Yemeni president Ali Abdullah Saleh to go to US
Middle East country's leader says he will leave and allow interim government to prepare for an election
Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh has said he will go to the US in order to allow an transitional regime to prepare for an vote to replace him, but did not specify when he would leave.
The announcement came as forces loyal to Saleh fired guns, tear gas and water cannons to keep tens of thousands of protesters away from the president's compound in Sana'a on Saturday, killing at least one woman, witnesses said.
Saleh, speaking to reporters after forces loyal to him fired at protesters demanding he face trial for killing demonstrators over 11 months of protests, said he had no designs on staying in power.
"I will go to the United States. Not for treatment, because I'm fine, but to get away from attention, cameras, and allow the unity government to prepare properly for elections," he said.
"I'll be there for several days, but I'll return because I won't leave my people and comrades who have been steadfast for 11 months," he said.
"I'll withdraw from political work and go into the street as part of the opposition.
In southern Yemen, gunmen killed a Briton of Yemeni origin and wounded a soldier accompanying him in an attack on an oil company vehicle that a local official blamed on highway robbers.
In Sana'a, residents said shots rang out when riot police and troops blocked activists who had reached the capital chanting "No to immunity", at the climax of a mass march that began days earlier in the city of Taiz, 200 km (125 miles) to the south.
One woman marcher was killed, said activists. Medics said 10 people were wounded, some by bullets or tear gas canisters.
The immunity deal was crafted by Yemen's rich neighbours in the Gulf Co-operation Council (GCC) to ease Saleh from power and avert civil war in a country that hosts an ambitious wing of al-Qaida and sits next to vital oil shipping lanes.
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