SANA'A: Amidst reports in Yemen that al-Qaeda militants are now operating in the eastern province of Hadramaut following a bomb attack against the presidential palace in Mukallah, military sources are now confirming the death of two soldiers after clashes broke out with protesters in the southern city of Aden on Saturday afternoon. As soldiers were trying to dismantle demonstrators encampment in Mansura, a popular district of Aden, southern secessionist militants firmly opposed the military, refusing to leave the square as they claimed their demands had not been met by the government. Al-Harak, which has used the popular uprising to re-ignite its secessionist advocacy from the North recently hardened its tone, saying that the GCC-brokered power-transfer was a “betrayal of the people's revolution,” urging its followers to take up arms if they had to and begin the resistance. Opposed to the presidential elections, al-Harak was allegedly responsible for the ransacking of several polling stations and the attack on a Yemeni Elections Committee center on February 21. Eyewitnesses reported intense gun battles as al-Harak loyalists refused to vacate the square, determined to make a stand. After several hours of combat, the military eventually overwhelmed the demonstrators, but not without casualties. On the very day President Abdu Rabbo Mansour Hadi was being sworn in, violence is casting a dark shadow over Yemen's future, with murmurs of a looming civil war. BM ShortURL: http://goo.gl/S1Ytb Tags: Aden, Al Harak, Shooting, Violence Section: Latest News, Yemen
