Yemen's protesters stage rallies as clashes continue
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Yemen's pro- and anti-government protesters staged moderate rallies in the capital Sanaa on Friday as clashes continued to take place in south of the country.
Tens of thousands of anti-government protesters massed in the country's major cities, including the capital Sanaa, to press for quickly forming an interim ruling council, while masses of Saleh's supporters also gathered in the cities nationwide to celebrate the official news that the president is in good condition after he went out of intensive care.
Opposition leaders, meanwhile, said they no longer admitted wounded Saleh as the president of the country, pushing now for a U. S.-backed swift transitional council, spokesman Mohamed Qahtan told Xinhua.
But a government official said there was no move towards forming a transitional council, saying that "any word about the power transition is directly linking to President Saleh himself because he is the only one responsible for making such a decision, " Deputy Information Minister Abdu al-Janadi told reporters.
"Instead, we would push for a quick presidential elections under the supervision from the international community and the ballot box was the only democratic arbiter to decide who would have the right to rule Yemen," al-Janadi added.
Saleh, 69, was sent to the capital of Saudi Arabia Saturday to remove shrapnel and receive cosmetic surgeries for burns he sustained in last Friday's attack that targeted a mosque inside his Sanaa palace, in which 11 of Saleh's bodyguards were killed and several high-ranking government officials were seriously injured.
An investigation into the attack, which officials dubbed as a failed attempt to assassinate the president, was underway as U.S. experts reportedly said the attack was launched by a bomb planted inside the mosque according to some pictures of the scene they got from the media.
Although a Saudi-brokered ceasefire ended street battles earlier the week between security forces and opposition-backed armed tribesmen that left hundreds of people killed, some short battles flared outside Sanaa, where fresh clashes erupted between anti-government armed tribesmen and forces of the Republican Guards in Arhab district, killing at least one tribesman, according to a local official.
Elsewhere in Habilain city of the southern province of Lahj, clashes between army forces and armed tribesmen believed to be belonging to the separatist Southern Movement left six tribesmen and three soldiers dead.
Government forces in southern flashpoint province of Abyan were still besieging Abyan's provincial capital city of Zinjibar, a hideout of al-Qaida militants.
The Defense Ministry said late on Thursday that continuing attacks by the army forces have killed a number of al-Qaida leaders and regained control of many regions in the province.
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