Anti-regime protesters in the volatile Yemen city of Taez were blasted in a hand grenade attack yesterday leaving two dead, while fierce clashes in the southern city of Aden killed four, witnesses said.

Clashes also broke out in the capital Sanaa in which four anti-regime demonstrators were injured, according to witnesses and journalists, who were also beaten.

The grenade attack came as hundreds of protesters took to central Taez after the weekly Muslim prayers to demand President Ali Abdullah Saleh’s ouster, in protests that have been raging in the city for the past week.

A local official said the grenade was lobbed at protesters from a speeding car with government number plates. Two people were in the car “but we will not identify their political affiliation,” he said.

Medics in Aden, meanwhile, said four demonstrators were shot dead as police fired on protests in several areas of the southern port city, which has borne the brunt of the violence that has left 10 people dead since Sunday.

At least 27 were wounded in yesterday’s clashes, a medical official in the southern city said.

A witness said that police opened fire at demonstrators who set tyres on fire in a street in Omar al-Mukhtar, killing one of the protesters, Mohammed Munir Khan.

Earlier, three people were shot dead when police fired on protesters in Al-Saada, Khor Maksar and Sheikh Othman districts, as hundreds of people took to the streets around the city to demand Saleh step down.