Tuesday, May 31, 2011
Associated Press
SANAA, Yemen
Yemeni forces opened fire on a protest camp and killed more than 20 demonstrators Monday in the southern city of Taiz while government warplanes launched airstrikes on another southern town seized by radical Islamists.
The new attempts to suppress the uprising against President Ali Abdullah Saleh with overwhelming force, after a weekend when high-level military defectors formed a united front in support of the protesters, all pointed to the longtime leader’s increasingly tenuous grip on power.
Early today, residents said multiple explosions were heard in several parts of Sanaa, apparently from heavy weapons and shells. They said clashes were in progress in the capital. There were no immediate details of who was fighting or whether there were casualties.
More than three months of mass street protests have posed an unprecedented threat to Saleh’s 33-year rule, splintering his security forces and battering the country’s already frail economy. The U.S. has moved away from it former ally despite fears that his fall could leave room in this rugged corner of the Arabian Peninsula for an active al-Qaida franchise or other militant Islamist groups to take power.
Saleh has responded to protesters who say they seek democratic reforms with a mix of promised concessions and bloody crackdowns, such as Monday’s attack in the city of Taiz that left at least 20 protesters dead. He also has long raised the specter of an Islamist takeover of Yemen to solicit international funds and rebuff calls that he stand down.
Yemen’s weakly governed provinces are known as a haven for al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula, one of the group’s most active branches, and other Islamic militant groups such as the one that overran the southern town of Zinjibar last week.