Saleh orders armed elements from capital as 40 killed

Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh An official source said that the Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh has removed all armed elements from the capital, Sanaa. This announcement comes as more than 40 people were killed on Saturday in battles that hit several neighbourhoods across Sanaa, including Change Square, the epicentre of anti-regime demonstrations, an activist from the protest organising committee said.
He said hundreds of others had been wounded as the death toll spiralled to 173 people over the past week. State news agency Saba said 24 of Saleh's soldiers had also been killed.
"We slept and woke up to the non-stop sound of gunfire," one Sanaa resident told AFP as clashes between rival military units raged in the city centre.
As gunfire echoed around the capital, hundreds of thousands of people set out on a march from Change Square, which itself came under renewed fire from the security forces.
Flames leapt from shops and homes along Sanaa's central business avenue, witnesses said.
The Yemen News Agency "SABA" said that Saleh ordered his Deputy Abd Rabo Mansour Hadi to evacuate all of the armed and violent elements in Sanaa.
The President has reportedly told the army to remove all armed manifestations from Sanaa, including barriers and checkpoints belonging to both the government and the opposition.
SABA noted that Saleh demanded the removal of armed civilians from the city to ensure a return to peace.
He has also ordered soldiers to return to their barracks.
Meanwhile, opposition parties, including dissident elements of the army, called on Yemenis to bear the "responsibility of national and religious fraternity with their own people, and not to use their weapons against their brothers in Yemen.”
The opposition army faction, Free Yemen, called on the government to stop using weapons against its population, and accused Saleh of leading the country toward war.
The group also called for international intervention to prevent the outbreak of civil war.
The groups also accused Saleh of destroying the legitimacy of his deputy, Abed Rabbo Mansur Hadi.
Hadi has recently been charged with negotiating a transfer of power with the opposition.
“His recent statement about a truce is fake. Within 24 hours the government had intensified missile and artillery strikes and artillery and used all kinds of heavy weapons to silence the opposition", the groups said in a statement.
They also contrasted their situation to the Israel-Palestine dispute, whereby the Israeli army uses the comparatively-humane rubber bullets, water cannons and tear gas against civilians, whereas the Yemeni government uses heavy artillery weapons, machine guns and sniper rifles.
The National Council of the Popular Forces of Revolution has also condemned the Yemeni leadership’s apparent desire to push Yemen to war.
"the government is trying to drag the country into a bloody turf war”, the council said in a statement on Saturday.
"The aggression coincides with the return of President Saleh to Sanaa, and underlines his lack of credibility.”
The statement said that the Yemeni leadership had lost its legitimacy, and called on “Brothers and friends and rebels across the world to stand by the Yemeni people side and stand against the massacre.”
The statement also “praised the commitment of the protestors in Change square, and across the country."
It also acknowledged the role of dissident army factions, “who are committed to restraint and not fulfilling Saleh’s wishes to drag the country into civil war."