Yemen says more than 2,000 killed in uprising

By AHMED AL-HAJ | Associated Press – March 18, 2012

SANAA, Yemen — More than 2,000 people have been killed in a year of
political turmoil that led to the resignation of Yemen's longtime
president, the government disclosed Sunday. The figure is much higher than
human rights groups estimated.

The government released its first casualty figures on a day when crowds of
protesters were marking one year since a particularly bloody day, when
dozens were killed.

Yemen's Ministry of Human Rights said the figure of at least 2,000
includes both unarmed protesters and military defectors, as well as more
than 120 children. It said 22,000 people were wounded over the past year.

The London-based human rights group Amnesty International estimated
earlier this year that 200 protesters had been killed in the uprising.

The government of Ali Abdullah Saleh, who stepped down as president last
month after more than three decades in power, never released casualty
figures.

For nearly a year, armed men in plain clothes loyal to Saleh attacked
anti-government protesters, while security forces did little to stop them.

Yemenis protested across the country on Sunday to mark the killing of more
than 50 protesters last year by snipers loyal to the former regime.

Hundreds of thousands of protesters took to the streets in at least 18
provinces to demand that Saleh be tried for the deaths of protesters
killed a year ago on "Friday of Dignity," when snipers fired from rooftops
at protesters in Sanaa's Change Square.

As part of an internationally backed deal, Saleh was granted immunity from
prosecution in exchange for handing over powers to his vice president.

Saleh's successor, Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi, visited Sanaa's Change Square
on Sunday and prayed at a cemetery where protesters were buried. He told
youth demonstrators that he would fulfill the goals of their movement and
decreed that families who lost relatives in the uprising would be given a
monthly stipend.

The internal turmoil has led to a collapse of security in many parts of
Yemen.

On Sunday, two gunmen dressed in military uniforms on a motorcycle shot
dead an American teacher working at a language institute in the central
Yemen city of Taiz, said the region's provincial governor, Hamoud al-Sufi.

Taiz is the second largest city in Yemen and has been a center of
anti-government protests.

Al -Sufi did not have details on who the killers might be and said an
investigation was in progress.

The head of security in Taiz, Ali Saidi, said the American, identified as
Joel Wesley, was killed in his car when the assailants sped up next to him
and opened fire. Wesley worked for two years at the Swiss Language
Institute, financed by the International Training and Development Center.
The center, established in Yemen in the 1970s, is one of the oldest
foreign language institutes in the impoverished Arab country.

Further south, security officials said a naval bombardment on Sunday
killed more than 16 al-Qaida fighters in Aden's provincial capital of
Zinjibar. Militants affiliated with al-Qaida have taken advantage of the
chaos in Yemen to seize control of cities and town in that area.

In another attack Sunday, medical officials said an aerial assault killed
at least eight militants in Jaar, just north of Zinjibar. Both cities have
been under al-Qaida control since last spring. The officials spoke on
condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to disclose the
information.

Residents said a civilian was wounded when an airstrike hit a post office
used as a hospital in Jaar. The city's main hospital was destroyed in a
government bombardment last year.

Violence ends brief truce at Egypt protest

Digest: Articles from Egypt, Syria, Bahrain and Yemen


Riot police break ceasefire near Cairo's Tahrir Square as crowd swells in
demand for end to military rule.

Last Modified: 23 Nov 2011 Al Jazeera

A brief attempt by Egypt's military to interpose a ceasefire between riot
police and civilians near the epicentre of protests against military rule
has disintegrated into another night of violence around Cairo's Tahrir
Square.

Police from the interior ministry's Central Security Forces appeared to
fire an unprovoked barrage of tear gas at a large crowd gathered on
Mohamed Mahmoud Street on Wednesday afternoon, witnesses said, despite a
truce that had settled in after the arrival of army vehicles and religious
scholars.

"Protesters are on the front lines to stop the security forces from
attacking the rest of us in Tahrir," Rebab el-Mahdy, a politics professor
at the American University in Cairo, told Al Jazera.

"Interior ministry forces are out of control ... they're not being
professional and they're not being controlled by the military council."

Ambulances raced back from Mohamed Mahmoud Street and other frontline
battles south and east of the square throughout the night, ferrying dozens
of protesters suffering from tear-gas inhalation.

Fighting also resumed in other cities. In Alexandria, Egypt's
second-largest city, clashes erupted for another night along a street near
the main security directorate.

Riot police there fired tear gas after the withdrawal of the army, which
had stepped in to oversee a prisoner release.

Besides Alexandria, clashes were reported in Ismailia, a city east of Cairo.

During a tour of Tahrir Square during the day, Amr Helmy, the health
minister, acknowledged that security forces had used live ammunition, but
he denied swirling rumours that they had also fired tear gas mixed with a
nerve agent.

Many protesters have described having unusually painful and intense
reactions to the tear gas being used in Cairo.

According to Human Rights Watch, doctors and morgue workers have counted
at least 22 people shot dead by live ammunition.

At least 35 people have died and 3,250 have been wounded across Egypt
since violence broke out on Saturday, the health ministry announced on
Wednesday.

The ceasefire in Cairo was reportedly negotiated by religious scholars
from al-Azhar University, the historical seat of Sunni theology, after
Sheikh Ahmed al-Tayyeb, the grand imam of al-Azhar, called on the riot
police to halt their attacks on protesters.

The military deployed three armoured personnel carriers to Mohamed Mahmoud
Street and positioned soldiers between the riot police and protesters, but
the truce ended within an hour in a hail of gas.

Concessions rejected

Thousands of people have remained in Tahrir Square in rejection of
concessions offered during a Tuesday-night speech by Field Marshal
Muhammed Hussein Tantawi, the chairman of the ruling Supreme Council of
the Armed Forces, which took power in February after President Hosni
Mubarak was ousted following an 18-day uprising.

"The people want the fall of the field marshal," they called in thunderous
unison, waving large Egyptian flags and signs denouncing the military.

The crisis began when riot police violently cleared a small encampment in
Tahrir Square on Saturday, and protesters say the continued fighting has
hardened their resolve to remove the military from power and complete a
revolution that began in January.

"The entire movement over the past few months has been about putting the
military in check. Now, the general sentiment is we don't trust authority,
or at least, we don't trust this authority."

- Amr Gharbeia, Egyptian activist

Tantawi announced on state media that the military had no interest in
staying in power and that parliamentary elections scheduled to begin on
November 28 would go ahead.

He also pledged that a presidential election to replace the military
council would take place before July 2012, the first time the military has
set a deadline for the vote.

The presidential election would mark the last step in a transition of
power to civilian rule.

"We ask for fair elections. We do not care who runs for elections and who
is elected president and yet we are accused of being biased," Tantawi said
on in his address.

But protesters in Tahrir Square and else have demanded an immediate
transfer of power to a civilian council with authority over the SCAF.

"There was nothing he could say that would meet our expectations. They
have nothing to give us. All we want is for the end of military rule,
immediately," Sherief Gaber, a 27-year-old demonstrator, told Al Jazeera.

"People were burned once by thinking they could trust Mubarak’s people and
the only thing they can trust is their own presence in the streets."

Pressure mounts

Domestic and international pressure for the SCAF to end the violence also
continued to mount as the interior ministry riot police appeared
increasingly to act without orders from the military.

In the US, the White House said it was "deeply concerned" by the security
forces's response, while the state department said the Egyptian government
- meaning the SCAF - "has a particular responsibility to restrain security
forces" and must "exercise maximum restraint".

Victoria Nuland, the state department spokeswoman, said Washington was
"looking forward to the naming of a new Egyptian government".

Also on Wednesday, Navi Pillay, the United Nations' human rights chief,
called for a "prompt, impartial and independent investigation" into the
riot police's "excessive use of force [and] ... improper use of teargas,
rubber bullets and live ammunition."
Follow in-depth coverage of country in turmoil

The SCAF, in a new communique released on its Facebook page on Wednesday,
said its forces had not used tear gas and would never "shed the blood" of
the Egyptian people. The military urged the people not to listen to
"rumors".

Though the SCAF has accepted the resignation of an interim cabinet that it
approved earlier this year, a new government has yet to form.

Sources told Al Jazeera the military had asked Novel laureate and
presidential hopeful Mohamed ElBaradei to form a "national salvation"
government, but ElBaradei was said to be hesitating over whether he would
have authority to choose his own ministers.

In Alexandria, lawyers and activists told Al Jazeera on Wednesday that at
least two people were killed during protests in the northern city
overnight.

At least one man, identified as 38-year-old oil engineer Sherif Sami Abdel
Hamid, was killed by live ammunition.

Al Jazeera’s Rawya Rageh, reporting from outside a morgue in Alexandria,
said Abdel Hamid was walking with his wife and two children and not
participating in the protest when a stray bullet hit him.

Witnesses said a second victim - believed to be a high school student -
suffocated from tear gas in the city, though Al Jazeera could not
immediately confirm the death.



Dozens of deaths reported in Syria crackdown

Activists say at least 41 killed in 24 hours as Turkey says Assad's
actions pose risk of regional turmoil.

23 Nov 2011 Al Jazeera

Activists say at least 41 people have been killed across Syria over the
past 24 hours, amid warning by Turkey that President Bashar al-Assad's
crackdown on dissent threatened to "drag the whole region into turmoil and
bloodshed".

The Local Co-ordinating Committees activist network said that at least
nine people were killed in Syria on Wednesday, including a child. Of those
killed, three died in the central city of Hama and two in the suburbs of
Damascus.

The UN says that more than 3,500 people, most of them civilians, have been
killed since the protests first broke out in Syria in March.

The deaths were reported as Abdullah Gul, the Turkish president, during a
speech during a state visit to Britain on Wednesday, accused "the Baath
regime continues to use oppression and violence on its own people".

"Violence breeds violence. Unfortunately Syria has come to a point of no
return," he said.


Separately, Alain Juppe, the French foreign minister, said he would seek
an EU backing for humanitarian corridors in Syria "to alleviate the
suffering of the population".

However, he ruled out the possibility of military intervention to create a
"buffer zone" in northern the country. Juppe made the comments after a
meeting on Wednesday in Paris with Burhan Ghalioun, the head of the Syrian
National Council, the main opposition bloc.

"If it's possible to have a humanitarian dimension for a securitised zone
to protect civilians, that's a question which
has to be studied by the European Union on the one side and the Arab
League on the other," he said,

Juppe described the Syrian National Council as "the legitimate partner
with which we want to work".

"We are working with the Arab League and all of our allies towards its
recognition," he said.

UN resolution

Syria came under increased diplomatic pressure when the UN General
Assembly's Human Rights Committee condemned its security crackdown in a
vote backed by Western nations and a number of Arab states.

Tuesday's resolution, drafted by Britain, France and Germany, received 122
votes in favour, 13 against and 41 abstentions.

