Republican Guards killed at least three anti-regime protesters yesterday as Yemen’s embattled President Ali Abdullah Saleh vowed to hold on to power despite US calls for his rapid departure.
The elite military unit opened fire at demonstrators in the southern city of Ibb when they were pinned down in a building where they sought refuge after an earlier clash with protesters, opposition sources and witnesses said.
They said an officer and four soldiers were also wounded when demonstrators threw stones and other projectiles at the besieged security forces.
The latest violence took to 179 the number of people killed in anti-Saleh protests gripping the impoverished Arabian Peninsula state in the past three months, according to a toll compiled from activists and medics.
Mr Saleh, a strong US ally in its “war on terror” who has been in power since 1978, vowed yesterday to defend his people “by all means”, a day after Washington insisted he agree to a transition plan “now”.
“We will defend ourselves with all our forces and by all means,” he told large crowds of loyalists in the capital where tens of thousands of opposition activists also rallied to demand his immediate ouster.
Mr Saleh made no direct reference to the US, but the remarks came a day after Washington asked him to sign a Gulf-brokered transition plan that would see him out of power within a month.
“We will not remain passive in the face of law-breakers,” Mr Saleh said, warning the opposition to “stop playing with fire”.
Loyalists carried huge portraits of Mr Saleh, and chanted “People want Saleh, People want Saleh”, while banners read: “Army is with you.”
There was no violence reported in Sanaa.
In a first reaction to Mr Saleh’s defiant speech, the spokesman of the parliamentary opposition, Mohammed Qahtan, told Al-Arabiya television that the President’s remarks amounted to a “declaration of war.”
Opposition activists said their latest protests were a show of solidarity with the people of Saada in the north, where Zaidi Shiite rebels are based, while Mr Saleh’s supporters marked yesterday as a “Day of Unity”.
Pro-opposition troops led by dissident General Ali Mohsen al-Ahmar tightened a cordon around University Square, dubbed “Change Square”, to protect protesters from attack by Saleh loyalists, witnesses said.
Tension has escalated this week.
In a renewed crackdown, a total of 19 people were killed by troops and gunmen loyal to Mr Saleh in several parts of the country during a 24-hour period ending Thursday.
The escalation came after Yemen’s wealthy Gulf Arab neighbours urged all sides in Yemen to sign a transition plan aimed at ending the bloodshed, but Yemen’s parliamentary opposition yesterday declared the plan “dead.”
“The initiative of the countries of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) is dead,” parliamentary opposition spokesman Mohammed Qahtan told AFP. He said Qatar’s pullout from the initiative on Thursday signaled its collapse. Mr Qahtan said the opposition would “intensify the peaceful revolt in coming days and turn it into a civil disobedience movement that will lead to the downfall of the President and bring him and his henchmen to justice.”
Qatari Prime Minister Hamad bin Jassem Al-Thani informed GCC chief Abdullatif al-Zayani of his government’s decision by phone, Qatar’s Foreign Ministry said on Thursday night.
The decision was based on “indecision and delays in the signature of the proposed agreement” and “the intensity of clashes” in Yemen, it said.