Yemeni protesters hope Gaddafi's death will give them new momentum

Footage of the Libyan dictator's dead body was greeted with cheers in Sana'a, but some fear it will harden their ruler's attitude
Yemeni protester with Libyan flag
A Yemeni protester holds a sign with a pre-Gaddafi Libyan flag reading: 'Libya the victor killed the tyrant.' Photograph: Hani Mohammed/AP

Yemen's protesters have expressed their hope that Gaddafi's demise will breathe new life into their uprising, amid fears that the movement – now in its ninth month – is losing momentum.

"Oh Saleh, oh Saleh, you're trembling in your sleep!" roared a crowd of rowdy young men in Change Square as they watched footage on a projector of Gaddafi's blood-soaked corpse being dragged through the streets of Sirte on al-Jazeera.

The protest leader Fuad al-Himiyari said: "I say to Saleh: What comes next? Gaddafi fought like you fought, he was arrogant like you are arrogant, he lied like you lied, and he killed like you killed. If he knew this would be his ending he would never have started it. What is left for you Saleh?"

Others remain fearful that the sight of another toppled dictator will only serve to harden the resolve of their own. "These are dark times for Yemen. Ali Abdullah Saleh will fight harder now. We do not want to endure what the Libyans went through," said Mabkhoot al-Fuaysi, a pharmacist volunteering in the camp's makeshift hospital.

Sure enough, the celebrations in Change Square were quickly drowned out by the steady thud of explosions as the Republican guard – an elite force headed by Saleh's son Ahmed – bombarded the nearby base of the 1st armoured division, a ragtag military unit under the control of Major General Ali Mohsin al-Ahmar, who sided with the opposition back in March. Protesters are increasingly getting caught in the crossfire as the two sides barrage each other's bases with mortars, rocket-propelled grenades and Katyusha rockets.

The UN security council will vote on Friday on a British-drafted resolution on Yemen that will condemn the government crackdown against pro-democracy demonstrators and say those responsible should be held accountable.

The draft resolution, obtained by the Guardian, falls short of the demands made by the Yemeni activist Tawakul Karman, who was awarded the Nobel peace prize earlier this month. For the past three days Karman has been demonstrating with other Yemenis outside the UN headquarters in New York calling on the security council to retract a Gulf Arab plan that would grant immunity to Saleh and his family. She has also called for his assets to be frozen and his case to be referred to the international criminal court in The Hague.

"We reject and refuse any immunity for the criminals," she said in an impassioned speech on Wednesday. "Immunity is against what the UN was founded upon."

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