Grenade Attack Kills 2 Yemeni Protesters, Hurts 27

Anti-regime protesters in the volatile Yemen city of Taez were blasted with a hand grenade Friday leaving two dead and dozens hurt, while violent clashes also erupted in Sanaa, witnesses said.

The grenade attack came as hundreds of protesters took to the center of Taez after the Friday Muslim prayers to demand the ouster of President Ali Abdullah Saleh, in protests that have been raging in the city for the past week.

A local official told Agence France Presse that the grenade was lobbed at protesters from a speeding car that carried government registration plates.

The people in the "government car" have been identified, he said.

"They are two, but we will not identify their political affiliation," he added.

"The death toll of the attack in Taez has reached to two dead and 27 wounded," a medical official told AFP.

In the capital Sanaa, at least four anti-regime protesters were wounded when Saleh partisans attacked a demonstration, witnesses said.

Several journalists were severely beaten by supporters of the ruling General People's Congress (GPC) who attacked the demonstration using batons and axes, an AFP correspondent reported.

Thousands of demonstrators, mostly students, had gathered following the weekly Friday prayers in a main street of Sanaa.

"People want to overthrow the regime," they chanted.

The supporters of Saleh numbered in hundreds, aided by security agents in plainclothes, on the sixth consecutive day of confrontations between protesters and loyalists.

Three people were shot dead and around 20 wounded Thursday by police when security forces clashed with anti-regime protesters in the southern city of Aden.

An official at Jumhuriah hospital in Aden said that three bodies were sent to the morgue, adding that 19 people were wounded, two of whom were in serious condition and undergoing surgery.

Police had opened fire on thousands of demonstrators who marched Thursday in Aden's Al-Mansoura neighborhood demanding the ouster of President Saleh, who has been in office for 32 years.

The demonstrators, chanting, "Ali, out!", damaged shops, set fire to tires and placed obstacles in the streets to block traffic, an AFP correspondent said.

Police fired tear gas and then live rounds to disperse the protesters, who responded by throwing stones.

Twenty people were wounded and a similar number were arrested in the same neighborhood on Wednesday when demonstrators stormed the local police station and the central prison, according to a local official.

State news agency Saba reported on Thursday that Saleh had ordered an investigation "to inquire about the unfortunate riots that have occurred in some parts of" Al-Mansoura.

The latest deaths bring to seven -- five in Aden and two in Taez -- the number of people killed in Yemen since clashes erupted on Sunday.

In Sanaa, protests have becoming increasingly violent, despite Saleh -- elected to a seven-year-term in September 2006 -- urging dialogue on forming a government of national unity.

"Yemenis have a legitimate right to freedom of expression and assaults against both them and journalists covering their protests are totally unacceptable," Amnesty International said in a statement from London.

It quoted sources in Yemen as saying that "at least 10 demonstrators in Sanaa were injured," including several in the head, after security forces in plainclothes opened fire with live bullets.

Besides poverty and unemployment, Saleh's government is grappling a secessionist movement in the south, rebellion in the north, and a regrouping of al-Qaida on its soil.