Arab states that voted for it included co-sponsors Bahrain, Jordan,
Kuwait, Morocco, Qatar and Saudi Arabia, as well as Egypt.

Russia and China, which vetoed a European-drafted resolution that would
have condemned Syria in the UN Security Council last month, abstained.

Bashar Jaafari, the Syrian ambassador to the UN, said the resolution had
no meaning for his country and portrayed it as a US-inspired political
move.

"Despite the fact that the draft resolution was basically presented by
three European states, however it is no secret that the United States of
America is ... the main mind behind the political campaign against my
country," he said.

"This draft resolution has no relevance to human rights, other than it is
part of an adversarial American policy against my country."

Jaafari displayed for delegates what he said were documents containing the
"names of terrorists arrested while smuggling arms through the borders of
Syria".

He said the documents offered clear proof of a US-led plot to topple the
government of Assad.

Earlier on Tuesday, Tayyip Erdogan, Turkey's prime minister, called on
Assad to leave power, accusing him of "cowardice" for turning guns on his
own people and warning he risked the same fate as dictators who met bloody
deaths.

Earlier this week, a bus carrying Turkish pilgrims came under fire in
Syria as they were travelling back from the Hajj, leaving two injured.



Bahrain inquiry confirms rights abuses

Commission says security forces used "excessive force" and tortured
detainees in a report accepted by government.

23 Nov 2011 Al Jazeera

Bahraini security forces used "excessive force" and tortured detainees
during its crackdown in March on Shia Muslim-led protests demanding
democratic change, an Independent Commission of Inquiry has declared.

The mass demonstrations which rocked the Sunni-ruled Gulf Arab kingdom
were violently crushed as government forces used live ammunition and
heavy-handed tactics to scatter protesters.

The report, released in Manama on Wednesday, said the commission did not
find proof of an Iran link to the unrest.

"Evidence presented to the commission did not prove a clear link between
the events in Bahrain and Iran," Cherif Bassiouni, the commission's lead
investigator, said.

Responding to the inquiry's findings on Wednesday, an official spokesman
said the Bahrain government accepted the criticisms.

King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa, speaking after Bassiouni delivered his
report, pledged that officials involved in the abuses would be held
accountable and replaced.

"The government welcomes the findings of the Independent Commission, and
acknowledges its criticisms," an official Bahraini statement said. "We
took the initiative in asking for this thorough and detailed inquiry to
seek the truth and we accept it."

The report blamed the opposition for not having accepted the Bahraini
crown prince’s initiative in March which it says might have led to a
peaceful solution. It also mentioned instances of aggression against the
Sunnis of Bahrain as well as foreign workers.

Rights abuses

Bassiouni said the death toll from the month-long unrest reached 35,
including five security personnel. Hundreds more were injured. The
findings, which studied events in February and March, said that 11 other
people were killed later.

The commission concluded that a total of 2,929 people were detained during
the protest movement, at least 700 remain in prison.

International organisations, including Amnesty International, Human Rights
Watch and the UN human rights agency, have repeatedly accused the
government of violating citizens' rights, citing allegations of torture,
unfair trials, excessive use of force and violent repression.

Investigations conducted by the panel revealed that security forces "used
excessive force" while "many detainees were tortured", Bassiouni said.


Unrest rocked Bahrain between February 14 to March 18

In March, Bahraini security forces boosted by some 1,000 Gulf troops
crushed the uprising in Manama's Pearl Square, the epicentre of the
anti-government movement.

Bassiouni said the commission found no evidence that Gulf troops violated
human rights.

"The commission did not find any proof of human rights violations caused
by the presence of the Peninsula Shield forces," he said.

Iran and fellow Shias across the Arab world had criticised the Bahraini
government for calling in forces from fellow Sunni monarchies, claiming
that the Saudi-led force was used against Shia Bahrainis.

The report's findings were released hours after clashes in at least two
predominantly Shia villages on the outskirts of Manama.

In A'ali, about 30km south of the Manama, clashed took place after
officers allegedly ran a driver off the road.

Al Jazeera's Gregg Carlstrom, reporting from A’ali, said police had used
tear gas and sound bombs against the protesters.

"Protests initially began after police allegedly forced a man off the
road, causing him to crash into a house and die," he said. He said police
also raided a makeshift clinic and arrested a number of people.

Protests called

In his remarks, Hamad blamed much of the unrest on efforts by Iran to
incite violence, but said laws would be reviewed and if necessary revised.

"We do not want, ever again, to see our country paralysed by intimidation
and sabotage ... nor do we want, ever again, to discover that any of our
law enforcement personnel have mistreated anyone," he said.

"Therefore, we must reform our laws so that they are consistent with
international standards to which Bahrain is committed by treaties."

Hamad established the five-member commission in June to investigate
"whether the events of February and March 2011 [and thereafter] involved
violations of international human rights law and norms".

At least 35 people have been killed in this year's violence, with hundreds
more wounded and detained.

Journalists have recently been welcomed back into the country after months
of restrictions, and the government announced on Monday that all forms of
torture would be illegal, with more stringent penalties for those who
commit them.

Nabeel Rajab, president of Bahrain Centre for Human Rights, a leading
opposition group, praised the government’s move to ban torture, but argued
that the Bassiouni report would limit itself to a handful of low-level
targets.

Bahrain's government had already admitted using excessive force against
protesters before the release of the independent commission's report.


Two very different Bahrains, 10km apart

By Gregg Carlstrom 2011-11-23 Al Jazeera

I'm writing from A'Ali, a predominantly Shiite village in the centre of
Bahrain, which was the site of clashes all morning between anti-government
protesters and the police.

A few hours later, 10 kilometres down the road, the Bahraini government is
released the official report into this year's alleged human rights abuses.
The government hopes the report is a chance to turn the page and "move
forward," as a spokesman said earlier this week.

Ask anyone here in A'Ali, and they'll tell you those abuses are still
going on.

Witnesses here said a convoy of police vehicles sped through the village
this morning, forced a man's car off the road, and crashed into him,
killing him. I did not witness the accident, but I've seen Bahraini police
speed through other villages, tearing recklessly down narrow streets at
high speed. It's a common occurrence. (Just on Saturday, in fact, another
Bahraini, a 16-year-old boy, was run over by police vehicles in the suburb
of Juffair.)

The Bahraini government issued a statement calling it a simple traffic
accident, a car colliding with a house. But the damage did not match that
description: The car was crumpled on the sides, not the the front, as
you'd expect from a head-on collision.

Protesters came out in the streets afterwards, chanting yasqat Hamad
("down with Hamad," the king) and throwing paint bombs at police vehicles.
The police responded with tear gas and sound bombs.

My colleague Matthew Cassel shot this video of protesters reacting to
being tear gassed:

I went into one makeshift clinic a few minutes after it was raided. I saw
sound bombs on the floor inside, and the air still reeked of tear gas. The
women inside, who did not want to be photographed for fear of the
consequences, said they had been roughly searched by police, and that the
medics providing care were detained.

We also saw a Bahraini photojournalist, Mazen Mahdi, arrested by police
while trying to do his job. He was loaded into a jeep and driven away. (He
later tweeted that he'd been released, because the police couldn't figure
out what to charge him with.)

The government calls the official report an "unprecedented and historic
step" and hopes it will open the door to political reconciliation. But
unless it follows the report with significant concessions - ending the
regular police raids in the villages, declaring an amnesty for prisoners -
protesters here say they'll keep coming out.



Yemen's Saleh agrees to transfer power

Yemenis express mixed reactions in response to Saleh signing Gulf
initiative to begin transfer of power.

23 Nov 2011 Al Jazeera

Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh has signed a deal to hand over his
powers under an agreement brokered by the Gulf Co-operation Council.

The deal signed on Wednesday, will see Saleh leave office in 30 days,
making way for Abdrabuh Mansur Hadi, the Yemeni vice-president, to
negotiate a power transfer with the opposition in return for a promise of
immunity from prosecution.

As part of the deal Saleh will retain the honorary title of president, yet
his deputy is expected to form and preside over a national unity
government before presidential elections take place within 90 days.

In response to the deal, there were mixed reactions some protesters
celebrated, while other rallied in Change Square in the capital, Sanaa,
and said they would reject a deal giving the president immunity.

Live footage of the ceremony aired by Saudi state television showed Saleh
sign the Gulf- and UN-brokered agreement in Riyadh's Al-Yamama royal
palace watched over by members of the Yemeni opposition as well as Saudi
King Abdullah and Gulf foreign ministers.

Saleh, who has ruled Yemen since 1978, spoke of the cost of the uprising
to Yemen, but did not mention the demands of protesters who called for his
ouster. Instead, he referred to the protests as a "coup'' and called a
bombing of his palace mosque that seriously wounded him "a scandal.'

After signing the deal, Saleh said his government welcomes the partnership
with what he called the "brothers in the opposition" and pledged a "real
partnership" with them.

The Saudi king hailed the signing as marking a "new page" in the Yemen's
history.

Saleh, 69, will now seek medical treatment in New York, UN chief Ban
Ki-moon said on Wednesday.

"He [Saleh] told me that he would come to New York after signing the
agreement to have medical treatment," Ban said, giving details of a
telephone conversation they had on Tuesday.

Saleh had rejected signing similar agreement to step down in the past few
months, sometimes resisting at the last minute.

Fresh protests

In response to the deal, Yemenis voiced both joy and frustration.
Celebrations erupted in Sanaa as Yemenis danced through the street, but
many others said the deal is not enough for them

Al Jazeera's special correspondent in Sanaa said that those gathered are
"protesting his [Saleh's] immunity from any legal repercussions".

"There is a tension in the air. Most people are here to celebrate, but
they see it only as a victory for now," our special correspondent said.

Saleh's family members continue to have powerful posts in the military and
intelligence service, and it is unclear how much political power Saleh
will have.

"For youth revolutionaries this deal is not accepted," Ibrahim Mohamed
al-Sayidi, a Yemeni youth opposition activist, told Al Jazeera.
For more on Yemen, visit our Spotlight page

The US welcomed the deal and Mark Toner, a state department spokesperson,
said: "The United States applauds the Yemeni government and the opposition
for agreeing to a peaceful and orderly transition of power."

In May, Saleh's supporters - many of which also reject the GCC deal - took
to the streets besieging the UAE embassy in Sanaa where foreign
ambassadors were gathered for a signing ceremony. The UAE is one of the
members of the GCC.

The signing was postponed and clashes broke out for the first time between
Ahmar's men and Saleh's forces in Al-Hasaba.

Reports of more deaths in Yemeni protest

Witnesses say forces loyal to President Saleh fired on protesters, killing
at least seven in the capital, Sanaa.

Oct 18, 2011 Al Jazeera

At least seven people have been killed and dozens wounded after armed men
loyal to President Ali Abdullah Saleh opened fire on demonstrators in the
Yemeni capital, witnesses say.

