At least seven killed in Yemen clashes

At least seven people were killed, including four policemen who clashed with a dissident army unit, as hundreds of thousands of anti-regime protesters rallied across Yemen on Wednesday. The four policemen died as the security forces traded fire with automatic weapons and rocket-propelled grenades. 

According to a military official, the targeted army unit operates under the commander of Yemen's northwest military region, General Ali Mohsen al-Ahmar, who has sided with the protesters and accused regime supporters of trying to assassinate him.

In the south of the country, soldiers on Wednesday are reported to have shot dead two anti-regime protesters and wounded several others in different sectors of the port city of Aden.

Witnesses claim the army opened fire as protesters tried to set up roadblocks to enforce a general strike, which demonstrators have vowed to carry out in Aden every Saturday and Wednesday until the fall of President Ali Abdullah Saleh.

Protests swept provinces across Yemen on Wednesday in response to calls by the Youth for Change, a coalition of groups that has led anti-Saleh demonstrations since late January. The largest rally was being held in the flashpoint city of Taez, south of Sanaa, where more than 20 people were killed in clashes with security forces earlier this month.