Saudi Arabia Crown Prince Sultan bin Abdulaziz Died Today

The crown prince of Saudi Arabia was King Abdullah's half-brother and first in line to the Saudi throne. He was also minister of defense and aviation.

He was in his eighties and was diagnosed with colon cancer in 2004. He is thought to have died at a New York hospital.

Prince Sultan had been on a visit to the US for medical tests, and he had an operation in New York in July.

The royal court confirmed the death in a statement carried by SPA, the state news agency:

"With deep sorrow and sadness the Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Abdullah bin Abdulaziz mourns the death of his brother and his Crown Prince Sultan... who died at dawn this morning Saturday outside the kingdom following an illness."

Source

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Ghadaffi captured?Killed??

Muammar Gaddafi has been captured by revolutionary forces in Libya, it has been claimed today.
The former Libyan dictator was reportedly found cowering in a hole in the ground at the centre of Sirte after rebels moved in on the city for a final account.

Fighter Mohammed Al Bibi told reporters that the toppled tyrant had pleaded 'Don't shoot, don't shoot' and surrendered.

However it is unclear whether Gaddafi is now dead or alive. There were multiple reports in the Arab press that he died after suffering wounds to the legs.

It is understood that he has been taken to hospital in the city of Misrata.
Rebels said he had been armed with a golden pistol when he was found and was wearing a khaki uniform.
Gaddafi and his family have been on the run since Nato and rebel forces started closing the net on Tripoli in mid-August.
The reports of Gaddafi's capture came on the same day that revolutionary forces said that they had taken control of Sirte - the leader's home town.
Initial reports from CNN and the National Transitional Council (NTC) said Gaddafi was in custody, while Al Jazeera reported that a ‘big fish’ had been caught but did not provide a name.
Al Jazeera later joined Al-Arabiya in saying that Gaddafi was dead.
Sky News reported that Gaddafi had been wounded in both legs prior to his capture. He was wearing a military-style uniform.

A military official told Reuters via telephone: 'He's captured. He's wounded in both legs ... He's been taken away by ambulance.

Libya's transitional government forces have taken full control of the city - the last stronghold of Gaddafi loyalists. Gaddafi's presence there would explain why fighting had been so intense in the past few weeks.

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Police shot tear gas as protesters riot in Italy

Italian police fired tear gas and water cannons Saturday in Rome as violent protesters turned a demonstration against corporate greed into a riot, smashing shop and bank windows, torching cars and hurling bottles.
The protest in the Italian capital, which left dozens injured, was part of the "Occupy Wall Street" demonstrations against capitalism and austerity measures that went global Saturday.

Tens of thousands nicknamed "the indignant" marched in major cities across Europe, as protests that began in New York linked up with long-running demonstrations against government cost-cutting and failed financial policies in Europe.

Heavy smoke billowed into the air in downtown Rome as a small group broke away from the main demonstration and wreaked havoc in streets close to the Colosseum.

Clad in black with their faces covered, protesters threw rocks, bottles and incendiary devices at banks and Rome police in riot gear. Some protesters had clubs, others had hammers. They destroyed bank ATMs, set trash bins on fire and assaulted at least two news crews from Sky Italia.

TV footage showed police in riot gear charging the protesters and firing water cannons at them. Several police forces and protesters were injured, including one man trying to stop the protesters from throwing bottles. TV footage showed a young woman with blood covering her face, while the ANSA news agency said one man had lost two fingers when a firecracker exploded.

In the city's St. John in Lateran square, police vans came under attack, with protesters hurling rocks and cobblestones and smashing the vehicles. One police van was set ablaze, but the two people inside were able to abandon the vehicle. Peaceful demonstrators who could not leave the square climbed up the staircase outside the Basilica, one of the oldest in Rome.

Rome Mayor Gianni Alemanno blamed the violence on "a few thousand thugs from all over Italy, and possibly from all over Europe." He said some Rome museums were forced to close down because of the violence.
Some protesters also trashed offices of the Defense Ministry and set them on fire, causing the roof to collapse, reports said.

Police were out in force as up to 100,000 protesters had been expected a day after Premier Silvio Berlusconi barely survived a confidence vote in Parliament. Italy, which has a national debt ratio second only to Greece in the 17-nation eurozone, is rapidly becoming a focus of concern in Europe's debt crisis.

