Yemen Protests: Tens Of Thousands Hold Pro- And Anti-Government Rallies
Friday, February 25, 2011 at 11:58AM Tens of thousands of supporters and opponents of Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh held rival demonstrations in the capital on Friday, in a test of support for the veteran leader's 32-year rule.
Protesters outside Sanaa University, repeating slogans which have echoed round the Arab world since the uprisings in Egypt and Tunisia, chanted: "The people demand the downfall of the regime."
About 4 km (2 miles) across town, loyalists shouted support for a leader they said was holding the fractured and impoverished tribal nation together. "The creator of unity is in our hearts. We will not abandon him," they chanted.
Seventeen people have been killed in the past nine days in a sustained wave of countrywide anti-Saleh protests galvanized by the fall of the Tunisian and Egyptian presidents. Saleh has said he will not give in to "anarchy and killing."
A U.S. ally against the Yemen-based al Qaeda wing that has launched attacks at home and abroad, the Yemeni leader is struggling to end protests flaring across the Arabian Peninsula's poorest state.
He is also trying to maintain a shaky truce with northern Shi'ite Muslim rebels and contain a secessionist insurgency in the south against northern rule.
In the south of the country, more than 10,000 people took to the streets in various districts of the port city of Aden, demanding an end to Saleh's rule.
Tens of thousands of supporters and opponents of Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh held rival demonstrations in the capital on Friday, in a test of support for the veteran leader's 32-year rule.
Protesters outside Sanaa University, repeating slogans which have echoed round the Arab world since the uprisings in Egypt and Tunisia, chanted: "The people demand the downfall of the regime."
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