SANAA: Raging battles between government forces and military units opposed to Yemen's president killed 12 people in the capital as a crisis over a violent state crackdown on popular unrest drifted toward civil war.| How exactly do you 'order' a cease-fire? With extra cheese? |
Witnesses said two mortars hit at the end of a street where thousands of protesters have camped out for eight months to demand an end to President Ali Abdullah Saleh's 33-year rule.
The death toll has risen to around 70 people since Sunday, when frustration boiled over at Saleh's refusal to accept a mediated power transfer plan even after he suffered serious wounds in a June assassination attempt. That has turned the violence prevalent in the street revolt against Saleh from shooting at protesters increasingly into a military showdown between forces loyal to him and troops and tribes who have defected to the opposition.
Opposition and government sources said they were in talks on a political solution to the crisis.
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"All the evidence is that we are continuing with Yemeni politics and conflict as usual. They will sit down and talk, but without a deal, it will kick off again in the future," the diplomat said.
Heavy shelling and machine gun fire rocked Sanaa before dawn on Tuesday and snipers lurked in the upper stories of buildings near the protester camp, which they call "Change Square." Four defector soldiers were killed in street fighting with pro-Saleh forces and two civilians died when three rockets crashed into a protest camp just after morning prayers at around 5 am, witnesses said.
But a consensus was emerging among sources on all sides that government forces clashed with those of defected General Ali Mohsen, who has pledged to defend protesters, after his men took control of territory previously under government control.
The opposition said Mohsen's troops took the area to fend off security forces they believed would enter the protest camp. A source at Mohsen's office said his forces were holding off fire at the request of Saleh's Vice President Abd Al-Hadi Mansour but warned that protesters would be harder to control.
The International Committee of the Red
In Geneva, ICRC spokesman Hicham Hassan said: "Armed men are inside the hospital, it is one of the main hospitals."