By Mohamed Sudam, Mohammed Ghobari

Reuters 

SANAA: Yemeni loyalist forces fought a gunbattle Monday with opponents of entrenched President Ali Abdullah Saleh one day after he backed out of an accord for him to step down.
The clashes in Sanaa further dimmed prospects for a political solution to a three-month crisis in which youth-led demonstrators are demanding an end to nearly 33 years of Saleh rule.
The United States and Saudi Arabia, both targets of foiled attacks by a strong wing of Al-Qaeda based in Yemen, are keen to end the Yemeni stalemate and avert a spread of anarchy that could give the global militant network more room to operate.

“There is heavy gunfire and violent clashing between government forces and Sheikh [Sadiq] al-Ahmar’s guards,” a witness said, referring to a powerful tribal leader who has sided with the protesters.
One person was killed and 15 people were wounded, one of them a reporter with the state news agency Saba, witnesses said.
The pro-opposition Suhail television said five of Ahmar’s guards were killed and 35 wounded. The report could not be independently confirmed.

The shooting, which shattered windows at Saba’s offices, followed the collapse of a transition deal mediated by Gulf neighbors that Saleh was to have signed Sunday and that would have given him immunity from prosecution, ensuring a dignified exit.
The U.S. Embassy closed its consular section to the public for at least two days due to a “fluid security situation,” the mission said in a statement.

The government accused Ahmar’s men of firing on a school and the Saba building. Ahmar’s office said government forces opened fire when his guards prevented them from entering a school where Ahmar said loyalists were stockpiling weapons.
South of the capital, loyalist gunmen opened fire on the headquarters of the Islamist party Islah, the biggest member of Yemen’s opposition coalition, in the city of Ibb.

Saleh has backed out of previous deals aimed at easing him out of power, but Sunday’s turnabout appeared to be among the most forceful, coming after loyalist gunmen trapped Western and Arab diplomats in the United Arab Emirates embassy for hours.
Inside were the head of the Gulf Cooperation Council, Abdullatif al-Zayani, who has spearheaded mediation efforts, and the U.S. and several European ambassadors. The mediators were effectively blocked from heading to the presidential palace where the now failed deal was to be signed.

They had to later be flown out by helicopter. Gulf neighbors subsequently withdrew their trouble-shooting initiative, claiming that there was a “lack of suitable conditions.”
Saleh apologized to the United Arab Emirates Monday. But foreign governments piled criticism on him over his refusal to sign.
“President Saleh is now the only party that refuses to match actions to words,” U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said late Sunday.

“We urge him to immediately follow through on his repeated commitments to peacefully and orderly transfer power and ensure the legitimate will of the Yemeni people is addressed. The time for action is now,” she said.
A Yemeni Foreign Ministry official rejected her criticism saying, “the initiative is an internal Yemeni issue and Yemen does not accept solutions imposed from outside or interference in its internal affairs,” the ruling party website reported.
The European Union berated Saleh for refusing to sign the deal, saying member states would review their policies towards Yemen. France accused him of being “irresponsible.”

Saleh, playing on Western fears of chaos, blamed the opposition for the deal’s collapse and warned that if a civil war erupted “they will be responsible for it and the bloodshed.”
A Yemeni presidential source described Sunday’s embassy incident as “irresponsible and unacceptable” but said the UAE ambassador was not a target, without mentioning the other diplomats involved.