Yemeni rival parties get prepared for escalating clashes

Thousands of Yemeni pro-and-anti government protesters staged on Friday rallies across the country' s 17 major provinces to press their conflicting demands over the fate of President Ali Abdullah Saleh, as fight between opposing armies escalated.

With frustrated feelings on faces of Saleh's supporters and his opponents due to long-running rival rallies, both marked Friday the 24th Friday since the eruption of anti-Saleh protests six months ago without any sign of near settlement, officials from both sides admitted.

Government spokesman Abdu al-Janady told Xinhua that "President Saleh will never, ever leave power by force ... that could spark a civil war, and the opposition-backed street protests, sit-ins in Changing and Liberation Squares have exceeded the acceptable limit of reasonable time and severely disrupted political, economic and social life of the Yemeni people."

"In return, the government has begun to lose patience with this critical unrest," al-Janady, who serves as deputy information minister, added, calling all protesters to go back home and move their tents that blocked roads and troubled residents living near sit-ins squares.

In response, spokesman of the country's main opposition coalition Joint Meeting Parties (JMP) Mohamed Qahtan told Xinhua " the JMP has lost confidence in proceeding through peaceful means with Saleh's ruling party."

The leadership of the JMP is considering plans to be announced within a week to escalate protesters' demands and press the international community to heel over in moving power from Saleh and his ruling party for the sake of the region's security and stability, Qahtan said without elaborating further.

The cash-stripped government has promised to resolve the six- month-long political and economic unrest through launching a nationwide dialogue based on the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) power-transition initiative with opposition parties.

However, the opposition refused to engage in any conciliation dialogue until Saleh steps down from p! ower. Th e condition has been rejected in full by the government and the ruling party, saying " Saleh will return to the power until his constitutional term expires in 2013."

Out of the political battleground, government forces and opposition-backed armed tribesmen broke up a one-day-old truce deal on Thursday in the southern restive province of Taiz, some 200 km south of the Yemeni capital Sanaa, after clashes killed a government policeman and injured an anti-government protester, the state-run Saba news agency reported, which also matched reports by opposition media.

Thursday also witnessed the fierce of its kind battles between the government forces backed by warplanes and opposition-backed armed tribesmen in Arahab district, about 60 km northeast of Sanaa, leaving 40 soldiers and 35 armed tribesmen killed, a military official told Xinhua.

The Defense Ministry accused the opposition of seeking to seize the most powerful military base in northern the capital to pave the ground for capturing the Sanaa International Airport and the Defense Air Force Base to set besiege the capital from its northern and western entrances. An accusation the opposition denied in its media outlets.

Meanwhile, the country's top military commander General Ali Mohsen al-Ahmar, who defected to the opposition in March, deployed armored vehicles around the entrances and streets of the anti- Saleh protest sit-in square near Sanaa University in the capital.

A dissident soldier of the First Armored Division, which commanded by Saleh's half brother al-Ahmar, told Xinhua that they were ordered to step up security measures around the sit-in square area to protect the protesters against potential attack by the government security forces and Saleh's armed supporters.

"We are steadfast until President Saleh and his regime fall," the soldier said on condition of anonymity under the military protocols.

Armed tribesmen of the powerful opposition tribal leader Sadiq al-Ahmar, an old ally of Saleh who has recently sided with opposition's d! emands o f ousting 33-year ruler Saleh, are continuing to dig trenches and lined with sandbags in Hassaba district in downtown the capital Sanaa "in preparing of any potential attack by government forces," according to eyewitnesses and an official at al-Ahmar's office.