Official: Yemen government troop shelling kills 11

SANAA, Yemen?? Yemeni security forces fired tank and artillery shells at a restive central city on Friday, killing 11 people, including three women and a nine-year-old boy, a medical official said.

Violence has escalated in the Arab world's poorest country following nearly nine months of a popular uprising seeking to oust longtime autocratic President Ali Abdullah Saleh.

International diplomacy has failed to stop the crisis, with Saleh repeatedly refusing to sign a U.S.-backed proposal by Yemen's powerful Gulf neighbors. In the meantime, security across the country has broken down and clashes between government forces and army units who have joined the uprising regularly shake Yemeni cities.

In the country's south, al-Qaida-linked militants have taken over entire towns, raising Western fears they'll use the area as a staging ground for international attacks.

Friday's deaths came as government troops started shelling the city center in Taiz early Friday, said the medical official. He spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk to the media.

Taiz, a hotbed of the opposition, has been particularly violent recently, with government troops regularly clashing with soldiers who have defected and sided with the anti-Saleh protesters.

In the capital Sanaa, tens of thousands of demonstrators held competing rallies for and against the regime.

In one area, regime supporters chanted "the people want Ali Abdullah Saleh" ? a transformation of the chant "the people want to topple the regime" that became famous during the uprisings in Egypt and Tunisia, which successfully toppled those countries' dictators.

In another Sanaa neighborhood, anti-government protests called for Saleh to face trial for his troops' bloody crackdowns on protesters, which has killed hundreds and wounded thousands so far.

Copyright 2011 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Source: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/45253703/ns/world_news-mideast_n_africa/

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