Yemeni security forces wounded eight people in the southwest city of Taez on Thursday when they opened fire to disperse a protest calling for the regime’s ouster, a medic and witnesses said, after clashes rocked the capital.

Yemeni security forces wounded eight people in the southwest city of Taez on Thursday when they opened fire to disperse a protest calling for the regime's ouster, a medic and witnesses said, after clashes rocked the capital.

"Eight people were wounded, one of them seriously," a medic at a Taez field hospital told media sources.

Police in Yemen's second largest city fired live rounds at protesters who were denouncing a bombardment on Tuesday in which seven people were killed and 145 hurt, witnesses said.

The protesters also called for Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh, in power since 1978, to be brought to justice.

Following the crackdown in Taez, tens of thousands of Yemenis marched in a show of solidarity to Sanaa's northern Al-Hasaba district, the site of clashes between government troops and dissident tribesmen.

In September, fighting between rival army units spread across the capital prompting renewed battles between the tribesmen and government forces in Al-Hasaba.

The situation calmed again when Saleh, still refusing to relinquish power, returned to Yemen on September 23.

The 69-year-old president is under growing domestic and international pressure to step down, as anti-regime protests in Yemen entered their 10th month.