SANAA, Yemen (PNN) - April 4, 2011 - Police and armed men in civilian clothes opened fire on demonstrators in the Yemeni cities of Taiz and Hudaida on Monday, according to unnamed witnesses, as a drive to oust veteran President Ali Abdullah Saleh gathered pace.
The violent attempt to suppress mounting protests inspired by uprisings in Egyptand Tunisia came amid signs that the United States was seeking an end to Saleh's 32-year rule, long seen as a rampart against the Yemen-based Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula
In Taiz, south of the capital Sanaa, police shot protesters trying to storm the provincial government building, killing at least 15 people and wounding 30, hospital sources said.
"The regime has surprised us with this extent of killing. I don't think the people will do anything other than come out with bare chests to drain the government of all its ammunition," parliamentarian Mohammed Muqbil al-Hamiri told Al Jazeera.
Television showed a row of men, apparent tear gas victims, lying motionless and being tended by medics on the carpeted floor of a makeshift hospital in Taiz.
In the Red Sea port of Hudaida, police and armed men in civilian clothes fired live rounds and tear gas at hundreds of demonstrators marching on a presidential palace and some 250 people were wounded, another medical source said.
As opposition forces escalated their actions against him, Saleh again appeared defiant.
"Just as you gave us your confidence, we will respond to that. We will be steadfast like the mountains," he told hundreds of tribesman who chanted their rejection of concessions. "We will stay loyal to you, just as you have been loyal to constitutional legitimacy."
