Yemeni president Ali Abdullah Saleh said tonight he would leave for the United States and give way to a successor, hours after his forces killed nine people demanding he be tried for killings over nearly a year of protests aimed at his ouster.
But Mr Saleh, who agreed to step down last month under a deal cut by his wealthier neighbours who fear civil war in Yemen will affect them, did not say when he would depart and vowed to play a political role again, this time opposed to a new government.
The bloodshed and political uncertainty hinted at the chaos which oil giant Saudi Arabia and Mr Saleh's former backers in Washington fear Yemen could slip into, giving the country's al-Qaeda wing a foothold overlooking oil shipping routes.
Troops from units led by Mr Saleh's son and nephew opened fire with guns, tear gas and water cannon against demonstrators who approached his compound in the capital Sanaa after marching for days from the southern city of Taiz, chanting "No to immunity!"
Mohammed al-Qubati, a doctor at a field hospital that has treated protesters during 11 months of mass demonstrations against Saleh, said some 90 people suffered gunshot wounds in addition to the nine killed. About 150 other people were wounded by tear gas canisters or incapacitated by gas, he said.
The marchers denounced the deal Mr Saleh agreed last month giving him immunity from prosecution in exchange for handing power to his deputy, who is to work with an interim government including opposition parties before a February presidential election.
That plan, crafted by the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) and mirrored in the terms of a UN Security Council resolution, has been bitterly denounced by youth protesters who demand Saleh face trial and his inner circle be banned from holding power.
"The blood of the martyrs has been sold for dollars," shouted protesters, before forces from the republican guard and central security forces attacked on roads leading to Mr Saleh's compound, which was surrounded by tanks and armoured vehicles.
Mr Saleh, who repeatedly backed out of the Gulf plan to nudge him from power before a June assassination attempt forced him into hospital in Saudi Arabia, said he would both let Yemen's new government work, and oppose it.
"I will go to the United States. Not for treatment, because I'm fine, but to get away from attention, cameras, and allow the unity government to prepare properly for elections," he said, adding he would undergo some medical tests.
"I'll be there for several days, but I'll return because I won't leave my people and comrades who have been steadfast for 11 months," he said. "I'll withdraw from political work and go into the street as part of the opposition."
Alluding to the relationship of his poor, populous country to its resource-blessed neighbours, he said: "An unstable Yemen means an unstable region. So, protect the security, unity and stability of Yemen, neighbour states; its security is yours."
A Yemeni online publication quoted the US ambassador in Sanaa, Gerald Feierstein, describing the march as a provocative act, during a meeting with Yemeni journalists. The ambassador could not immediately be released for comment.
As Mr Saleh spoke, a member of the bloc of opposition parties that share the cabinet with members of Mr Saleh's party said security forces had rounded up dozens of people including Samia al-Aghbari, an activist in the anti-Saleh protest movement.
Mr Aghbari sent a text message saying: "The republican guard is taking me and (another activist); they are dragging us by our clothes and shooting in the air."
Mr Saleh's General People's Congress party said on Thursday that the protest violated the terms of the transition pact, under which the government is to oversee disengagement of his forces from rebel army units and tribal militias with whom they have fought in Sanaa and elsewhere.
Their battles, which the youth protesters regard as an internecine conflict among a criminal elite, have left parts of the capital and Taiz, 200km to the south, in ruins and deepened a humanitarian crisis in a country with multiple, overlapping regional conflicts.