Clashes Erupt for 2nd Day in Yemeni Capital, as Troops Fight Defectors

By LAURA KASINOF
NYT

SANA, Yemen — Deadly violence convulsed the streets here in Yemen’s capital for a second day on Monday as government security forces battled soldiers who have joined antigovernment protesters in their seven-month-old movement to force President Ali Abdullah Saleh to resign.

Taken together, the two days constituted the worst violence in the capital since the beginning of the uprising in Yemen, the Arab world’s most impoverished country and a haven for Islamic militants.

The violence appeared to rage for a third day on Tuesday. Reuters reported that at least two rockets hit a protest camp in Sana, killing two people, witnesses said.

Medical officials in the capital said at least 28 people were killed on Monday, pushing the death toll from two days of fighting in Sana to more than 50 — most of them unarmed protesters caught in the shooting — and raising fears here that the escalation of deadly mayhem was hurtling Yemen toward civil war.

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