SANA'A: Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh rejected an opposition plan for him to step aside this year, as protests against his three-decade rule swelled into hundreds of thousands. The opposition said Saleh was sticking to an earlier plan to step down only when his current term ends in 2013 but had agreed to a proposal by religious leaders to revamp elections, parliament and the judicial system. “The president rejected the proposal and is holding on to his previous offer,” said the opposition's rotating president Mohammed Al-Mutawakil. There was no direct word from Saleh. In another political blow to Saleh, one of his influential allies resigned from the ruling party. Ali Ahmad Al-Omrani, a tribal sheikh from the southern Al-Baida province, told tens of thousands of protesters at a late night rally in front of Sana'a University that he would resign from Saleh's party. In the north, Houthi rebels accused the Yemeni army of firing rockets on a protest in Harf Sufyan, where thousands had gathered. Two people were killed and 13 injured. The government, however, said men had fired on a military post in Harf Sufyan, wounding four soldiers, but denied firing on protesters. Protesters flooded the streets surrounding Sana'a University – possibly around 100,000 rallied in what was among the largest demonstration in the capital yet. Similar numbers demonstrated in Taiz, south of Sana'a. More than 20,000 protesters marched in Aden, some carrying black flags of mourning for three protesters killed in the city last week. Tens of thousands more marched in Ibb. Saleh loyalists, in a sign the president can still draw large crowds, organized a counter-protest Friday attended by about 100,000 people.
