Huge crowds gather for rival Sanaa demonstrations

A boy shouts slogans during an anti-government rally to demand the ouster of Yemen's President Ali Abdullah Saleh outside Sanaa University. -- PHOTO: REUTERS

SANAA - HUNDREDS of thousands of rival demonstrators gathered for separate rallies in Yemen's capital on Friday, a week after loyalists of embattled President Ali Abdullah Saleh killed more than 50 people.

Anti-regime protesters poured into a square near Sanaa University where they have been camped since Feb 21, as regime loyalists crowded a nearby square in response to a call from the longtime president.

The army and opposition activists set up separate checkpoints at entrances the square near the university, searching people entering and leaving the epicentre of the revolt against Mr Saleh's three-decade rule.

With the demonstrations poised to kick after midday prayers on the Muslim weekly day of rest, the police also set up checkpoints leading to the venue of the loyalist protest, some four kilometres away.

With rival army units also deployed on the streets, Mr Saleh vowed on Thursday to defend himself by 'all possible means' and urged army officers who defected to return to the fold.

'We are determined to preserve the security, independence and stability of Yemen by all possible means,' he told army and police officers at a meeting broadcast on state television. -- AFP