambassador to Yemen from 2001 to 2004, said it showed "the military overall ... no longer ties its fate to that of the president."
"I'd say he's going sooner rather than later," Hull said.
In a sign of the Obama administration's growing alarm over the regime's crackdown on demonstrators, State Department spokesman Mark Toner called for "a cessation of all violence against demonstrators," saying Saleh should "take the necessary steps to promote a meaningful dialogue that addresses the concerns of his people."
The 65-year-old president and his government have faced down many serious challenges in the past, often forging fragile alliances with restive tribes to extend power beyond the capital. Most recently, he has battled a seven-year armed rebellion in the north, a secessionist movement in the south and an al-Qaida offshoot that is of great concern to the U.S.
Al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula, formed in 2009, has moved beyond regional aims and attacked the West, including sending a suicide bomber who tried to down a Detroit-bound airliner on Christmas Day with a bomb sewn into his underwear. The device failed to detonate properly.
Yemen is also home to U.S.-born radical cleric Anwar al-Awlaki, who is believed to have offered inspiration to those attacking the U.S., including Army Maj. Nidal Hasan, who is accused of killing 13 people and wounding dozens in a 2009 shootout at Fort Hood, Texas."

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110322/ap_on_re_mi_ea/ml_yemen

And if you can't trust the word of despot, who CAN you trust:

"Saleh announced in July 2002, during the 24th anniversary celebrations of his term in office as President of Yemen, that he would "not contest the (presidential) elections" in September 2006. He expressed hope that "all political parties � including the opposition and the General People's Congress � find young leaders to compete in the elections because we have to train ourselves in the practice of peaceful succession." However, in June 2006 Saleh changed his mind and accepted his party's nomination as the presidential candidate of the GPC, saying that when he initially decided not to contest the elections his aim was "to establish ground for a peaceful transfer of power" but that he was now bowing to the "popular pressure and appeals of the Yemeni people."

Regards,
John