Three men were killed in gunfire in Aden as the Yemen security forces scattered protesters against the regime of President Ali Abdullah Saleh, who has ruled the country for more than 30 years.

Thousands took part in the anti-government protests in Aden, the capital of the former South Yemen, on Friday, just as others demonstrated in the capital Sanaa in a "Day of Rage" protests fueled by Facebook activism.

The protests in Yemen, the poorest Arab country, have been going on intermittently for weeks, inspired by the revolutions in Tunisia and Egypt, which toppled the dictatorships of Ben Ali and Mubarak.

"You're next after Mubarak, Ali", chanted the protesters in Sanaa referring to Yemen's president, Ali Abdullah Saleh.

Yemen's protests were initially led by the mainstream opposition parties, who wanted President Saleh to make concessions in their forthcoming dialogue on political and democratic reform. Subsequently, however, activists and students appear to have taken the lead organizing Facebook groups such as "Revolution of the Yemeni People" and "NO to the corrupt regime".

Yemen is already facing an insurgency in the north, a secessionist movement in the south, and presence of al-Qaeda.

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