Residents of Sanaa told Al Jazeera on Tuesday that several injured people
were kidnapped after protesters calling on Saleh to step down were trapped
by security forces inside the Al-Qaa neighbourhood.

According to the witnesses, armed men loyal to the embattled president had
erected tents in the street to block an anti-government march.

The protesters came under attack as they marched from Change Square to
Al-Qaa, a district where government buildings are located.

The latest violence came as the United Nations condemned the killing of
peaceful protesters in Yemen.

UN condemnation

"We condemn in the strongest terms the reported killing of a number of
largely peaceful protestors in Sanaa and Taez as a result of the
indiscriminate use of force by Yemeni security forces since Saturday,"
Rupert Colville, a spokesman for the UN High Commissioner for Human
Rights, said.

"We are extremely concerned that security forces continue to use excessive
force in a climate of complete impunity for crimes resulting in heavy loss
of life and injury, despite repeated pledges by the government to the
contrary," he added.

Earlier on Monday, Tawakkul Karman, Yemen's Nobel Peace Prize laureate,
urged the UN to act "immediately and decisively" to halt a deadly
government crackdown on protesters.

In a letter to Ban Ki-moon, the UN secretary-general, she said: "This is
the only thing that will give Yemenis... confidence that international
justice exists... and that it extends far enough to reach Saleh, his gang
and all the despots who continue to kill innocents."

Karman and tens of thousands of other pro-democracy activists have for
months been camped out in Sanaa's Change Square, demanding an end to
Saleh's long rule.

The crackdown by government troops on anti-government protests has killed
hundreds since the mass protest movement, inspired by uprisings in other
countries in the region, began in late January.


Yemeni forces kill 12 in new protests

By AHMED AL-HAJ - Associated Press | Oct. 18, 2011

SANAA, Yemen — Yemeni government forces opened fire Tuesday on protesters
in Sanaa, killing 12 and injuring more than 70, a medical official said, a
day after the capital witnessed its worst fighting in weeks.

Mohammed al-Qubati, the director of a field hospital at the main protest
site in Sanaa dubbed "Change Square," said more than 70 protesters were
injured in the protests demanding the resignation of President Ali
Abdullah Saleh.

Tens of thousands of protesters marched through Sanaa, led by shirtless
young men with the words "Leave ... you butcher" scrawled across their
chests, referring to Saleh, .

Soldiers from the Republican Guard, a loyalist unit led by Saleh's son
Ahmed, arrested four female protesters who were ahead of the main
demonstration, said activist Habib al-Uraiqi.

Abdel-Rahman Berman of Yemen's National Organization for Defending Rights
and Freedoms (HOOD) said Saleh's forces used live ammunition and harsh
tear gas.

Berman said HOOD team monitoring the situation charged that government
forces and thugs abducted female protesters and some wounded demonstrators
in a "shameful and criminal way."

Similar demonstrations were held in other parts of Yemen, including the
southern cities of Aden and Taiz, protest organizers said.

The protesters called for Saleh to be put on trial for killing
demonstrators and urged the international community and the U.N. Security
Council to help topple him.

On Tuesday, key members of the Security Council began considering a
British-drafted resolution that would call for an immediate cease-fire in
Yemen and transfer of power, as well as immediate action by Yemeni
authorities to end attacks against civilians. The consultations are still
in progress.

President Saleh is accused by many Yemenis of pushing the country into
civil war by tenaciously clinging to power in the face of eight months of
mass protests across the country, the defection to the opposition of key
tribal and military allies and mounting international pressure on him to
step down.

He has balked at a U.S.-backed plan proposed by Saudi Arabia and its five
smaller allies in the Gulf Cooperation Council to hand over power to his
deputy and step down in exchange for immunity.

In Washington, State Department spokesman Mark Toner called on Saleh to
sign the transition deal. "The violence has gone on far too long," Toner
told reporters. "It's taken too many lives."

Pre-dawn fighting between troops loyal to Yemen's embattled leader and
rival forces killed at least 18 people in Sanaa on Monday, reviving fears
of civil war in the poor Arabian peninsula nation.

A civil war would significantly hurt efforts led by the U.S. to fight
Yemen's dangerous al-Qaida branch. It could turn Yemen into a global haven
for militants just a short distance away from the vast oil fields of the
Gulf and the key shipping lanes in the Arabian and Red Seas to and from
the Suez Canal.

___

Associated Press writers Edith M. Lederer at the U.N. and Bradley Klapper
in Washington contributed to this report.

Yemen street battles escalate, killing 9 people

By AHMED AL-HAJ - Associated Press | Sept. 20, 2011

SANAA, Yemen (AP) — Rapidly escalating street battles between opponents of
Yemen's regime and forces loyal to its embattled president spread to the
home districts of senior government figures and other highly sensitive
areas of the capital on Tuesday. A third day of fighting, including a
mortar attack on unarmed protesters, killed nine people, medical officials
said.

The latest deaths took to at least 60 the number of people killed since
Sunday, as anti-regime protesters step up their campaign to topple
President Ali Abdullah Saleh and a key military unit supporting them is
drawn deeper into the fighting. Saleh's forces have hit back with attacks
by rooftop snipers and shelling of protest encampments.

The violence is forcing more of the capital's residents to flee to the
relative safety of rural Yemen. Scores of pickup trucks and sedans loaded
with families and personal belongings could be seen headed out in early
Tuesday morning after a night in which loud explosions repeatedly shook
the city.

Most of those staying put in the capital are not leaving their homes for
fear of snipers or getting caught up in gunfights, leaving the city
looking increasingly deserted on Tuesday morning, with most stores
shuttered.

Yemen's turmoil began in February as the unrest spreading throughout the
Arab world ignited largely peaceful protests in the deeply impoverished
and unstable corner of the Arabian Peninsula that is also home to an
al-Qaida offshoot blamed for several nearly successful attempts to attack
the United States.

The government has responded with a heavy crackdown.

President Saleh went to Saudi Arabia for medical treatment after a June
attack on his Sanaa compound and has not returned to Yemen, but has
resisted calls to resign.

After the dawn Muslim prayer on Tuesday, Saleh's forces lobbed mortar
shells at Change Square, a plaza at the heart of the city where protesters
have held a sit-in since the uprising began in February.

Medical officials said the shelling killed three protesters, three rebel
soldiers and a bystander.

Clashes between protesters and security forces in the southern city of
Taiz left two more people dead, they said. The officials spoke on
condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to share the
information.

Elsewhere in the capital, clashes between protesters and security forces
erupted in several districts, with gunfire ringing out in areas close to
Saleh's residence and the office of his son and one-time heir apparent,
Ahmed, commander of the elite loyalist Republican Guards and Special
Forces.

In the upscale district of Hadah, home to senior government officials as
well as tribal leaders opposed to Saleh, gunbattles were raging between
forces loyal to the president's son and bands of tribal fighters opposed
to the regime.

3 killed at Syrian protest after Assad vows reform

Two Stories:

3 killed at Syrian protest after Assad vows reform
Mass protests in Yemen over leader's women remark


3 killed at Syrian protest after Assad vows reform

By ZEINA KARAM, Associated Press Apr 17, 2011

BEIRUT – Gunmen opened fire during a funeral for a slain anti-government
protester Sunday, killing at least three people on a day when tens of
thousands of people took to the streets nationwide as part of an uprising
against the country's authoritarian regime, witnesses and activists said.

It was not immediately clear who was behind the shooting at the funeral
near Homs, 100 miles (160 kilometers) from the capital, Damascus.

In the past four weeks, Syrian security forces in uniforms and
plainclothes have launched a deadly crackdown on demonstrations, killing
at least 200 people, according to human rights groups. The government has
blamed armed gangs looking to stir up unrest for many of the killings.

One witness said gunmen wearing black clothes opened fire at hundreds of
people in the Talbiseh district in central Syria at a funeral for a
protester who was killed Saturday. Other witnesses said they saw soldiers
and security forces open fire, shooting even at homes and balconies.
Dozens were wounded, they said.

A human rights activist in Damascus confirmed the three deaths, but said
he had no information on who killed them. He confirmed the deaths through
witnesses on the ground who saw the killings and gave him the names of the
dead.

The witnesses and the activist requested anonymity for fear of reprisals
from the government.

Syria's state-run news agency later said one policeman was killed and 11
other policemen and security personnel were wounded when an "armed
criminal gang" opened fire on them in Talbiseh. It said the gang opened
fire randomly, shutting down main streets and terrorizing residents.

The killings were bound to increase pressure on President Bashar Assad,
who has tried to quell the popular uprising with a mixture of brute force
and concessions.

On Saturday, he promised to end nearly 50 years of emergency rule this
week, a key demand of the protesters.

But despite Assad's promises, the protest movement has grown and become
much bolder. Many protesters say they will settle for nothing less than
the downfall of the regime, driven by outrage over the crackdown.

On Sunday, tens of thousands of people waving Syrian flags and shouting
"We want freedom!" took to the streets across Syria, brushing off Assad's
attempts to calm things down.

"It's too late for their promises," said Bayan Bayati, a 22-year-old
Arabic literature student who was among 20,000 people who turned out
Sunday in the town of Banias. Other large gatherings were reported in the
southern city of Daraa, which has become an epicenter of the movement, and
the suburbs of Damascus.

The witness accounts could not be independently confirmed because Syria
has placed tight restrictions on media outlets and expelled foreign
journalists.

Threats to Assad's iron rule would have major regional repercussions,
jeopardizing a key component to Iran's sphere of influence in the Middle
East. The two countries work together to arm the Shiite militant group
Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in the Palestinian territories — groups
considered terrorists by Israel and the United States.

There also are some fears in the region, particularly from Sunni
counterweight Saudi Arabia, that Iran is quietly backing Shiite-led
protest movements across the region, in places such as Bahrain and Yemen.

The Obama administration said last week that Iran appears to be helping
Syria crack down on protesters, calling it a troubling example of Iranian
meddling in the region. Syria denied the charge.

Assad said Saturday the emergency laws will be lifted this coming week, a
key demand of protesters. Syria's widely despised emergency laws have been
in place since the ruling Baath Party came to power in 1963, giving the
regime a free hand to arrest people without charge and extending state
authority into virtually every aspect of life.

But he warned there will no longer be "an excuse" for organizing protests
once Syria lifts emergency rule and implements reforms, which he said will
include a new law allowing the formation of political parties.

Sunday's protests suggest his gestures have fallen short of satisfying the
growing demands. There was also concern that Assad will replace the
emergency laws with equally harsh restrictions on public expression.

The biggest demonstrations in Syria on Sunday were in Daraa and the
coastal town of Banias.

Witnesses reached by telephone said tens of thousands of people were
marching in Daraa, shouting "Whoever kills his own people is a traitor!"
Others shouted "The people want to topple the regime," which was the
rallying cry during protests in Egypt and Tunisia that ousted the
countries' longtime leaders.

