Yemeni Protesters Under Heavy Fire

"SANA, Yemen — Security forces and government supporters opened fire on demonstrators on Friday as the largest protest so far in Yemen came under violent and sustained attack in the center of the capital, Sana. At least 10 people were killed and more than 100 injured, according to a doctor at a makeshift hospital near the protest.

A heavy cloud of black smoke rose over a downtown commercial district at the south end of the protest, which swelled to tens of thousands of people and stretched for a mile from its center at Sana University.

Government supporters in plain clothes fired down on the demonstration from rooftops and windows almost immediately after the protesters rose from their noon prayers, conducted en masse in the street on Friday.

The shooting dwarfed the level of violence in previous clashes between supporters of President Ali Abdullah Saleh and protesters who have called for his ouster in weeks of large protests in cities around Yemen. But the crowd of mostly tribal men from the outskirts of the capital appeared to stand firm in the face of the chaotic attack.

A man walked through the crowd with a microphone yelling, “Peaceful, peaceful! Don’t be afraid of the bullets!”"
via NYTimes.com /continue reading