"People of Europe: Rise Up!" read one banner in Rome. Some peaceful demonstrators turned against the violent group and tried to stop them, hurling bottles, Sky Italia and ANSA said. Others fled, scared by the raw violence.

ANSA said four people from an anarchist group were arrested early Saturday morning, with police seizing helmets, anti-gas masks, clubs and hundreds of bottles from their car.

Elsewhere, bright autumn sunshine and a social media campaign brought out thousands across Europe.
In Frankfurt, continental Europe's financial hub, some 5,000 people protested at the European Central Bank, and some were setting up a tent camp aiming at permanently occupying the green space in front of the ECB building.

Wikileaks founder Julian Assange spoke to about 500 demonstrators outside St. Paul's cathedral in London, calling the international banking system a "recipient of corrupt money."

U.K. police contained most London demonstrators in the streets around the cathedral, near the city's financial district. Protesters erected tents and asked supporters to bring them blankets, food and water as they settled down for the evening.

Several hundreds more marched in the German cities of Berlin, Cologne and Munich and the Austrian capital of Vienna, while protesters in Zurich, Switzerland's financial hub, carried banners reading "We won't bail you out yet again" and "We are the 99 percent."
In Brussels, thousands of marched through the downtown area chanting "Criminal bankers caused this crisis!" They pelted the stock exchange building with old shoes then marched on to the European Union sector.
Protesters also accused NATO, which has its headquarters in Brussels, of wasting taxpayer money on the wars in Libya and Afghanistan, saying that one European soldier deployed to Afghanistan costs the equivalent of 11 high school teachers.

In Helsinki, around 300 activists held a peaceful, creative rally with homemade signs and stalls full of art and food.

In Spain, the Indignant Movement established the first around-the-clock "occupation" protest camps in cities and towns across the country beginning in May and lasting for weeks. Six marches were converging Saturday on Madrid's Puerta del Sol plaza just before dusk.

Portuguese angry at their government's handling of the economic crisis were protesting in downtown Lisbon later. Portugal is one of three European nations — the others being Greece and Ireland — that have already needed an international bailout.

Across the Atlantic, hundreds gathered in Toronto's financial district, converging close to the Toronto Stock Exchange and the headquarters major Canadian banks to decry what they called government-abetted corporate greed. Protests were also being held in Montreal and Vancouver.

In New York, protesters marched on a Chase bank to protest the role banks played in the financial crisis, and demonstrations were culminating in an "Occupation Party" in Times Square.

Support for the anti-capitalist protest movement was light in Asia, where the global economy is booming. In Sydney, around 300 people turned out, while another 200 people in Tokyo chanted anti-nuclear slogans outside the Tokyo Electric Power Co., which operates the tsunami-hit Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear plant.
In the Philippines, some 100 people marched on the U.S. Embassy in Manila to support the Occupy Wall Street protests.

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Yemen forces kill 12

 Security forces shot dead at least 12 people protesting against the rule of Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh in the capital Sanaa Saturday and al Qaeda insurgents blew up a pipeline, halting the nation's gas exports.

Yemeni officials said the attack on France's Total gas pipeline was in retaliation for the killing of the head of the media department of al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula in an air raid on militant outposts in Yemen.
In Sanaa, security forces shot dead at least 12 demonstrators as Yemenis waited for the U.N. Security Council to agree to a resolution expected to urge Saleh to hand over power under a Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) peace plan.

The death of Ibrahim al-Banna, an Egyptian described by Yemeni officials as high on their wanted list, and 23 other people late Friday is a fresh blow to the Islamist group regarded by Washington as the most serious threat to the United States, following the killing of Anwar al-Awlaki last month.

But the destruction of the Total pipeline, which transports gas from the central Maarib province to Belhaf port on the Arabian Sea, deals a severe blow to the Yemeni economy, already reeling from months of protests.
The Yemeni Defense Ministry said its air force targeted militant hideouts near the town of Azzan in the southern Shabwa province. Residents said the attack also killed the oldest son and a cousin of U.S.-born cleric Awlaki, long sought by Washington for links to al Qaeda.

But local residents and officials said they believed the aircraft that launched at least three strikes in the area were foreign, flying at high altitude and smaller than the Soviet-made Yemeni air force planes.
"There were planes flying high. I could hear the sounds of their engines but I could not make them out," one witness who declined to be identified, told Reuters. "All of a sudden, the area was shaken by successive explosions," he added.