In Banias, witnesses said up to 20,000 people took to the streets,
outraged over a raid by security forces last week and the brief detention
of hundreds of its young men. At least five people were killed in the
violence.

"They have humiliated us. They took away our men," said Bayati, the
literature student. She said the bullets used on protesters would have
been better used to "liberate the Golan Heights" — which Israel captured
in the 1967 Mideast War.

In the town of Suweida, near Daraa, security forces beat protesters with
batons, injuring several of them. The gathering drew about 300 people,
witnesses said. Activists also said a large demonstration was taking place
in the Damascus suburb of Douma, but calls to the town were not going
through.

The demonstrations come despite promises by Assad to end the widely
despised state of emergency rule by next week at the latest, and implement
other reforms.

But he coupled his concession with a stern warning that further unrest
will be considered sabotage.

Assad says armed gangs and a "foreign conspiracy" are behind the unrest,
not true reform-seekers.


Mass protests in Yemen over leader's women remark

By AHMED AL-HAJ, Associated Press Apr 17, 2011

SANAA, Yemen – Security forces fired on anti-government protesters in
Yemen's capital Sunday as hundreds of thousands of marchers — including
many women — packed cities around the country to denounce the president
and remarks he made against women taking part in rallies demanding his
ouster.

The massive turnout suggests opposition forces have been able to tap into
fresh outrage against Ali Abdullah Saleh after his comments Friday that
mingling of men and women at protests violated Islamic law.

Meanwhile, representatives from Yemen's opposition held talks with
regional mediators in the Saudi capital Sunday to discuss a proposal by
the six-nation Gulf Cooperation Council for ending the unrest in which
Saleh would transfer power to his deputy.

The Yemeni opposition says nothing short of Saleh's immediate departure
would end the unrest in the impoverished Gulf nation at the southern tip
of the Arabian Peninsula. The GCC proposal also offers the president
immunity from prosecution, which the opposition rejected.

Security forces opened fire on protesters in the capital on Sunday as
marchers neared the office of the special forces, headed by Saleh's son.
Witnesses said the forces fired live ammunition, and used tear gas and
water cannons to disperse the crowd. Security agents chased protesters in
side streets.

Mohammed el-Abahi, the head doctor at the protesters' field hospital, said
at least 220 people were wounded, including 20 people hit by gunfire.

Witnesses said ambulances were prevented by security forces from reaching
some of the wounded, many of whom were taken to a mosque.

Abdul-Malek al-Youssefi, an activist and a protest organizer, said the
latest protest wave could well be "the last nail in Saleh's coffin."

A youth movement leading the anti-Salah protests called for mass
demonstrations Sunday, dubbed a day of "honor and dignity" that brought
out a strong outpouring of women upset at the president's comments on
Friday.

"He aimed to provoke families and the society," said Arwa Shaher, a female
activist. "But it has only increased our resolve to pursue the people's
demands to ensure that this man, who is losing his mind day by day, goes."

A young woman first led anti-Saleh demonstrations on a university campus
in late January, but women didn't begin taking part in large numbers until
early March. It was a startling step in a nation with deeply conservative
social and Islamic traditions.

But Saleh has clung to power despite the near-daily protests and
defections by key allies in the military, powerful tribes and diplomatic
corps amid calls to fight poverty and open up the country's restricted
political life.

Security forces have launched fierce attacks on anti-government marches to
try to protect Saleh's 32-year autocratic rule. Yemeni rights groups said
the crackdown has killed more than 120 people, but it has not deterred
crowds from gathering.

In the southern city of Damar, at least 18 people were injured in clashes
with police and security agents after they fired tear gas, said medical
officials who spoke on condition of anonymity because of fears of backlash
from authorities. An activist in the city, Abdul-Rahman Ahmed, said shots
were heard but it was unclear whether it was rubber bullets or live
ammunition.

Elsewhere, more than 100,000 people took to the streets in Taiz, a hotbed
of protests, and large demonstrations were mounted in the port of Aden and
other cities.

Many saw Saleh's comments on women as an offense because they questioned
women's honor and invoked religious tradition in an attempt to stem
political outrage.

On Sunday, Saleh was shown on television meeting with dozens of women. He
told them: "We don't doubt our daughters, or mothers or sisters. These
women are dearer and more honorable than to be offended."

Saleh explained that what he said about mixing of the genders was out of
fear that "mobs" would attack them.

Many Yemeni women remain out of sight and conceal themselves in public
under black head-to-toe robes. The issue of child brides in Yemen has also
drawn international criticism. But unlike in neighboring Saudi Arabia,
women in Yemen are permitted to vote, run for parliament and drive cars.

Advocacy for women's rights in Yemen is rooted in the 1967-1990 period
when the once-independent south had a socialist government. After
unification, women in the south became more marginalized, resulting in
high unemployment among female university graduates.

Syrian protests turn deadly; 32 reported killed

By BASSEM MROUE and ZEINA KARAM, Associated Press April 8, 2011

BEIRUT – Mass protests calling for sweeping changes in Syria's
authoritarian regime turned deadly Friday, with the government and
protesters both claiming heavy casualties as the country's three-week
uprising entered a dangerous new phase.

The bloodiest clashes occurred in the restive city of Daraa, where human
rights activists and witnesses said Syrian security forces opened fire on
tens of thousands of protesters, killing 25 people and wounding hundreds.

At the same time, state-run TV said 19 policemen and members of the
security forces were killed when gunmen opened fire on them. It was the
first significant claim of casualties by the Syrian government, which has
contended that armed gangs rather than true reform-seekers are behind the
unrest — and it could signal plans for a stepped-up retaliation.

The protests were in response to calls by organizers to take to the
streets every Friday to demand change in one of the most rigid nations in
the Middle East. Marches were held in cities across the country as the
movement showed no sign of letting up, despite the violent crackdowns.

At least 32 protesters were killed nationwide, according to human rights
activists. The bloodshed lifted the death toll from three weeks of
protests to more than 170 people, according to Amnesty International.

The calls for reform have shaken the regime of President Bashar Assad,
whose family has ruled Syria for more than 40 years. Assad, a
British-trained eye doctor, inherited power from his father 11 years ago
and tried to help the country emerge from years of international isolation
and lift Soviet-style economic restrictions.

But despite early promises of social and political change, Assad has
slipped back into the autocratic ways of his father.

As the wave of protests have gathered steam, Assad has offered some
limited concessions — firing local officials and forming committees to
look into replacing the country's despised emergency laws, which allow the
regime to arrest people without charge. On Thursday, he granted
citizenship to thousands of Kurds, fulfilling a decades-old demand of the
country's long-ostracized minority.

But those gestures have failed to mollify a growing movement that is
raising the ceiling on its demands for concrete reforms and free
elections.

"The protests are about Syrians wanting freedom after 42 years of
repression," said Murhaf Jouejati, a Syria expert at George Washington
University. "Mr. Assad may fire all the people he wants, this still
doesn't touch on the basic issues and the basic demands of the
protesters."

Witness accounts out of Syria could not be independently confirmed because
the regime has restricted media access to the country, refusing to grant
visas to journalists and detaining or expelling reporters already in the
country. Daraa has largely been sealed off and telephone calls go through
only sporadically.

But residents, who spoke to The Associated Press independently of each
other, said mosques were turned into makeshift hospitals to help tend to
hundreds of wounded.

One man who helped ferry the dead and wounded to the city's hospital said
he counted at least 13 corpses.

"My clothes are soaked with blood," he said by telephone from Daraa. Like
most activists and witnesses, he requested anonymity for fear of
reprisals.

A nurse at the hospital said they had run out of beds; many people were
being treated on the floor or in nearby mosques.

Videos posted on YouTube showed demonstrations in at least 15 towns, large
and small, across the country. The videos could not be independently
confirmed, but they appeared to show the most widespread gatherings since
protests began.

Ammar Qurabi, who heads Syria's National Organization for Human Rights,
said 32 people were killed nationwide: 25 in Daraa, three in the central
city of Homs, three in the Damascus suburb of Harasta and one in the
suburb of Douma.

Douma has become a flashpoint after eight people were shot dead there last
Friday.

One activist said tens of thousands protested and dispersed peacefully in
the early afternoon, but he saw security forces open fire later in the
evening as a group tried to enter Douma. He said he saw security forces
taking a body away.

Protests were also reported in Latakia, which has a potentially volatile
mix of different religious groups. The city has seen violence in recent
weeks, and some fear it could take on a dangerous sectarian tone in
Latakia.

Syria had appeared immune to the unrest sweeping the Arab world until
three weeks ago, when security forces arrested a group of high school
students who scrawled anti-government graffiti on a wall in Daraa.

Protests then exploded in cities across the country.

A city of about 300,000 near the border with Jordan, Daraa is suffering
sustained economic effects from a yearslong drought.

___

AP writers Elizabeth A. Kennedy and Diaa Hadid in Cairo contributed to
this report.



Yemen's Saleh again rejects move to replace him

By Mohamed Sudam and Mohammed Ghobari – Reuters Fri Apr 8, 2011

SANAA (Reuters) – Protests in Yemen descended into violence on Friday in
which at least four people were killed and dozens wounded as President Ali
Abdullah Saleh rejected a Gulf Arab plan to secure an end to his 32 years
in power.

Saleh, facing an unprecedented challenge from hundreds of thousands of
protesters, initially accepted an offer by Saudi Arabia and other Gulf
Arab states, as part of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), to hold talks
with the opposition.

On Wednesday, Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Hamad bin Jassim al-Thani said
the GCC would strike a deal for Saleh to leave.

But on Friday, Saleh told tens of thousands of supporters in the capital
Sanaa "We don't get our legitimacy from Qatar or from anyone else ... we
reject this belligerent intervention."

Frustration with the impasse may push the thousands of Yemenis who have
taken to the streets closer to violence. Two protesters were shot dead on
Friday, bringing the death toll from clashes with security forces this
week to at least 23.

"I don't think the GCC or the West want Yemen to go down the road of
Libya, because that's exactly where it's going," said Theodore Karasik, an
analyst at the Dubai based INEGMA group.

"The more entrenched Saleh gets, the greater the outside pressure, so this
could really illustrate how much influence outside powers actually have
over Yemen."

Clashes broke out in Taiz between hundreds of protesters and security
forces who fired gunshots and tear gas. Two protesters were shot dead and
25 wounded by gunfire, doctors said. Some 200 were hurt by tear gas
inhalation.

The protesters were carrying to the cemetery the bodies of five people
killed earlier in the week when police halted them.

In the port city of Aden, once the capital of an independent south, police
fired shots to disperse thousands of protesters. Some 15,000 gathered in
the Red Sea port of Hudaida to demand Saleh quit and mourn six killed in
protests there on Monday.

"We're tired of this poverty and oppression in Hudaida and all of Yemen,"
said protester Abdullah Fakira. "Enough already."

