Dozens killed in Yemen after President Saleh peace vow

Clashes rocked the Yemeni capital yesterday, leaving dozens of people dead a day after President Ali Abdullah Saleh returned from months of medical treatment in Riyadh carrying “the dove of peace”.

“We slept and woke up to the non-stop sound of gunfire,” one Sanaa resident told AFP as firefights between rival military units raged in the city centre.

“More than 40 people were killed on Saturday” in battles that hit several neighbourhoods across Sanaa, including Change Square, epicentre of anti-regime protests, an activist from the protest organising committee said.

He said hundreds of others were wounded as the death toll spiralled to 173 people over the past week. State news agency Saba said 24 of Saleh’s soldiers have also been killed.

As gunfire echoed across the capital, hundreds of thousands of people set out in a massive march from Change Square, which itself came under fire from the security forces from several directions, witnesses said.

Flames leapt from shops and homes along Sanaa’s central business avenue, witnesses said.

A dissident military spokesman said 11 of his division’s troops were killed yesterday and 112 wounded when elite Republican Guard troops, commanded by President Saleh’s son Ahmed, attacked a camp of the First Armoured Brigade north of Change Square.

“The camp was targeted by 60 shells,” said the spokesman.

Republican Guards have engaged in a week of clashes with dissident soldiers from the First Armoured Brigade headed by General Ali Mohsen al-Ahmar, who have protected anti-regime protesters camped out on Change Square.

Security forces have also been fighting supporters of dissident tribal chief Sheikh Sadiq al-Ahmar in Sanaa’s northern Al-Hasaba district.

President Saleh’s troops killed at least 17 people in an attack just after midnight on Friday, shelling and firing on Change Square which protesters first occupied in February.

“Seventeen people were killed and 55 others were wounded,” said Mohammed al-Qabati, a medic at the field hospital there.

Among the dead were dissident soldiers, while the rest were civilians, Qabati told AFP without providing specific figures.

Snipers also opened fire from buildings around the square, witnesses said.