A senior U.S. official said Washington continues to work closely with Yemeni forces against al Qaeda.
"While our counterterrorism cooperation with Yemen remains strong, we continue to call upon the government in Sanaa to implement the ... proposal that calls upon President Saleh to transfer power and to initiate a peaceful political transition," the official told Reuters.

A Yemeni official described al-Banna as a "dangerous" militant and one of the most wanted people internationally.

Witnesses said militants were seen removing several mutilated bodies as well as an unknown number of injured people from the scene early Saturday.

Last month, a drone killed Awlaki, identified by intelligence as "chief of external operations" for al Qaeda's Yemen branch and a Web-savvy propagandist for the Islamist cause, officials said.

Awlaki relatives said the cleric's son and cousin were due to return home Saturday. "Instead of that, we received them as mutilated corpses," Sheikh Abu Bakr al-Awlaki said by telephone.

Islamist militants linked to al Qaeda captured large swathes of southern Abyan province, including the provincial capital Zinjibar, earlier this year.
The Yemeni army last month drove the militants out of Zinjibar, which lies east of a strategic shipping strait through which some 3 million barrels of oil pass daily.
GAS PIPELINE
Residents and officials said the 200 mile pipeline, which links gas fields in Maarib, east of Sanaa, to a $4.5 billion Total-led liquefied natural gas (LNG) plant, was attacked soon after the raids.

Sources at Total told Reuters the pipeline was blown up in two places, stopping the supplies that feed the Belhaf LNG plant. Witnesses said flames were visible from several kilometers away.

The company evacuated nearly half its foreign staff to neighboring Djibouti, and sent some local and French engineers to start repairing the pipeline.

Three South Korean companies also hold stakes in the plant, Yemen's largest industrial project, which opened in 2009.

Yemen's only liquefied natural gas producer, Yemen LNG, warned customers in March of potential supply curtailments as violence spread.

Yemen has the capacity to supply up to 6.7 million tons of LNG per year. Last year Yemen LNG, the 16th largest seller of the gas, shipped more than half its supplies to Asia, the rest going to the Americas and Europe.

The project delivers LNG under long term contracts to GDF Suez (GSZ.PA), Total and Korea Gas Corp (036460.KS).

SANAA HEATS UP
In Sanaa, heavy violence broke a lull as Yemenis awaited deliberations in the U.N. Security Council aimed at pressuring Saleh to comply with a Gulf Arab initiative to hand over power to his deputy as part of a plan to end months of protests.

Witnesses and medics said Yemeni security forces opened fire on tens of thousands of anti-government demonstrators trying to march toward state buildings, such as the presidential palace.

They said dozens of people were wounded and taken to a field hospital in Sixty Street, where thousands have camped out for months demanding that Saleh steps down. A Yemeni government soldier also died in the clashes, government sources said.

Witnesses said troops initially used tear gas and water cannon against the demonstrators, who responded by hurling stones at security forces.

Tareq Noman, head of the field hospital, told Al Jazeera television that his facility had received the bodies of 10 people and that hundreds were wounded. The deputy information minister, Abdu al-Janadi, said the death toll was lower.

In a separate incident, witnesses said government forces fought heavy battles with gunmen loyal to powerful tribal leader Sadeq al-Ahmar, who supports opposition demands for an end to Saleh's 33-year grip on power.

They said the fighting was concentrated in the Hasaba neighborhood of Sanaa, where al-Ahmar lives, and near the airport, which was closed by the fighting.

Opposition sources said four tribal fighters were killed in the clashes.

In the southern city of Aden, a security official said gunmen on a motorcycle ambushed and killed an intelligence officer in the Arabian Sea city of al-Mukalla. The government has previously blamed other similar incidents on al Qaeda.

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Syrians protest as army and defectors clash, Friday News

 

Syrian security forces shot dead three protesters calling for the overthrow of President Bashar al-Assad and clashes continued in the center of the country between insurgents and loyalist forces, activists said.
Government troops have been battling opponents including army defectors and gunmen in the town of Rastan in the first prolonged armed confrontation since protests erupted against Assad six months ago.