Some 40 percent of Yemen's 23 million people live on less than $2 a day
and a third face chronic hunger. Poverty and exasperation with rampant
corruption drove the pro-democracy protests that began over two months
ago, protesters say.

AL QAEDA FEARS

Even before the protests erupted, inspired by regional uprisings, Saleh
was struggling to quell a separatist rebellion in the south and a Shi'ite
insurgency in the north. The violence could give al Qaeda's Yemen-based
regional wing more room to operate.

All this adds to concern about stability in a country that sits on a
shipping lane through which more than three million barrels of oil pass
each day.

On Friday, local officials from Abyan, a center of militancy, told Reuters
that troops were trying to retake the city of Jaar, from which they
retreated two weeks ago saying they had been overpowered by militants.

Security forces surrounded Jaar with tanks and artillery and clashed with
"jihadist militants" who appeared to have fled, one official said. He said
troops would soon enter the city.

The United States and Yemen's key financial backer, Saudi Arabia, both
targets of attempted attacks by al Qaeda's Yemen-based branch, appear
ready to push aside their long-time ally to avoid a chaotic collapse.

Apparently trying to avoid a snub to Saleh's main backer, a presidential
aide told Reuters Saleh's comments were not aimed at Saudi Arabia's offer
to host GCC mediated talks.

"The president welcomes the efforts of our brothers in the Gulf to solve
the crisis but rejects statements from the Qatari prime minister which he
considers interference in Yemen's affairs," the aide said.

U.S. State Department spokesman Mark Toner released a statement saying
Washington welcomed the initiative.

"We strongly encourage all sides to engage in this urgently needed
dialogue to reach a solution supported by the Yemeni people," he said.
"President Saleh has publicly expressed his willingness to engage in a
peaceful transition of power; the timing and form of this transition
should be identified through negotiation and begin soon."

The Wall Street Journal said Washington froze its largest aid package to
Yemen in February, worth $1 billion or more over several years.

The Washington Post said a Yemeni opposition party leader had told a U.S.
embassy official in Sanaa there had been a secret plan to oust Saleh less
than two years ago.

COMPETING DEMONSTRATIONS

Pro-democracy protesters held a "Friday of firmness" in Sanaa, shouting
"You're next, you leader of the corrupt," as armored vehicles and security
forces deployed across the city.

Some 4 km (2.5 miles) away, tens of thousands of Saleh loyalists marched,
waving pictures of the president and banners that read "No to terrorism,
no to sabotage."

Around 700 riot police took up position close to General Ali Mohsen's
forces. The veteran commander defected from Saleh weeks ago, and his
troops are protecting a Sanaa protest camp. He said again on Friday he
would not try to take over the country, as some diplomats had suggested.

The defense ministry said Mohsen's forces killed two pro-Saleh
demonstrators in Sanaa. Mohsen's forces were not immediately available for
comment. A Sanaa doctor confirmed two people were killed but had no
information on their attackers.

Talks with the opposition to negotiate a transition stalled weeks ago, and
the GCC initiative is having trouble obtaining agreement from the parties.

"We want this regime to go. Enough lying and oppression. The initiative
came late and the only initiative we want is one to make him step down,"
said Mahfouz Salam, 45, a Sanaa protester.

The GCC plan would guarantee one key Saleh demand -- that he and his
family get immunity from prosecution -- an opposition source said on
Thursday, but youth activists rejected the idea.

(Additional reporting by Khaled al-Mahdi in Taiz and Mohammed Mukhashaf in
Aden; Writing by Erika Solomon; Editing by Nick Macfie and Tim Pearce)

Troops fire on Yemen protest; US seeks Saleh exit

By AHMED AL-HAJ, Associated Press April 4, 2011

SANAA, Yemen – Military forces and police snipers opened fire Monday on
marchers calling for the ouster of Yemen's embattled president, killing at
least 15 people and sending a strong message of defiance to U.S. and
European envoys seeking to broker a peace deal after months of bloodshed.

The melee in the southern city of Taiz — part of an intensifying crackdown
on the opposition — underscored the resolve of President Ali Abdullah
Saleh to cling to power even as protest crowds resist withering attacks
and crucial allies switch sides and call for his 32-year rule to end.

It also showed the challenges facing behind-the-scenes diplomatic efforts
to quell the nearly two-month-old uprising in a nation that Washington
considers a frontline battleground against al-Qaida's most active
franchise.

"We will stand as firm as mountains," Saleh told a gathering of
pro-government tribesmen.

In Taiz, witnesses described troops and gunmen, some on rooftops, firing
wildly on thousands of protesters who marched past the governor's
headquarters in the city's second straight day of violence. Some
protesters — including elderly people — were trampled and injured as
marchers tried to flee, witnesses said.

Saleh has been a key ally of the United States, which has given him
millions in counterterrorism aid to fight al-Qaida's branch in the
country, which has plotted attacks on American soil. So far, Washington
has not publicly demanded that he step down. But the diplomatic efforts
are a clear sign that the Americans have decided the danger of turmoil and
instability outweighs the potential risks if Saleh leaves.

Mustafa al-Sabri, a spokesman for a coalition of opposition parties, said
U.S. and European diplomats had been in contact with Saleh. They also
asked opposition leaders for their "vision" for a transition.

In response, the opposition over the weekend gave the Americans a proposal
that Saleh step down and hand his powers to his vice president, who would
then organize a process to rewrite the constitution and hold new
elections, al-Sabri said.

The six-nation Gulf Cooperation Council, which includes Yemen's neighbors
Oman and Saudi Arabia, also offered to try to mediate a peace deal.

In Washington, State Department spokesman Mark Toner said American envoys
"continue to consult intensively" with Yemen's government and the
opposition, but he refused to give details of any specific U.S. plans.

Saleh has offered no hint of compromise as long as protests rage.

"We are prepared to explore the peaceful transfer of authority in the
framework of the constitution. But arm-twisting will absolutely not work,"
he said on Sunday.

On Monday, he showed an even harder edge. "We are standing firm, and we
will defend constitutional legitimacy by all means," he told backers. "We
will stand as firm as mountains and will remain faithful to the people."

Saleh has offered to step down early at the end of this year if a transfer
of power acceptable to him is reached. But the opposition fears that Saleh
is using the discussions over stepping down to stall for time — either to
stay in power or to ensure he is succeeded by one of his sons.

The U.S. Embassy has not commented on any diplomatic efforts, saying only
in a statement over the weekend that "Saleh has publicly expressed his
willingness to engage in a peaceful transition of power; the timing and
form of this transition should be identified through dialogue and
negotiation."

The opposition has been holding continual protest camps in main squares of
the capital, Sanaa, and other cities around the country, and hundreds of
thousands turned out for the biggest and most widespread marches yet on
Friday. At least 97 people have been killed since demonstrations began
Feb. 11.

The violence in the mountain city of Taiz began when thousands of
protesters marched down its main street toward Freedom Square, where
demonstrators have been camped out, surrounded by security forces.

As the march passed the governor's headquarters, troops stationed there
blocked the procession and clashes broke out with some protesters throwing
stones, witnesses said.

Troops from the Republican Guard and the military police on nearby
rooftops opened fire on the crowd and the marchers then turned to besiege
the governor's headquarters, said Bushra al-Maqtara, an opposition
activist in Taiz, and other witnesses.

"It was heavy gunfire from all directions. Some were firing from the
rooftop of the governor's building," said one protester in the crowd, Omar
al-Saqqaf.

At least 12 protesters were killed, said Hamoud Aqlan, a medical official
at a clinic set up by protesters. Dozens more were wounded by gunshots,
mainly to the head, neck and chest, he said. A medical official said
another two demonstrators died of their wounds later.

The military has clamped down on the city of nearly half a million, about
120 miles (200 kilometers) south of the capital. For a second day, tanks
and armored vehicles blocked entrances to the city to prevent outsiders
from joining the protests. They also surrounded Freedom Square, bottling
up the thousands in the protest camp there and arresting anyone who tries
to exit.

Saleh's top security official in Taiz, Abdullah Qiran, is accused by
demonstrators of orchestrating some of the most brutal crackdowns against
demonstrators, particularly in the southern port town of Aden. On Sunday,
police attacked a march by thousands of women in Taiz, sparking a battle
with a separate group of male protesters.

Marches in solidarity with the Taiz protesters erupted in several cities,
including in the capital Sanaa and the city of Hudayda, where snipers
opened fire on demonstrators, killing one man, critically injuring another
and wounding dozens of others, medics said.

Troops open fire as protests explode across Syria

Three articles

- Troops open fire as protests explode across Syria
- Leader offers to go if Yemen's in 'safe hands'
- Government backers, police attack Jordan protest

Troops open fire as protests explode across Syria

By ZEINA KARAM and BASSEM MROUE, Associated Press March 25, 2011

DAMASCUS, Syria – Troops opened fire on protesters in cities across Syria
and pro- and anti-government crowds clashed in the capital's historic old
city as one of the Mideast's most repressive regimes sought to put down
demonstrations that exploded nationwide Friday demanding reform.

The upheaval sweeping the region definitively took root in Syria as an
eight-day uprising centered on a rural southern town dramatically expanded
into protests by tens of thousands in multiple cities. The
once-unimaginable scenario posed the biggest challenge in decades to
Syria's iron-fisted rule.

Protesters wept over the bloodied bodies of slain comrades and massive
crowds chanted anti-government slogans, then fled as gunfire erupted,
according to footage posted online. Security forces shot to death more
than 15 people in at least six cities and villages, including a suburb of
the capital, Damascus, witnesses told The Associated Press. Their accounts
could not be independently confirmed.

The regime of President Bashar Assad, an ally of Iran and supporter of
militant groups around the region, had seemed immune from the Middle
East's three-month wave of popular uprising. His security forces, which
have long silenced the slightest signs of dissent, quickly snuffed out
smaller attempts at protests last month.

Syrians also have fearful memories of the brutal crackdown unleashed by
his father, Hafez Assad, when Muslim fundamentalists in the central town
of Hama tried an uprising in 1982: Thousands were killed and parts of the
city were flattened by artillery and bulldozers.

The Assads' leadership — centered on members of their Alawi minority sect,
a branch of Shiite Islam in this mainly Sunni nation — have built their
rule by mixing draconian repression with increasing economic freedom,
maintaining the loyalty of the wealthy Sunni merchant class in the
prosperous cities of Damascus and Aleppo.

Bashar Assad now faces the same dilemma confronted by the leaders of
Tunisia, Egypt, Yemen and Bahrain — ratchet up violence or offer
concessions. A day earlier, his government seemed to test the latter
track, offering to consider lifting draconian emergency laws and promising
increased pay and benefits for state workers.

As massive crowds rejected the offers, the worst violence appeared
centered around Daraa, where the arrest of a group of young men for
spraying anti-regime graffiti last week set off a cycle of growing
demonstrations and increasingly violent government crackdowns.

