Attackers stabbed a Yemeni provincial governor in the neck with a dagger and at least 60 other people were injured in confrontations throughout the nation between security troops and protesters seeking to topple the country’s leader of 32 years.
A month of protests set in motion by the tumult sweeping the Arab world appears to be spiraling out of control in Yemen, already one of the most impoverished and volatile corners of the Mideast.
Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh — who has faced down threats from an al-Qaeda offshoot, a secessionist movement in the south and a seven-year armed rebellion in the north — has been unable to stop street protests that are unprecedented in their scope and in the broad cross-section of society taking part.
Photo: EPA
In a sign of his frustration, Saleh fired the government minister in charge of trying to engage his opponents in dialogue.
In the eastern Marib Province, a predominantly tribal area, protesters staged a large demonstration on Monday outside the local government building and shouted anti-regime slogans. Security troops fired live ammunition and tear gas, injuring about 37 people. In the melee, a group of men stabbed Marib Governor Naji al-Zaidi and four bodyguards with daggers, the Yemeni Interior Ministry said.
In Yemen, many men carry an ornamental dagger tucked in their waistband. The statement held opposition leaders responsible for the attack and other confrontations and bloodshed.
Al-Zaidi was flown by helicopter to a military hospital in the capital, security officials said on condition of anonymity because they are not authorized to brief the media.
With no sign his opponents would accept anything less than his ouster, President Saleh has filled the streets with armed supporters in an increasingly violent crackdown.
In the southern city of Taiz, police tried to disperse demonstrators with gunfire and tear gas, injuring three people.
Clashes in the northeastern Jawf Province injured at least 20 more.
The opposition gained support on Monday from striking workers, as well as from university professors and a growing number of powerful tribal chiefs turning against Saleh. The backing of Yemen’s tribes is crucial for Saleh, who depends on those alliances to extend his weak government’s control beyond the capital, Sana’a.
The unrest in Yemen is of deep concern to the US and other world powers, in particular because al-Qaeda has established one of its most dangerous offshoots in the country’s mountainous -hinterlands. It has launched attacks beyond Yemen’s borders, including a failed attempt to blow up a US-bound airliner in December 2009 with an explosive device sewn into the underwear of a would-be suicide bomber.
Late on Sunday, Saleh replaced a government minister who failed to persuade the expanding protest movement to hold talks with the government.
The protesters, fed up with corruption, poverty and a lack of political freedom, have demanded that Saleh step down and have rejected his offers to form a national unity government. Saleh also failed to appease the protesters with a pledge at the start of the unrest not to seek another term in office in 2013.
Also on Monday, two US and two British journalists were deported from the country after being detained for several hours, one of them said.
Briton Oliver Holmes said five armed security agents took them into custody on Monday morning from the apartment they shared in the Yemeni capital. He said one of the security agents told them they had to leave because of the stories they were writing.
Yemeni security officials said they were detained for illegally entering the country, without elaborating.
The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they are not authorized to speak to the media.
In the streets of the capital on Monday, police and plainclothes security remained locked in a standoff with protesters camped out in a square near Sana’a University. Hundreds more protesters were planning to reinforce them.
About 50 professors from the universities in the cities of Aden, Sanaa and Taiz have resigned from President Saleh’s ruling Congress Party.
Amin al-Ukeimi, a leader of the powerful Bakeel tribe, announced on Monday that he is joining the protesters in the capital and supported their demand to bring down the regime. Mohammed al-Houri, an undersecretary at the Yemeni Planning Ministry, also announced his resignation from the party.
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