SANAA – Yemeni security forces shot dead at least 17 protesters on Monday as Gulf states offered their mediation and Washington reportedly pulled the plug on embattled President Ali Abdullah Saleh.
“The death toll has gone up to 17,” said Sadeq al-Shujaa, head of a makeshift field hospital at a square in central Taez after security forces opened fire on demonstrators marching on the governorate headquarters. Witnesses said the demonstrators stormed the courtyard of the governorate and that plainclothes gunmen and rooftop snipers also took part in the gunfire to push them back.
The bloodshed, a day after another protester was shot dead in Taez, 200 kilometres from the capital, sent the death toll to more than 100 in a crackdown on protests in the impoverished state since late January. With the rising death toll, Saleh, a longtime US ally in Washington’s fight against Al Qaeda, appears to be losing American support.
The US government is taking part in efforts to negotiate the president’s departure and a transitional handover of power, according to a report in the New York Times on Sunday. US officials have told allies they see Saleh’s position as untenable due to the widespread protests, and believe he should leave office, it said.
Talks on his departure had been underway for more than a week.
