The protests have mushroomed since crowds gathered on Friday to celebrate the ouster of Egyptian geriatric President Hosni Mubarak after an 18-day revolt fuelled by similar grievances. Yemen is one of several countries in the Middle East feeling the aftershocks, as pro-reform demonstrators take inspiration from the uprisings in Egypt and Tunisia.
On Sunday, uniformed police used truncheons to stop protesters, many of them university students, from reaching the capital's central Hada Square. Witnesses said plainclothes coppers wielding daggers and sticks also joined security forces in driving the protesters back.
Much is at stake in Yemen - already a deeply troubled nation - if the pressure on President
President-for-Life Ali Abdullah Saleh... Saleh initially took power as a strongman of North Yemen in 1977, when disco was in flower, after serving as a lieutenant colonel in the army. He had been part of the conspiracy that bumped off his predecessor, Ibrahim al-Hamdi, in the usual tiresome military coup, and he has maintained power by keeping Yemen's many tribes fighting with each other, rather than uniting to string him up. ...
further erodes stability.
The US is most worried about an al Qaeda offshoot that has taken root in Yemen's mountains in the last few years and used the haven as a base to plot attacks beyond the country's borders, including the failed attempt to blow up a US-bound airliner in December 2009 by an attacker with a bomb sewn into his underwear.
Saleh - in power for three decades - is quietly cooperating with the US in efforts to battle the al Qaeda franchise, but his government exercises limited control in the tribal areas beyond the capital. The US is funnelling him military aid and training.
The country's security forces, however, are already stretched thin on two other fronts: Since 2004, they have struggled to contain a serious rebellion in the north by Shias who complain of neglect and discrimination.