The Syrian government said 34 had been slain in Daraa before Friday, while
the U.N. human rights office put the figure at 37. Activists said it was
as high as 100.

Thousands poured into Daraa's central Assad Square after Friday prayers,
many from nearby villages, chanting "Freedom! Freedom!" and waving Syrian
flags and olive branches, witnesses said. Some attacked a bronze statue of
Hafez Assad. One witness told The Associated Press that they tried to set
it on fire, another said they tried to pull it down.

Troops responded with heavy gunfire, according to a resident who said he
saw two bodies and many wounded people brought to Daraa's main hospital.

After night fell, thousands of enraged protesters snatched weapons from a
far smaller number of troops and chased them out of Daraa's Roman-era old
city, taking back control of the al-Omari mosque, the epicenter of the
past week's protests.

The accounts could not be immediately independently confirmed because of
Syria's tight restrictions on the press.

In Damascus, the heart of Bashar Assad's rule, protests and clashes broke
out in multiple neighborhoods as crowds of regime opponents marched and
thousands of Assad loyalists drove in convoys, shouting, "Bashar, we love
you!"

The two sides battled, whipping each other with leather belts, in the old
city of Damascus outside the historic Umayyad mosque, parts of which date
to the 8th century. About two miles (three kilometers) away, central
Umayyad Square was packed with demonstrators who traded punches and hit
each other with sticks from Syrian flags, according to Associated Press
reporters at the scene.

An amateur video posted on the Internet showed hundreds of young men
marching though Damascus' old covered bazaar, some riding on others'
shoulders and pumping their fists in the air as they chanted: "With our
souls, with our blood, we sacrifice for you, Daraa!"

Security forces chased and beat some 200 protesters chanting "Freedom,
Freedom!" on a bridge in the center of the city, an activist said.

After dark, troops opened fire on protesters in the Damascus suburb of
Maadamiyeh, a witness told the AP. An activist in contact with people
there said three had been killed.

The scenes of chaos and violence shocked many in this tightly controlled
country where protests are usually confined to government-orchestrated
demonstrations in support of the regime, and political discussions are
confined to whispers, mainly indoors.

"There's a barrier of fear that has been broken and the demands are
changing with every new death," said Ayman Abdul-Nour, a Dubai-based
former member of Assad's ruling Baath Party. "We're starting to hear calls
for the regime's ouster."

Also startling was the scope of the protests — in multiple cities around
the country of nearly 24 million.

Troops opened fire on more than 1,000 people marching in Syria's main
Mediterranean port, Latakia. One activist told the AP that witnesses saw
four slain protesters in a hospital. Another was reported killed in the
central city of Homs, where hundreds of people demonstrated in support of
Daraa and demanded reforms, he said. The activist, like others around the
country, spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of retaliation by the
regime.

Demonstrators in the southern village of Sanamein tried to march to Daraa
in support of the protesters, but were met by troops who opened fire, said
an activist in Damascus in touch with witnesses there. He said the
witnesses reported as many as 20 fatalities, though it was impossible to
confirm the number.

A video posted on Facebook by Syrian pro-democracy activists showed five
dead young men lying on stretchers in Sanamein as men wept around them.
The voice of a woman could be heard saying, "Down with Bashar Assad."

An unidentified Syrian official asserted that an armed group attacked the
army headquarters in Sanamein and tried to storm it, leading to a clash
with guards.

Further protests erupted in the town of Douma, outside the capital, and
the cities of Raqqa in the north and Zabadani in the west, near the border
with Lebanon, a human rights activist said, reporting an unknown number of
protesters detained.

The protests in Damascus appeared led by relatively well-off Syrians, many
of whom who have been calling for reforms for years and have relatives
jailed as political prisoners.

They contrast sharply with the working-class Sunni protesters in
conservative Daraa, where small farmers and herders pushed off their land
by drought have increasingly moved into the province's main city and
surrounding villages, looking for work and in many cases growing angry at
the lack of opportunity.

The protests in Daraa appeared to take on a sectarian dimension, with some
accusing the regime of using Shiite Hezbollah and Iranian operatives in
the crackdown.

The origin of the protests, far from urban centers, makes Syria's uprising
similar to Tunisia's, in which demonstrations in towns and villages spread
to cities, said Bassam Haddad, director of the Middle East studies program
at George Mason University.

That doesn't necessarily mean the regime is in danger, he said. "If this
continues at the level we see right now or if the regime finds a way to
deal with the protests at this level, the Syrian regime will be able to
weather the storm." But he said the bloodshed could only cause protests to
expand.

The White House urged Syria's government to cease attacks on protesters
and Turkey said its neighbor should quickly enact reforms to meet
legitimate demands. The U.N. said Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon spoke to
Assad Friday morning and underlined "that governments had an obligation to
respect and protect their citizens' fundamental rights."

____

Mroue reported from Beirut. Michael Weissenstein and Ben Hubbard in Cairo
contributed to this report.



Leader offers to go if Yemen's in 'safe hands'

By AHMED AL-HAJ, Associated Press – Fri Mar 25, 2011

SANAA, Yemen – Facing growing calls for his resignation, Yemen's longtime
ruler told tens of thousands of supporters Friday that he's ready to step
down but only if he can leave the country in "safe hands," while
anti-government protesters massed for a rival rally.

President Ali Abdullah Saleh spoke in a rare appearance before a cheering
crowd outside his presidential palace in the Yemeni capital.

Across town, an even larger number of people converged on a square in
front of Sanaa University chanting slogans calling for his ouster and
waving red cards emblazoned with the word "leave" despite fears of more
violence a week after government security forces shot dead more than 40
demonstrators in the capital.

Protesters carried through the square the bodies of two protesters hit in
last week's shooting who recently died of their wounds, their coffins
draped with Yemeni flags. Demonstrators prayed over the bodies and chanted
to the president, "Everyone who falls as a martyr shakes your throne, o
Ali!" as the bodies were taken for burial.

Armed with assault rifles, soldiers from units that defected to the
uprising patrolled the square to protect protesters. Hundreds of people
lined up to be searched before entering, many clad in white robes and
turbans, with prayer mats tossed over their shoulders for noontime
prayers.

"We are trying to gather as many people as possible here. He needs more
pressure to leave," said demonstrator Magid Abbas, a 29-year-old
physician. "We have great hopes."

Thousands also marched in anti-government protests in two areas of the
southern port city of Aden. Security forces dispersed one of the protests
with tear gas, participants said.

The bloodshed last Friday prompted a wave of defections by military
commanders, ruling party members and others, swelling the ranks of the
opposition and leaving the president isolated.

Saleh, in power for nearly 32 years, responded by imposing a state of
emergency that allows media censorship and gives authorities wide powers
to search homes and arrest suspects without judicial process, censor mail
and tap phone lines.

At the same time, he has made gestures trying to appease the protesters,
to no avail. Over the past month, he has offered not to run again when his
current term ends in 2013, then promised to step down by the end of the
year and open a dialogue with the leaders of the demonstrators. That offer
was rejected as too little, too late.

Instead protesters have hardened their demands, with youth groups calling
for Saleh's immediate ouster, the rewriting of the constitution and the
dissolution of parliament, local councils and the notorious security
agencies.

Maj. Gen. Ali Mohsen al-Ahmar, a top military official who defected to the
opposition this week, met privately with Saleh on Thursday to suggest ways
he could leave power, an aide who attended the meeting said.

Saleh rejected the offer, lashing out instead out at the protesters and
promising to "cling to constitutional legitimacy" and to use "all means
possible" to protect the country.

He appeared to soften his tone on Friday but his harsh descriptions of his
opposition suggested continued defiance.

"We in leadership, we don't want power but we need to hand it over to
trustful hands, not to sick, hateful, corrupt, collaborator hands," Saleh
told his supporters, who carried pictures of the president and signs
reading "No to terrorism!"

"We are ready to leave, but we want to do it properly and at the hands of
our people who should choose their leaders," he said, calling the
opposition a small minority of drug dealers, rebels and illegal money
traders.

The remarks recalled a similar statement by ex-Egyptian President Hosni
Mubarak who, during the height of the 18-day uprising against his rule,
said that he wanted to resign but couldn't for fear the country would sink
into chaos. Not long after, Mubarak was ousted on Feb. 11, chased out by
protesters who have inspired similar uprisings demanding change in Yemen
and several other countries.

Who might take power after Saleh is of particular consequence to the
United States, which has depended on him for cooperation in fighting the
Yemen-based al-Qaida offshoot that the Obama administration considers the
most serious terrorist threat to the U.S.

In Washington, State Department spokesman Mark Toner noted Saleh's pledge
to engage in a peaceful transition of power and said the U.S. now wanted
all sides in Yemen to participate in a meaningful dialogue.

"The timing and the form of this transition should be identified, we
believe, through dialogue and negotiation," he told journalists. "This
includes genuine participation by all sides in an open and transparent
process that addresses the legitimate concerns of the Yemeni people."

Reflecting a gradual crumbling of Saleh's authority across the country,
residents of towns in five provinces have taken over local security from
police, in some cases stripping them of their guns before letting them
leave.

"We have formed popular committees in all the city's neighborhoods and
streets to protect the houses since police left," said activist Nasser
Baqazqouz in the southern port city of Mukalla.

Even members of a security force run by Saleh's son surrendered their guns
to residents in three towns in Abyan province, security officials said,
speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to
talk to the media.

___

Associated Press writer Bradley Klapper contributed to this report from
Washington.



Government backers, police attack Jordan protest

By JAMAL HALABY, Associated Press – Fri Mar 25, 2011

AMMAN, Jordan – Protesters demanding reforms clashed with government
supporters in the center of Jordan's capital on Friday, pelting each other
stones until security forces charged in and beat protesters, as unrest
intensified in this key U.S. ally.

The clashes, in which 120 were injured, were the most violent in more than
two months of protests inspired by the popular uprisings in Tunisia and
Egypt. One man reported to have been killed while protesting was later
identified as a government supporter who died of a heart attack.

Protests in Jordan have generally been smaller than those in other Arab
nations — and in another difference have not sought the ouster of the
country's leader, King Abdullah II. But the young Jordanians organizing
the demonstrations said this week they are intensifying their campaign,
demanding the removal of the prime minister, creation of a more reformist
government, the dissolving of what is seen as a docile parliament and the
dismantling of the largely feared intelligence department.

Hundreds of anti-government activists — many of whom coordinated through
Facebook — vowed to camp out in a central Amman square in front of the
Interior Ministry until their demands are met. Their numbers swelled to
more than 1,500 during the day to include members of the Islamic Action
Front, Jordan's largest opposition party, and their leftist allies.

In the afternoon, several hundred government supporters attacked the
protesters, sparking stone-throwing clashes until about 400 riot police
stormed the square. The pro-government crowd appeared to disperse as the
security forces waded in, hitting protesters with clubs and firing water
cannons. At least a dozen protesters were dragged into a nearby government
building.