The state news agency said seven soldiers and police were killed in the operation against "terrorists" in Rastan and another 32 were wounded, adding that the army had "inflicted big losses on the armed terrorist groups."
Activists reported attacks on army roadblocks in the nearby town of Talbiseh and said clashes continued in Rastan, prompting defiant calls at demonstrations where tens of thousands of people marched against Assad.
"Rastan is the bastion of free men, despite you, Bashar," proclaimed a sign carried by protesters in the northern province of Idlib. "Bashar get off our backs, Syria wants freedom," demonstrators shouted in Homs.
The United Nations says 2,700 people have been killed in Assad's crackdown on mostly peaceful protests, one of the highest death tolls in the wave of revolts which has toppled three Arab leaders this year.

Western powers have responded with sanctions on Syria's oil exports, forcing Assad's government to curb imports to protect its foreign reserves and adding to economic pressures after the collapse of tourism revenues and a slump in trade.

Assad retains control over most of the military and security forces but army deserters, many of whom are reported to have defected because they refused to shoot at protesters, have formed rebel units in areas around Rastan, a town of 40,000 people which lies 180 km (110 miles) north of Damascus.

One army defector operating in the province of Idlib, northwest of Rastan, said the defectors in the town were using guerrilla tactics against the heavily-armed loyalist forces.

"Rastan has been churning out army officers for decades and there is a lot of experience among the defecting soldiers. Assad is mistaken if he thinks that he can wrap up the attack quickly," he said, adding that the agricultural terrain made it difficult for the regular army to seal off the area.

The area around Rastan was a recruiting ground for Sunni conscripts who provide most of the manpower in an army dominated by officers from Assad's minority Alawite sect. Residents say at least 1,000 deserters and armed villagers have been fighting loyalist forces, who are backed by tanks and helicopters.

One activist said army defectors formed only a small part of the armed resistance. "There are at least 100 army defectors in Rastan and 600 gunmen," he said.

Syria says more than 700 soldiers and police have been killed in the uprising, which it blames on armed groups backed by foreign powers.

In Rastan, troops and security police "were continuing to chase members of these terrorist groups to restore security and stability to Rastan and its citizens," the news agency said.

It said gunmen killed three civilians and wounded several security force members in the province of Hama, and another three members of the security forces were killed in an ambush near Tel Kelakh on the Lebanese border.

U.S. CONVOY PELTED
Relations with Washington hit a new low on Thursday when Assad supporters threw stones and tomatoes at U.S. ambassador Robert Ford's convoy as he visited an opposition figure in Damascus.

Ford and his party were uninjured, the U.S. State Department said, but several embassy vehicles were damaged and the ambassador had to lock himself in an office to await help from Syrian security.
Syria, irked by Ford's meetings with opposition figures, accused Washington of inciting violence and meddling in its affairs. Washington demanded that Syria take steps to protect U.S. diplomats.

"We condemn this unwarranted attack in the strongest possible terms. Ambassador Ford and his aides were conducting normal embassy business and this attempt to intimidate our diplomats through violence is wholly unjustified," U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said.

The Syrian government said that once it had been alerted to the confrontation, authorities "took all necessary procedures to protect the ambassador and his team and secure their return to their place of work."
At the United Nations, European members of the Security Council softened a draft resolution condemning Syria's crackdown but Russia said it could still not support the new text.

The latest version of the resolution showed that drafters Britain, France, Germany and Portugal had deleted a reference to U.N. human rights chief Navi Pillay's recommendation that the council consider referring the Syrian government's crackdown to the International Criminal Court in The Hague.

The United States is expected to support it, envoys said, despite its disappointment about compromises made in an attempt to woo Russia, China, Brazil, India and South Africa.

In Paris, Foreign Ministry spokesman Bernard Valero expressed French frustration over the lack of agreement. "How many victims will we need to have before the UN Security Council faces up to its responsibilities?" he said.

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US strike kills American al-Qaida cleric in Yemen, Friday News

 

In a significant new blow to al-Qaida, U.S. airstrikes in Yemen on Friday killed Anwar al-Awlaki, an American militant cleric who became a prominent figure in the terror network's most dangerous branch, using his fluent English and Internet savvy to draw recruits for attacks in the United States.

The strike was the biggest U.S. success in hitting al-Qaida's leadership since the May killing of Osama bin Laden in Pakistan. But it raises questions that other strikes did not: Al-Awlaki was an American citizen who has not been charged with any crime. Civil liberties groups have questioned the government's authority to kill an American without trial.

