By Agence France Presse (AFP)
Saturday, February 19, 2011

Anti-regime protesters in the volatile Yemen city of Taiz were blasted in a hand-grenade attack Friday that left two dead, while fierce clashes in the southern city of Aden killed four, witnesses said.
The grenade thrown at protesters in Taiz wounded 28 others Friday, according to hospital sources.
A local official said the grenade was lobbed at protesters from a speeding car with government number plates.
Two people were in the car “but we will not identify their political affiliation,” he said.
“The car got close to the square and someone threw a bomb that exploded in the middle of the crowd. It was terrifying,” said one protester, who asked not to be identified.

Several ambulances rushed to Hurriya (Freedom) Square, where the Taiz protesters have camped out for days.
A senior Interior Ministry official said police had found the car and arrested its driver. “They got the car and caught the man suspected of throwing the grenade and they are questioning him,” the official said.
Protesters said the government was behind the attack, but said they would not retreat from the square. “It’s just shameful that the government would resort to these criminal tactics. But it won’t scare off the protesters,” said a protester, who declined to be identified.

At least 10,000 protesters were gathered in Hurriya Square, and similar numbers of supporters of President Ali Abdullah Saleh were rallying in Downtown Taiz, around 200 kilometers south of Sanaa.

In Aden, medics said four demonstrators were shot dead as police fired on protests in several areas of the southern port city, which has borne the brunt of the violence that has left 10 people dead since Sunday. At least 27 were wounded in Friday’s clashes, said a medical official in Aden.

A witness said that police opened fire at protesters who set tires on fire in a street in Omar Al-Mukhtar, killing one of the protesters, Mohammad Munir Khan. Earlier, three people were shot dead when police fired on protesters in Al-Saada, Khor Maksar and Sheikh Othman districts, as hundreds of people took to the streets around the city to demand Saleh step down.

A local official said that the mayor of Aden, Adnan Al-Jafri, handed in his resignation Friday in “protest at the deteriorating security in the city.”
Saleh, a U.S. ally against a Yemen-based Al-Qaeda wing that has launched attacks at home and abroad, is struggling to end month-old protests across the impoverished country.
Saleh’s cash-strapped government is also trying to defuse a southern separatist revolt and maintain a shaky truce with Shiite rebels in the north.

In a sop to protesters, Saleh has vowed to step down when his term ends in 2013 and not hand power to his son.
A coalition of opposition parties, which had laid on rallies that drew tens of thousands, has now agreed to talk to him, but smaller, more spontaneous protests have continued, organized by students and others using text messages and Facebook. – Reuters, AFP