One person died. The opposition Islamic Action Front said he was a
protester and that he was beaten to death by police. Later, however, a
spokesman for the anti-government protest movement, Ziad al-Khawaldeh,
said the man who died was not among the protesters.

Police chief Lt. Gen. Hussein Majali said the man was a government
supporter who died of a heart attack while running for cover when clashes
broke out. He identified him as 55-year-old Khairi Jamil Saad. Other
government officials, including the foreign minister, also said he was on
the pro-government side and died of a heart attack.

Majali said 120 people were hurt, including 52 policemen. Eight people
were detained for questioning.

Prime Minister Marouf al-Bakhit accused the Islamic Action Front and the
umbrella group it is part of, the Muslim Brotherhood, of inciting the
violence.

The Muslim Brotherhood rejected the accusation. "The protesters were
peaceful and didn't attack anyone," said Jamil Abu-Bakr. "The prime
minister is running away from his responsibility."

Foreign Minister Nasser Judeh said police had surrounded the protesters to
protect them but were then caught in the middle when counter-demonstrators
attacked the crowd.

Hospital officials said more than 100 people were admitted with serious to
minor injuries to the head and the body. The officials insisted on
anonymity, fearing government reprisal. An Associated Press reporter saw
three police officers, their faces covered with blood, being taken away in
ambulances.

One of the wounded, Mohammed Maaytah, 26, said he passed out after
suffering an eye injury from a hurled stone.

"As I tried to get up from the ground, five policemen attacked me with
batons and kept beating me until I passed out again," he said. "The police
were supposed to protect us, but they attacked us."

Noor Smadi, 23, said she was also beaten by police until "I fainted."

"Our Cabinet is a bunch of criminals," she said. "They had policemen beat
us savagely, although we insisted that our protest was peaceful."

A similar clash broke out in the same square late Thursday, injuring 35
people.

Elsewhere, 3,000 pro-king loyalists took to the streets of the capital in
two separate protests, waving portraits of the monarch and chanting "our
lives and souls we sacrifice for you, King Abdullah."

Around 7,000 people reiterated pledges of loyalty to the king in
demonstrations in the Red Sea port of Aqaba and the Jordan Valley,
bordering Israel and the West Bank, the Petra state news agency said.

About 400 members of Islamic Action Front and their leftist allies also
staged another demonstration outside Amman's Kalouti mosque, near the
Israeli Embassy. They demanded an end to Jordan's 1994 peace treaty with
Israel.

In the western city of Salt, some 300 Salafis — an ultraconservative
Islamic sect banned in Jordan — protested in the city, demanding convicted
al-Qaida prisoners be released from Jordanian jails.

Meanwhile, Petra said 15 leftists and independents quit a national
dialogue committee with the government on reforms to protest police using
force against the protesters. The 53-member committee was formed earlier
this month to draft laws that would give wider public freedoms.

___

Associated Press writer Dale Gavlak contributed to this report.

(This version CORRECTS name, age and circumstances of man's death with
updated information from officials.)

Yemen in state of emergency after protest massacre

Four articles:

Yemen in state of emergency after protest massacre
From rooftops, snipers kill 46 Yemeni protesters
5 protesters killed in Syria, activist says
Bahrain army demolishes monument at Pearl Square

Yemen in state of emergency after protest massacre

By Mohamed Sudam and Mohammed Ghobari March 18, 2011

SANAA (Reuters) – Gunmen on rooftops shot dead up to 42 protesters at an
anti-government rally in Sanaa after Muslim prayers on Friday, enraging
the opposition and prompting President Ali Abdullah Saleh to declare a
state of emergency.

Medical sources and witnesses told Reuters that Yemeni security forces and
plainclothes snipers, who protesters said were government security men,
had opened fire on the crowds. The Interior Ministry put the death toll at
25, but doctors said 42 people had died and at least 300 were injured.

Saleh, struggling to maintain his 32-year grip on power in the
impoverished Arabian Peninsula state, said the deaths had occurred in
clashes between demonstrators and other citizens at a protest encampment
at Sanaa University.

"I express my extreme sorrow for what happened today after Friday prayers
in the university district," Saleh told a news conference in Sanaa,
blaming gunmen among the protesters for the violence.

"The police were not present and did not open fire," he said. "It is clear
there are armed elements inside these tents and they are the ones who
opened fire."

He declared a 30-day state of emergency that gives wider powers to
security forces and bars citizens from bearing arms in public. A curfew
was being discussed.

Yemen, home to an active al Qaeda wing, is the second country in the
region to announce emergency rule this week, after Bahrain's introduction
of martial law on Tuesday, which was followed by a major crackdown on
protesters.

It was not clear if Saleh had the military power to enforce such an order,
with Yemen deeply divided and racked by weeks of civil disturbance in
which over 70 people have been killed.

Witnesses said security forces at first fired into the air on Friday to
prevent anti-government protesters from marching out of the Sanaa
University camp, which has become the focal point of the protest movement.

After the initial gunfire, the shooting continued from other directions
and the toll mounted. A news photographer was among the dead, the
U.S.-based Committee to Protect Journalists said.

"After the prayers finished, some fires were started in the street leading
to the presidential palace. A large group of people headed that way to see
what was happening and were fired on from the rooftops," said Bashir
Abdullah, a witness.

U.S., FRENCH CONDEMNATION

Washington and France both condemned the violence, and U.S. President
Barack Obama urged authorities to protect peaceful protesters and said
those responsible must be held accountable.

"It is more important than ever for all sides to participate in an open
and transparent process that addresses the legitimate concerns of the
Yemeni people, and provides a peaceful, orderly and democratic path to a
stronger and more prosperous nation," he said in a written statement.

After the deaths, however, Yemen's opposition said there was no way they
could negotiate with Saleh's government.

"There is no longer any possibility of mutual understanding with this
regime and he (Saleh) has no choice but to surrender authority to the
people," said Yassin Noman, rotating president of Yemen's umbrella
opposition group.

Protesters said they had caught at least seven snipers who they said had
fired on the crowds.

"We arrested some snipers and we found in their possession ID cards from
the presidential guard and the special guard, and we will distribute
pictures of these at the appropriate time," activist Mohamed al-Sharaby
said.

Saleh, also trying to cement a northern truce and quell southern
separatism, has rejected demands to resign immediately, promising instead
to step down in 2013 and offering a new constitution giving more powers to
parliament.

A string of his allies have recently defected to the protesters, who are
frustrated by rampant corruption and soaring unemployment. Some 40 percent
of the population live on $2 a day or less in Yemen, and a third face
chronic hunger.

After the shootings, Tourism Minister Nabil Hasan al-Faqih became the
first cabinet member to defect, resigning his post and quitting the ruling
party. The head of the party's foreign affairs committee also left, as did
a former ambassador to Russia.

A member of the ruling party's central committee, Jalal Faqira, who heads
the political science department at Sanaa University, also quit the party
along with 50 other professors.

(Writing by Cynthia Johnston and Crispian Balmer; Editing by Kevin Liffey)



From rooftops, snipers kill 46 Yemeni protesters

By AHMED AL-HAJ and ZEINA KARAM, Associated Press March 18, 2011

SANAA, Yemen – A massive demonstration against Yemen's government turned
into a killing field Friday as snipers methodically fired down on
protesters from rooftops and police made a wall of fire with tires and
gasoline, blocking a key escape route.

At least 46 people died, including some children, in an attack that marked
a new level of brutality in President Ali Abdullah Saleh's crackdown on
dissent. Medical officials and witnesses said hundreds were wounded.

The dramatic escalation in violence suggested Saleh was growing more
fearful that the unprecedented street protests over the past month, set
off by unrest across the Arab world, could unravel his 32-year grip on
power in this volatile, impoverished and gun-saturated nation. The United
States, which has long relied on Saleh for help fighting terrorism,
condemned the violence.

The bloodshed, however, failed to dislodge protesters from a large traffic
circle they have dubbed "Taghyir Square" — Arabic for "Change." Hours
after the shooting, thousands demanding Saleh's ouster stood their ground,
many of them hurling stones at security troops and braving live fire and
tear gas.

They stormed several buildings where the snipers had taken position,
dragging out 10 people — including some the protesters claimed were paid
thugs. They said the men would be handed over to judicial authorities.

The protest in the capital, Sanaa, drew tens of thousands, the largest
crowd yet in Yemen's uprising. It began peacefully. A military helicopter
flew low over the square just as protesters were arriving after the main
Muslim prayer services of the week.

A short while later, gunfire rang out from rooftops and houses, sending
the crowd into a panic. Dozens were hit and crumpled to the ground. One
man ran for help cradling a young boy shot in the head.

Many of the victims were shot in the head and neck, their bodies left
sprawled on the ground or carried off by other protesters desperately
pressing scarves to wounds to try to stop the bleeding.

Police used burning tires and gasoline to block demonstrators from fleeing
down a main road leading to sensitive locations, including the president's
residence.

"It is a massacre," said Mohammad al-Sabri, an opposition spokesman. "This
is part of a criminal plan to kill off the protesters, and the president
and his relatives are responsible for the bloodshed in Yemen today."

Witnesses said the snipers wore the beige uniforms of Yemen's elite forces
and that others were plainclothes security officers. President Saleh
denied at a press conference that government forces were involved,
claiming that residents angry over the expanding protest camp had opened
fire. He ordered the formation of a committee to investigate.

Doctors at a makeshift field hospital near the protest camp at Sanaa
University confirmed at least 46 dead, three of them children. They spoke
on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the
media.

A Yemeni photojournalist, Jamal al-Sharaabi, was among the dead, medical
officials said. He is the first journalist killed in the unrest.

Interior Minister Gen. Mouthar al-Masri, who is in charge of internal
security forces, put the number of dead at 25 and the injured at 200.

Opposition groups in Yemen held an emergency meeting later Friday in which
they defiantly called on all Yemenis to join in their peaceful protest.
The groups denounced Friday's violence, which they said was ordered by
Saleh. They also called on the international community and U.N. Security
Council to take "political and moral responsibility with measures to
protect civilians."

The United States, which supports Yemen's government with $250 million in
military aid this year alone to battle one of al-Qaida's most active
franchises, condemned the attack on protesters.

"Those responsible for today's violence must be held accountable,"
President Barack Obama said. He called on Saleh to adhere to his public
pledge to allow peaceful demonstrations.

Instead, Saleh declared a 30-day nationwide state of emergency that
formally gave his security forces a freer hand to confront demonstrators.
The declaration bars citizens from carrying and using weapons.

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon was "deeply troubled," said his
spokesman, Martin Nesirky. He "reiterates his call for utmost restraint
and reminds the government of Yemen that it has an obligation to protect
civilians."

Demonstrators are demanding jobs, greater political freedoms and an end to
government corruption.