The 40-year-old al-Awlaki was for years an influential mouthpiece for al-Qaida's ideology of holy war, and his English-language sermons urging attacks on the United States were widely circulated among militants in the West.

But U.S. officials say he moved into a direct operational role in organizing such attacks as he hid alongside al-Qaida militants in the rugged mountains of Yemen. Most notably, they believe he was involved in recruiting and preparing a young Nigerian who on Christmas Day 2009 tried to blow up a U.S. airliner heading to Detroit, failing only because he botched the detonation of explosives sewn into his underpants.

Yemen's Defense Ministry said another American militant was killed in the same strike alongside al-Awlaki — Samir Khan, a U.S. citizen of Pakistani heritage who produced "Inspire," an English-language al-Qaida Web magazine that spread the word on ways to carry out attacks inside the United States. U.S. officials said they believed Khan was in the convoy carrying al-Awlaki that was struck but that they were still trying to confirm his death. U.S. and Yemeni officials said two other militants were also killed in the strike but did not immediately identify them.

Washington has called al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula, as the branch in Yemen is called, the most direct threat to the United States after it plotted that attack and a foiled attempt to mail explosives to synagogues in Chicago.

In July, U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said al-Awlaki was a priority target alongside Ayman al-Zawahri, bin Laden's successor as the terror network's leader.

The Yemeni-American had been in the U.S. crosshairs since his killing was approved by President Barack Obama in April 2010 — making him the first American placed on the CIA "kill or capture" list. At least twice, airstrikes were called in on locations in Yemen where al-Awlaki was suspected of being, but he wasn't harmed.

Friday's success was the result of counterterrorism cooperation between Yemen and the U.S. that has dramatically increased in recent weeks — ironically, even as Yemen has plunged deeper into turmoil as protesters try to oust President Ali Abdullah Saleh, U.S. officials said.

Apparently trying to cling to power by holding his American allies closer, Saleh has opened the taps in cooperation against al-Qaida. U.S. officials said the Yemenis have also allowed the U.S. to gather more intelligence on al-Awlaki's movements and to fly more armed drone and aircraft missions over its territory than ever before.

The operation that killed al-Awlaki was run by the U.S. military's elite counterterrorism unit, the Joint Special Operations Command — the same unit that got bin Laden.

A U.S. counterterrorism official said American forces targeted a convoy in which al-Awlaki was traveling with a drone and jet attack and believe he's been killed. The official was not authorized to speak publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity.

The Yemeni government announced that al-Awlaki was "targeted and killed" around 9:55 a.m outside the town of Khashef in mountainous Jawf province, 87 miles (140 kilometers) east of the capital Sanaa. It gave no further details.


Local tribal and security officials said al-Awlaki was traveling in a two-car convoy with two other al-Qaida operatives from Jawf to neighboring Marib province when they were hit by an airstrike. They said the other two operatives were also believed dead. They spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to the press.

Al-Awlaki, born in New Mexico to Yemeni parents, began as a mosque preacher as he conducted his university studies in the United States, and he was not seen by his congregations as radical. While preaching in San Diego, he came to know two of the men who would eventually become suicide-hijackers in the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. The FBI questioned al-Awlaki at the time but found no cause to detain him.

In 2004, al-Awlaki returned to Yemen, and in the years that followed, his English-language sermons — distributed on the Internet — increasingly turned to denunciations of the United States and calls for jihad, or holy war. The sermons turned up in the possession of a number of militants in the U.S. and Europe arrested for plotting attacks.

Al-Awlaki exchanged up to 20 emails with U.S. Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, alleged killer of 13 people in the Nov. 5, 2009, rampage at Fort Hood. Hasan initiated the contacts, drawn by al-Awlaki's Internet sermons, and approached him for religious advice.

Al-Awlaki has said he didn't tell Hasan to carry out the shootings, but he later praised Hasan as a "hero" on his Web site for killing American soldiers who would be heading for Afghanistan or Iraq to fight Muslims.
In New York, the Pakistani-American man who pleaded guilty to the May 2010 Times Square car bombing attempt told interrogators he was "inspired" by al-Awlaki after making contact over the Internet.

