Yemeni president sacks his cabinet ahead of walk-out

Yemen's president sacked the entire cabinet last night, in an apparent attempt to head off the embarrassment of a mass resignation many of them were planning in protest of his bloody crackdown on demonstrators.

Ali Abdullah Saleh is resisting a month-long popular uprising by crowds demanding his ousting after 32 years ruling over the impoverished nation. The showdown has turned increasingly bloody in the past few days as security troops opened fire on demonstrators in the capital and in the country's south. About 100 people have been killed so far.

Tens of thousands of people joined a funeral procession yesterday for protesters killed by government gunmen and the Yemeni president's own tribe called on him to step down, robbing the embattled US-backed leader of vital support.

Yemen's ambassador to the United Nations and its human rights minister resigned, further undermining Mr Saleh. But in a sign that he is still intent on hanging on, the president's office issued a terse statement last night saying he was sacking his cabinet. It gave no explanation.

One government official, who requested anonymity, said Mr Saleh decided to sack his cabinet ahead of mass resignations that ministers were planning.

In the streets, Mr Saleh appeared to shy away from using more force against demonstrators for the moment, disbanding police and special forces around Sanaa University, which has been the centre of the deadly crackdown, and replacing them with a largely unarmed force.

"From now on, we will be controlling the entrances and exits of the square by orders from the supreme military command," said Lt Col Mohammed Hussein.

Friday was the bloodiest day of the uprising, and government snipers killed more than 40 protesters. The violence drew condemnation from the UN and the US, which backs the government with hundreds of millions of dollars in military aid to battle a potent al-Qaeda offshoot based in Yemen's mountains.

Some of the country's most important religious leaders joined in the call for Mr Saleh's resignation.

"This is definitely entering into some form of an end game," said Salman Shaikh, the director of the Brookings Doha Centre.

Yemen's most powerful tribe, its opposition parties and masses of young protesters have now united in calls for Mr Saleh's departure, he said.

"The disparate elements of what can be called the opposition have now coalesced around the demand for him to step down," he said."This is now a very powerful, irresistible coalition."

Mohammad al-Sabri, an opposition spokesman, said the opposition would under no circumstances agree to a dialogue with Mr Saleh after the crimes his regime has committed.

"The president must understand that the only way to avoid more bloodshed and strife in this country is for him to leave. Nobody will have any regrets about him," he said.

During yesterday's funeral procession, electricity was cut off for about three hours in Yemen's major cities, and activists accused the government of trying to block people from seeing television coverage of the march.

Massive crowds flooded into the Sanaa University square and demonstrations were held in regions including Aden, Hadramawt, Ibb, Al-Hudaydah, Dhamar and Taiz.

The human rights minister Huda al-Ban said she was stepping down to protest the government's "horrible and perfidious crime." And a foreign ministry official said UN ambassador Abdullah Alsaidi had sent in his letter of resignation.

Health minister Abdul-Karim Rafi told reporters the killing of protesters was "a crime unacceptable by logic or could be justified".