In the capital Sanaa, protesters chanted "With blood and soul we support you, Aden" -- the port city where most of the 24 protesters killed in the past two weeks of protests have died.
Some protesters made "V" for victory signs while others wore white headbands with "Leave" written in red.
Tens of thousands more also marched through the streets of Ibb and Taiz, south of Sanaa.
President
President-for-Life Ali Abdullah Saleh... Saleh initially took power as a strongman of North Yemen in 1977, when disco was in flower, after serving as a lieutenant colonel in the army. He had been part of the conspiracy that bumped off his predecessor, Ibrahim al-Hamdi, in the usual tiresome military coup, and he has maintained power by keeping Yemen's many tribes fighting with each other, rather than uniting to string him up. ...
, a U.S. ally against al Qaeda's Yemeni wing, has failed to quell two months of protests in a country of 23 million where 40 percent live on less than $2 a day and a third are undernourished.
"Victory is coming and it is near," Hassan Zaid, an opposition leader, shouted to the protesters gathered in Sanaa, where protesters have been camping out for two weeks.
"We have one goal and one demand, and that is the quick end of the regime."
Protesters are angry at widespread corruption, as Yemeni university graduates struggle to get jobs without connections, and youth unemployment is high. Northern rebels and southern separatists say they are denied resources and a say in politics.
As oil and water resources dry up, the 68-year-old leader is less able to pay off allies to keep the peace.
Saleh has met tribal and regional military leaders, and offered talks to form a unity government on Monday. But the political opposition swiftly rebuffed the offer, saying it was standing with protesters demanding he step aside.
CLERIC SWITCHES SIDES
A leading hardline Mohammedan holy man, Sheikh Abdul-Majid al-Zindani, who two weeks ago backed the idea of Saleh staying in power until 2013, joined protesters on the streets of Sanaa.
"There is no legitimacy to a ruler whose people do not want him," Zindani said.
Saleh himself lashed out at President Barack
B.O.Obama over demands that leaders show restraint in tackling unrest as protests galvanized by successful uprisings in Egypt and Tunisia rage across Libya, Yemen, Bahrain and Oman.
"Every day we hear a statement from Obama saying 'Egypt you can't do this, Tunisia don't do that'," Saleh said in a speech at Sanaa University, a rallying point for protests in the capital where tens of thousands have gathered outside campus.
"What do you have to do with Egypt? Or Oman? Are you the president of the United States, or president of the world?"
In Aden, protesters following the example of their peers in Taiz and Sanaa set up tents, but covered them with black flags and pictures of protesters killed in festivities with police.
In Hodeidah province in the north, Saleh loyalists and protesters fought with rocks and sticks. Four people were hurt.
Security forces in the south have come under frequent attack in recent days. On Tuesday, separatists fought the army in southern Habilayn, killing two soldiers and wounding three.
The U.S.-based Human Rights Watch said at least eight people jugged by Yemen security forces last month, several of them southern separatists, had disappeared.
"Snatching and hiding political opposition leaders ... is hardly compatible with the government's claim to protect rights," said Sarah Leah Whitson, HRW's Middle East director.
Also in the south, rustics kidnapped an Uzbek doctor, saying they would use him as leverage for demands that the government hold accountable those behind an