Sana'a: Anti-regime protesters in the
volatile Yemen city of Taez were blasted with a hand grenade on Friday leaving two dead and dozens hurt, while violent clashes
also erupted in Sana'a, witnesses said.
The grenade attack came as hundreds of protesters took
to the centre of Taez after the Friday Muslim prayers to
demand the ouster of President Ali Abdullah Saleh, in protests
that have been raging in the city for the past week.
A local official told AFP that the grenade was lobbed
at protesters from a speeding car that carried government
registration plates.
The people in the "government car" have been
identified, he said.
"They are two, but we will not identify their
political affiliation," he added.
"The death toll of the attack in Taez has reached to
two dead and 27 wounded," a medical official told AFP.
In the capital Sana'a, at least four anti-regime
protesters were wounded when Saleh partisans attacked a
demonstration, witnesses said.
Several journalists were severely beaten by supporters
of the ruling General People's Congress (GPC) who attacked the
demonstration using batons and axes, an AFP correspondent
reported.
Thousands of demonstrators, mostly students, had
gathered following the weekly Friday prayers in a main street
of Sana'a.
"People want to overthrow the regime," they chanted.
The supporters of President Ali Abdullah Saleh
numbered in hundreds, aided by security agents in
plainclothes, on the sixth consecutive day of confrontations
between protesters and loyalists.
Three people were shot dead and around 20 wounded
yesterday by police when security forces clashed with
anti-regime protesters in the southern city of Aden.
An official at Jumhuriah hospital in Aden said that
three bodies were sent to the morgue, adding that 19 people
were wounded, two of whom were in serious condition and
undergoing surgery.
Police had opened fire on thousands of demonstrators
who marched yesterday in Aden's Al-Mansura neighbourhood
demanding the ouster of President Ali Abdullah Saleh, who has
been in office for 32 years.
PTI
First Published: Friday, February 18, 2011, 23:44