Tribesmen fighting Yemeni troops loyal to President Ali Abdullah Saleh shot down yesterday an army fighter jet, as a sea of protesters demanded the under-fire leader’s ouster and trial.

A Sukhoi SU-22 “fell during a regular mission” and opposition leaders were “responsible for the incident,” said a military spokesman quoted by Saba state news agency.

Hundreds of thousands of people demonstrated near Sanaa’s Change Square, the focal point of anti-regime protests in the violence-wracked Arabian Peninsula country, an AFP correspondent reported.

“We shall not rest until the butcher is executed,” the demonstrators chanted as they marched in a neighbourhood of the capital controlled by dissident General Ali Muhsen al-Ahmar’s First Armoured Division.