After the Fort Hood attack, al-Awlaki moved from Yemen's capital, Sanaa, into the mountains where his Awalik tribe is based and — it appears — grew to build direct ties with al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula, if he had not developed them already. The branch is led by a Yemeni militant named Nasser al-Wahishi.
Yemeni officials have said al-Awlaki had contacts with Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the accused would-be Christmas plane bomber, who was in Yemen in 2009. They say the believe al-Awlaki met with the 23-year-old Nigerian, along with other al-Qaida leaders, in al-Qaida strongholds in the country in the weeks before the failed bombing.

Al-Awlaki has said Abdulmutallab was his "student" but said he never told him to carry out the airline attack.
The cleric is also believed to have been an important middleman between al-Qaida militants and the multiple tribes that dominate large parts of Yemen, particular in the mountains of Jawf, Marib and Shabwa province where the terror group's fighters are believed to be holed up.

Last month, al-Awlaki was seen attending a funeral of a senior tribal chief in Shabwa, witnesses said, adding that security officials were also among those attending. Other witnesses said al-Awlaki was involved in negotiations with a local tribe in Yemen's Mudiya region, which was preventing al-Qaida fighters from traveling from their strongholds to the southern city of Zinjibar, which was taken over recently by Islamic militants. The witnesses spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisals and their accounts could not be independently confirmed.

Yemen, the Arab world's most impoverished nation, has become a haven for hundreds of al-Qaida militants. The country has also been torn by political turmoil as President Saleh struggles to stay in power in the face of seven months of protests. In recent months, Islamic militants linked to al-Qaida have exploited the chaos to seize control of several cities in Yemen's south, including Zinjibar.

A previous attack against al-Awlaki on May 5, shortly after the May raid that killed Osama bin Laden, was carried out by a combination of U.S. drones and jets.

Top U.S. counterterrorism adviser John Brennan has said cooperation with Yemen has improved since the political unrest there. Brennan said the Yemenis have been more willing to share information about the location of al-Qaida targets, as a way to fight the Yemeni branch challenging them for power.

Yemeni security officials said the U.S. was conducting multiple airstrikes a day in the south since May and that U.S. officials were finally allowed to interrogate al-Qaida suspects, something Saleh had long resisted, and still does so in public. The officials spokes on condition of anonymity to discuss intelligence issues.

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Renewed violence 9 killed in Yemeni

Renewed violence in the Yemeni capital killed at least nine people on Thursday as street battles broke out between forces loyal to the regime and its opponents, medical and security officials said.

The officials said six people died in central Sanaa when government forces shelled thousands gathered for a protest there with mortars and rocket propelled grenades. Snipers on rooftops also targeted the protesters at Change Square, the epicenter of Yemen's seven-month-old uprising, and adjacent streets.

Three bystanders were killed by a mortar shell in Sanaa's northern Hassaba district, the officials also said. The district is home to several of the tribal chiefs who switched sides in March to join the opposition against the 33-year rule of President Ali Abdullah Saleh.

The latest deaths took to about a 100 the number of people killed in Sanaa and elsewhere in Yemen since Sunday, in the worst bout of bloodshed in months. The deaths also shattered hope that a cease-fire negotiated on Tuesday could be restored and significantly diminished the chances for a proposal by Yemen's Gulf Arab neighbors to end the crisis.

The Gulf plan, backed by the United States, provides for Saleh to step down in exchange for immunity and for the vice president to take the reins of power until elections are held.

Yemen's turmoil began in February as the unrest spreading throughout the Arab world set off largely peaceful protests in the deeply impoverished and unstable corner of the Arabian Peninsula that is also home to an al-Qaida offshoot blamed for several nearly successful attempts to attack the United States.

Saleh's government responded with a heavy crackdown, with hundreds killed and thousands wounded so far.
The officials who gave Thursday's casualty toll spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to the media. They said that scores of homes and stores across central Sanaa were damaged or caught fire as a result of random shelling blamed on government forces.

The shelling also ruptured many water tanks traditionally stored on rooftops of Yemeni homes, inundating the streets below. Sanaa has for weeks suffered from acute water and power shortages, forcing residents to rely on power generators and buy water extracted from wells and sold on a thriving black market.

Street battles broke out between armed tribesmen opposed to Saleh and their rivals in several locations across Sanaa on Thursday but there were no immediate reports of casualties.

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