Tens of thousands Yemenis protest Saudi, US meddling

(Ahlul Bayt News Agency) - Tens of thousands of Yemenis have once again poured into the streets in the cities of Taizz and Dhamar to protest against the interference of Saudi Arabia and the US in their country's internal affairs.

Anti-regime protesters have been pressing ahead with street demonstrations, shouting slogans against the Saudi regime and the US, which support the country's embattled dictator Ali Abdullah Saleh, reports said on Sunday.

Saleh and five other high ranking Yemeni officials travelled to Saudi Arabia for treatment after they sustained injuries in a rocket attack on the Yemeni presidential palace on June 3.

Since Saleh left Yemen, anti-regime protesters have been staging daily demonstrations across the country, demanding that Vice President Abdrabuh Mansur Hadi establish an interim ruling council to prevent Saleh's return to power.

Hadi, who is the acting president in the absence of Saleh, has so far resisted intensive local and international pressure to heed the demands of demonstrators to set up an interim ruling council.

On Saturday, protesters who have set up camps in a square in the Yemeni capital of Sana'a since February, announced the formation of a shadow government, which includes former civil society leaders and government officials and consists of a 17-member transitional presidential council.

While the former leaders of Tunisia and Egypt eventually bowed to the will of their people and agreed to leave office, Saleh has refused to step down, which has put the impoverished Arab country in a state of political limbo.

Influential Yemeni tribal leader, Sadeq al-Ahmar, has warned that Saleh's return to the crisis-hit country could spark a civil war.

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