By Agence France Presse (AFP)

Tuesday, February 15, 2011
By Mohammed Ghobari and Khaled Abdullah
Reuters

SANAA: Government loyalists armed with broken bottles, daggers and rocks chased down thousands of pro-reform demonstrators in Yemen’s capital Monday, turning unrest inspired by Egypt’s uprising increasingly violent.

Police, who had been trying to keep the sides apart, locked several thousand fleeing protesters inside the Sanaa University campus near where they had been holding their rally. Five people were wounded in the melee, an opposition source said.
“Hey Ali, get out, get out!” anti-government protesters shouted, referring to President Ali Abdullah Saleh. “There is no solution except to leave.”

Protests in impoverished Yemen have gained momentum in recent weeks, sometimes drawing tens of thousands of people, but have become more and more violent since Friday with clashes between protesters and police or pro-government groups.
The threat of turmoil in Yemen, already teetering on the brink of failed statehood, has pushed Saleh to offer significant concessions.
“With our blood, we sacrifice for you Ali!” Saleh supporters chanted in Sanaa before violence erupted. Some of the several hundred loyalists who gathered held pictures of the man who has ruled for 32 years, and waved Yemeni flags.

Another 12 people were reported hurt south of Sanaa, where police fired shots into the air as hundreds of anti-government demonstrators clashed with Saleh supporters, witnesses said.
But police were unable to control the crowds in the agro-industrial town of Taiz, where thousands of protesters had held an overnight rally.

In the south, where the government faces Al-Qaeda militants and rising secessionist sentiment, hundreds of  anti-government protesters marched in the city of Aden, some throwing rocks and clashing with police. Security forces used batons to disperse marchers, arresting five people, residents said.

Government employees in the city also dragged their company chairman from his office after a two-day strike demanding his resignation, they told AFP.
The workers at Yemen Gulf of Aden Port Corporation stormed company offices and removed Mohammad Bin Aefan and other officials, the workers said.

“We’ve had it with corrupt officials and it’s time to tell them to leave,” said Ali Bin Yehya, an official at the company which employs around 1,500 people. “What happened in Egypt and Tunisia motivated the workers to demand their rights.”
The disturbances occurred while Saleh and a main opposition group were preparing for talks the government hoped would help avert an Egypt-style revolt.

Human Rights Watch criticized Yemeni police for what it described as unnecessary brutality against demonstrators. “Without provocation, government security forces brutally beat and tazered peaceful demonstrators,” said Sarah Leah Whitson, a regional director at the U.S.-based rights group
Amnesty International called on Yemen “to rein in its security forces immediately and stop excessive use of force.”
Police have generally stayed out of the fray in Sanaa, while crackdowns have been stronger outside the capital. But police broke up an anti-government march to the presidential palace Sunday, sparking clashes in which police beat protesters with batons and protesters hurled rocks at police, witnesses said. Several journalists were briefly detained. – With AFP