15 killed as Yemeni rebels, loyalists trade shots

Anti-government protestors carry a wounded man from the site of clashes with security forces, in Sanaa, Yemen, Thursday, Sept. 22, 2011. Renewed violence in the Yemeni capital killed several people on Thursday as street battles broke out between forces loyal to the regime and its opponents, medical and security officials said. (AP Photo/Hani Mohammed)
Anti-government protestors carry a wounded man from the site of clashes with security forces, in Sanaa, Yemen, Thursday, Sept. 22, 2011. Renewed violence in the Yemeni capital killed several people on Thursday as street battles broke out between forces loyal to the regime and its opponents, medical and security officials said. (AP Photo/Hani Mohammed)

— Renewed violence in the Yemeni capital killed at least 15 people Thursday as forces loyal to the regime and its opponents shelled each other’s strategic positions from hills surrounding the city, medical and security officials said.

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http://www.arkansas…">Yemen in turmoil

The shelling over the city has terrified residents and emptied city streets, already pockmarked by street battles between rival forces in different corners of the capital. A number of shops on a main boulevard in Sana were torched from earlier mortar shelling and oil spots covered the streets after electricity transformers also took hits.

Smoke billowed from the opposite edges of the city as, two military officials said, rival forces were caught in an exchange of artillery and mortar shelling from northern and southern hills at the edge of Sana. It was not clear what was hit by the shelling. The Republican Guards, forces loyal to President Ali Abdullah Saleh and led by Saleh’s son, have been in control of Sana’s south, while defecting military units led by Maj. Gen. Ali Mohsen al-Ahmar, a former Saleh aide who sided with the opposition, hold thecity’s north.

Officials said six people were killed in central Sana when government forces shelled thousands gathered for a protest there with mortars and rocket-propelled grenades. Snipers on rooftops also targeted the protesters at Change Square, the center of Yemen’s 7-month-old uprising, and adjacent streets.

Three bystanders were killed by a mortar shell in Sana’s northern Hassaba district, the officials said. The district is home to several of the tribal chiefs who switched sides in March to join the opposition against Saleh’s 33-year rule. The Interior Ministry later said four gunmen among supporters of Saleh were also killed. The rival side said one of its fighters was shot dead and 13 were wounded.

The house of a former defense minister, who has declared his support for the protesters, was also hit by government shells, leaving one of the guards dead, a defecting military official said. The former minister himself was unharmed.

The latest deaths took to about 100 the number of people killed in Sana and elsewhere in Yemen since Sunday, in the worst bout of bloodshed in months. The deaths alsoshattered hope that a ceasefire negotiated Tuesday could be restored and significantly diminished the chances for a proposal by Yemen’s Gulf Arab neighbors to end the crisis.

The Gulf plan, backed by the United States, provides for Saleh to step down in exchangefor immunity from prosecution and for the vice president to assume power until elections.

Meanwhile, Syrian students chanting for revolution marched outside the capital, Damascus, and other areas after class Thursday in a new tactic that drew a swift response from security services, who beat up or detained many of the young protesters, activists said.

Children as young as 10 have been taking to the streets since the new school year started Sunday, according to witnesses and online videos posted by activists. It appears to be the first major attempt to bring out the country’s schoolchildren to join the 6-monthold uprising.

Girls chanting, “revolution is bright, the regime is dark,” marched in the Damascus suburb of Zabadani, according to the Local Coordination Committees, an activist group.Another student protest in the northwestern village of Mhambal came under attack by security forces and pro-regime gunmen who beat some students and detained parents, the group said.

Students also were detained in the southern village of Dael.

A video posted by activists online showed more than two dozen young students gathered in a street in the Damascus suburbs chanting, “the people want the president executed” and “we will only kneel to God.”

The Associated Press could not independently verify the videos or the accounts of violence. Syria has banned most foreign journalists and restricted local media during the revolt.

Information for this article was contributed by Bassem Mroue of The Associated Press.

Front Section, Pages 5 on 09/23/2011

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