In the latest defection by a political ally of the president, Nabil
al-Faqih, the Yemeni tourism minister, resigned Friday from his Cabinet
position and from the ruling party to protest the killings.

"This is the least I can do," he said. Al-Faqih is the second minister to
quit and the latest of several politicians to resign from Saleh's Congress
Party.

Throughout the unrest, security forces and government supporters have used
live fire, rubber bullets, tear gas, sticks, knives and rocks against the
protesters, who have only grown in number in Sanaa and in many other
cities around the nation. The protesters say they won't go until Saleh
does and have rejected offers to discuss a unity government.

"They want to scare and terrorize us. They want to drag us into a cycle of
violence — to make the revolution meaningless," said Jamal Anaam, a
40-year-old activist camping out in the protest site.

He said government opponents would not follow the example of their
counterparts in Libya who took up arms against Col. Moammar Gadhafi. "They
want to repeat the Libyan experiment, but we refuse to be dragged into
violence no matter what the price," he said.

Friday's violence showed the government of Saleh and his family are
increasingly worried about losing power, said Gregory Johnsen, an expert
on Yemen at Princeton University.

"He has been in power for more than three decades and he's falling back on
what he knows best, which is increasingly violent methods."

The tactic is unlikely to work, he predicted.

"Yemen does not have a population that's easily cowed, so I don't think
they will be put out by fear of death," he said. "It's a heavily armed
country. Many of the people there are quite confident and capable of
putting security into their own hands."

Saleh and his weak government have faced down many serious challenges,
often forging tricky alliances with restive tribes to delicately extend
power beyond the capital. Most recently, he has battled an on-and-off,
seven-year armed rebellion in the north, a secessionist movement in the
south, and an al-Qaida offshoot that is of great concern to the U.S.

Al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula, which formed in January 2009, has moved
beyond regional aims and attacked the West, including sending a suicide
bomber who came terrifyingly close to blowing up a U.S.-bound airliner
with a bomb sewn into his underwear. The device failed to detonate
properly.

Yemen is also home to U.S.-born radical cleric Anwar al-Awlaki, who is
believed to have offered inspiration to those attacking the U.S.

___

Karam reported from Cairo.



5 protesters killed in Syria, activist says

By BASSEM MROUE and ZEINA KARAM, Associated Press March 18, 2011

BEIRUT – Syrian security forces launched a harsh crackdown Friday on
protesters calling for political freedoms, killing at least five people
and marking the gravest unrest in years in one of the most repressive
states in the Mideast, according to accounts from activists and social
media.

Mazen Darwish, a prominent Syrian activist in Damascus, said at least five
people were shot and killed when security forces tried to disperse
hundreds of protesters in the southern town of Daraa, near the Jordanian
border. He cited eyewitnesses and hospital officials at the scene.

Friday's violence happened during one of several demonstrations across the
country in Homs, Banyas and the capital, Damascus. But only the Daraa
protest turned deadly, Darwish said.

Serious disturbances in Syria would be a major expansion of the wave of
unrest tearing through the Arab world for more than a month in the wake of
pro-democracy uprisings that overthrew the autocratic leaders of Tunisia
and Egypt. Syria, a predominantly Sunni country ruled by minority
Alawites, has a history of brutally crushing dissent — including a
notorious massacre in which President Hafez Assad crushed a Muslim
fundamentalist uprising in the city of Hama in 1982, killing thousands.

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said he was concerned about the
reported deaths in Daraa and said the use of lethal force against peaceful
demonstrators was unacceptable.

"The Secretary-General believes that, as elsewhere, it is the
responsibility of the government in Syria to listen to the legitimate
aspirations of the people and address them through inclusive political
dialogue and genuine reforms, not repression," said his spokesman, Martin
Nesirky.

On Friday, Syrian forces used water cannons, batons and gunfire to beat up
protesters in Daraa. The violence began when a large group of people
emerged from the Al-Omari mosque, marching and shouting slogans against
corruption and calling for more political freedoms.

A human rights activist told The Associated Press that security forces
cordoned the main hospital in Daraa where some of the wounded were being
treated, preventing families from visiting the victims. He cited hospital
workers, but spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of government
reprisals.

The government's TV channel and news agency said "infiltrators" in Daraa
caused "chaos and riots" and smashed cars and public and private property
before they attacked riot police. It said a similar demonstration in the
coastal town of Banyas dispersed without incident.

Amateur video footage posted on YouTube and Twitter showed large groups of
protesters in several cities, but the authenticity of the footage could
not be independently confirmed.

A YouTube video claiming to be shot in Banyas showed several thousand
demonstrators gathering around an old stone building with a Syrian flag
fluttering from its roof. A cluster of men stood on its balcony with a
loudspeaker. Amid chants of "Freedom!" and "There is only one God!," one
man shouted out a list of protesters demands ranging from freedom of
expression to allowing Muslim women with face veils to attend school.

In the capital, plainclothes security officers forcefully dispersed about
a dozen protesters calling for more freedoms in the country, human rights
activists said earlier in the day.

The activists said the protest occurred in the yard of Damascus' famous
Ummayad Mosque shortly after Friday prayers. At least two protesters were
detained, they said.

The protest was the third small rally broken up in Damascus this week.

Syrian President Bashar Assad, a 45-year-old British-trained eye doctor,
inherited power from his father in 2000 after three decades of
authoritarian rule. He has since moved slowly to lift Soviet-style
economic restrictions, letting in foreign banks, throwing the doors open
to imports and empowering the private sector.

The early years of his rule raised hopes of a freer society; salons where
political and economic issues were openly debated sprang up across the
country.

But the "Damascus Spring" as it came to be known was short-lived. In 2001,
secret police began raiding the salons, jailing two lawmakers and scores
of other activists in the years that followed.

In 2004, bloody clashes that began in the northeastern city of Qamishli
between Syrian Kurds and security forces left at least 25 people dead and
some 100 injured.

Although Assad keeps a tight lid on any form of political dissent, he is
seen by many Arabs as one of the few leaders in the region willing to
stand up to Israel.

Assad told The Wall Street Journal in February that Syria is insulated
from the upheaval in the Arab world because he understands his people's
needs and has united them in common cause against Israel.

Also Friday, eight Syrian human rights groups said a prosecutor had
questioned and charged dozens of demonstrators with hurting the state's
image.

The groups said the 32 activists denied the charges. They included four
relatives of political prisoner Kamal Labawani, who is serving a 12-year
prison sentence.

The activists were detained Wednesday when plainclothes security officers
armed with batons dispersed a protest near the Interior Ministry demanding
the release of political prisoners.

___

Karam reported from Cairo. Diaa Hadid in Cairo contributed to this report.



Bahrain army demolishes monument at Pearl Square

By BARBARA SURK, Associated Press March 18, 2011

MANAMA, Bahrain – Bahrain on Friday tore down the 300-foot (90-meter)
monument at the heart of a square purged of Shiite protesters this week,
erasing a symbol of an uprising that's inflaming sectarian tensions across
the region.

The monument — six white curved beams topped with a huge cement pearl —
was built in Pearl Square as a tribute to the Sunni-ruled kingdom's
history as a pearl-diving center. It became the backdrop to the Shiite
majority's uprising after protesters set up a month-long camp at Pearl
Square in the capital, Manama.

Security forces overran the camp on Wednesday, setting off clashes that
killed at least five people, including two policemen. At least 12 people
have been killed in the month-long revolt.

Bahrain's foreign minister, Khalid bin Ahmed Al Khalifa, told reporters in
Manama that the army brought down the monument because "it was a bad
memory."

"We are not waging war, we are restoring law and order," Khalid said at a
press conference in Manama.

Shiite anger rose sharply around the Mideast on Friday as large crowds in
Iran and Iraq cursed Bahrain's Sunni monarchy and its Saudi backers over
the violent crackdown on protesters demanding more rights.

Amateur video footage of security forces shooting and beating protesters
has spread across the internet and fueled fury in predominantly Shiite
Iraq and in Iran, where a senior cleric on Friday urged Bahraini
protesters to keep going until victory or death.

Thousands of Bahrainis gathered for the funeral of Ahmed Farhan, a
29-year-old demonstrator slain Tuesday in the town of Sitra hours after
the king declared martial law in response to a month of escalating
protests. Sitra, the hub of Bahrain's oil industry, has been the site of
the worst confrontations.

A funeral for Abdul-Jaffer Mohammed Abdul-Ali, 40, took place in the
village of Karranah, west of the capital. His brother Abdul-Ali Mohammed
told The Associated Press that Abdel-Jaffer was killed on Wednesday
morning on his way to Pearl Square to reinforce the protesters' lines
during the military assault on the encampment.

"My brother was not a political man, but he participated in the protest
every day to have a better future for his four children," Abdul-Ali said.

"When he heard the Pearl Square was under attack, he went there," he
added. "Our country is under siege and he wanted to help liberate it."

Shiites account for 70 percent of the tiny island's half-million people
but they are widely excluded from high-level posts and positions in the
police and military of the country, whic is home to the U.S. Navy's 5th
Fleet.

"Brothers and sisters" in Bahrain should "resist against the enemy until
you die or win," Iranian Ayatollah Ahmad Jannati told worshippers at
Friday prayers at Tehran University, a nationally televised forum seen as
expressing the views of Iran's ruling Shiite clergy.

Worshippers chanted angry slogans against Saudi Arabia's royal family,
which has sent troops to back Bahrain's king.

"There is no God but Allah, Al Saud is God's enemy," some chanted in
Arabic. One Persian banner read, "Death to Al Saud."

Across Iraq, thousands rallied in mostly Shiite cities in the country's
largest demonstrations since a wave of dissent spread across the Middle
East in the wake of Tunisia's overthrow of its autocratic president.

Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani — Iraqi-based Shiism's highest ranking cleric
in the Mideast — suspended teachings at religious schools across Iraq on
Friday in a show of solidarity with the protesters.

A representative of al-Sistani warned during his Friday sermon in the holy
city of Karbala that the brutal images of what is happening in Bahrain
will inflame passions and lead to sectarian problems in the region.

Bahrain's rulers invited armies from other Sunni-ruled Gulf countries this
week to help root out dissent as the month of protests spiraled into
widespread calls for an end to the Sunni monarchy. In declaring emergency
rule, the king gave the military wide powers to battle the uprising.

There are no apparent links between Iran and Bahrain's Shiite opposition
but the U.S. and Sunni leaders in the Persian Gulf leaders have expressed
concern that Iran could use the unrest in Bahrain to expand its influence
in the region. Iran has recalled its ambassador from Bahrain to protest
the crackdown.

The United States bases the 5th Fleet in Bahrain partly to counter Iran's
military reach around the region.

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Associated Press Writers Reem Khalifa in Manama and Nasser Karimi in
Tehran and Bushra Juhi in Baghdad contributed to this report.