Yemen security forces kill 17 protesters, wound 200

Pro-opposition students shout slogans as they try to enforce a boycott of studies at Sana'a University At least 17 people were killed and 200 wounded in Yemen as security forces broke up opposition demonstration in Sanaa. On Saturday, six students were wounded in clashes the first day of the academic year between rival groups at Sanaa University, near the epicentre of ongoing protests, a hospital source said. Two groups, divided between students who backed a resumption of classes and those who did not, came to blows, with stones and other projectiles also being used in the clashes, according to those involved and the medical official.
Shouting "No lessons, no teaching, before the ouster of the president (Ali Abdullah Saleh)," hundreds of students marched through the university grounds, calling for a boycott of classes and trying to keep their classmates from going to their lessons, an AFP journalist said.
Hassan Kahlani, a teacher at the university, told AFP he had temporarily stopped his students from leaving the lecture hall they were in at the end of their class.
Only around 15 per cent of students attended their classes on the first day of the academic year at Sanaa University, according to students.
Access to the university was controlled by military forces loyal to dissident General Ali Mohsen al-Ahmar, whose troops control Change Square, next to the university and where protesters have since February been calling for the departure of President Saleh.
Tanks and armoured vehicles were stationed at the entrance to the campus and armed civilians were also seen along the walls of the university, while the departments of arts and languages remained closed, students said.
Minister of Higher Education Saleh Ba-Sourah said he had met with General Al-Ahmar on Saturday, and had asked him "not to involve students in the political crisis".
"If we continue to bar students from accessing lecture theatres, the state will have to close the university completely," the minister told AFP. "And the students will be the big losers."
Around the capital, at least 20 other schools were kept closed to students on Saturday because many of the buildings are being used as outposts by government-linked gunmen and soldiers who defected to the opposition, said Fatma Mutahar, principal of Ayesha School in Sanaa and an official with the Education Ministry.
"Schools are for learning, not to serve as barracks," said Mutahar, who tried to negotiate with the gunmen to leave her school but failed.
yesha School is situated in Sanaa's city centre, near the front line between anti-Saleh tribesmen and loyalist security forces who have been locked in a bloody standoff since May.
"I won't let my children go to school after seeing the gunmen inside," said Mohammed Nasser, a father of five.
Some students didn't seem to mind.
More than 60 schools in the southern city of Aden are being used as shelters for people displaced by fighting between government troops and Islamic groups which have taken over several towns during Yemen's turmoil.
In other news, fighting in the Yemeni capital overnight between rival army units left one dissident soldier dead, witnesses and medics said on Saturday.
"Clashes broke out between soldiers from the Fourth Brigade (loyal to the regime) and the youths' security committee backed by dissident troops from the First Armoured Brigade" headed by General Ali Mohsen al-Ahmar, witnesses said.
The fighting, in which light and medium machine guns were used, took place at the eastern entrance to Change Square in Sanaa, where protesters against President Ali Abdullah Saleh have camped since February, witnesses told AFP.
"One soldier was killed and five members of the youths' security committee were wounded," said medics.
Saleh's troops fired on the square when protesters, whose numbers have been rising, tried to expand their sit-in, witnesses said.
The protesters' security committee backed by Ahmar's troops who have protected the square since March responded, they added.
Tensions have been rising in Sanaa with government forces fortifying their positions and Ahmar soldiers deployed in areas of the city they control.
On Sunday, an officer with Ahmar's troops accused the elite Republican Guard -- headed by Saleh's son Ahmed -- of shelling one of their positions in the capital.
Separately, the veteran leader's troops also fired mortar rounds overnight at the home of prominent opposition tribal chief Sheikh Sadiq al-Ahmar in Sanaa's northern Al-Hasaba district, his office said in a statement.
Six mortar rounds targeted Sheikh Sadiq's home without causing any casualties, it said.
Despite months of protests against his 33-year-long rule, Saleh, who was flown to Riyadh on board a Saudi medical aircraft after he was wounded in a bomb blast on his Sanaa compound on June 3, has refused to step down.
State news agency SABA reported on Monday that Saleh has authorised his deputy Abdrabuh Mansur Hadi to negotiate a power transfer with the opposition under a deal brokered by the Gulf Cooperation Council.
The GCC plan, proposed last spring, calls on Saleh to step down as president and transfer all constitutional authorities to the vice president. In return, Saleh would receive amnesty from prosecution for himself and his family.
At least 200 protesters have been killed nationwide since January, and the impoverished Arabian Peninsula country's economy is on the brink of a total collapse and Sanaa residents complain of prolonged power outages.