Yemen's 'parallel revolution' inspires street-level protests

The protest that paralyzed Yemen's main airport erupted when an air force officer hurled a boot at his commander, a relative of the outgoing president and a symbol of the corruption that divides even his supporters.

"This is all I have left for the month," says Faris Al-Jabar, one of about 50 officers who blocked Sanaa airport's runway this week, plucking a few banknotes from his tattered wallet. "I earn in a month what my superiors spend in a day."

Their mutiny last week against General Mohammed Saleh Al-Ahmar, half-brother of President Ali Abdullah Saleh, halted flights at the capital's airport.

Riot police used water cannon to scatter the rebel airmen but they decamped to picket the heavily fortified home of Saleh's deputy, the country's acting leader.

Saleh's departure for medical treatment in the United States has done little to placate popular anger in the impoverished Arabian Peninsula state.

Saleh's sons and nephews still hold key positions in the military and intelligence services, though the military is supposed to be restructured during two years of transition presided over by vice-president Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi, Saleh's presumed successor.

A string of mutinies has disrupted military and government departments headed by loyalists of Saleh, who has agreed to step down after a year of protests, and are inspiring wider civil disobedience.

Many protesters complain the regime they sought to overthrow remains largely intact.

"They may have altered the leadership but at the ground level we see no changes. The same corrupt officials who ruled for decades are still running our country," said Ahmed Al-Zumair, a 45-year-old civil servant.