At least 45 people were killed in an al Qaeda-held town in the latest violence in Yemen and protesters took to the streets of the capital on Tuesday to demand that President Ali Abdullah Saleh should stay in exile.
The army said it had killed 30 militants, including a local al Qaeda leader, in the southern town of Zinjibar. A local official said 15 soldiers had been killed in the battles for control of the town seized by militants about 10 days ago.
The fighting was another symptom of instability in Yemen, whose leader left for Saudi Arabia at the weekend for surgery on wounds suffered in an attack on his palace in Sanaa.
Demonstrators, who have been trying to topple Saleh for months, called a “million-man march” in Sanaa to pile pressure on him to stay away and hand over power permanently.
The volatile situation in Yemen, which lies on vital oil shipping lanes, alarms Western powers and neighbouring oil giant Saudi Arabia who fear that chaos would enable the local al Qaeda franchise to operate more freely there.
They see Saleh’s absence for medical treatment in Riyadh as an opportunity to ease the president out of office after nearly 33 years ruling the impoverished Arab nation.
“We are calling for a peaceful and orderly transition,” US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said on Monday.
