Saturday’s massive attack by Yemen’s security forces on unarmed protesters in Sanaa (see “13-Mar-11 News — Police in Yemen fire live bullets on protesters, killing three”), killing two protesters and injuring over 100, is having repercussions in the form of increased violent clashes, with an increasing danger of civil or tribal war.

The purpose of the protests is to force President Ali Abdullah Salih to step down, but many tribal leaders fear the chaos that would result if Salih stepped down too quickly, according to Jamestown. As a result, tribal leaders are splitting along pro-government and pro-opposition lines, and fighting between the tribes is escalating.

Saturday’s attack used live ammunition and teargas. The attack was sufficiently brutal that protesters claimed that security forces had used poison gas, forcing US ambassador to Yemen Gerald Feierstein to express disbelief in those accusations, in an interview appearing in Yemen Observer:

“The second point is we don’t have the expertise to make any decisions about what kind of chemical agents were used the other day in the demonstrations. We are reasonably confident that the allegations that there was sarin or mustard gas used are not correct. First of all, if sarin were used, it’s a highly lethal nerve gas, there would have been five hundred people dead, not one person dead. Secondly, mustard gas is a blistering agent that is very obvious if it’s been used.

Nobody has presented any evidence, nobody has presented anybody who demonstrated any of the symptoms of exposure to mustard gas or also of course to sarin. Based on our own best guess, we believe that probably what was used was tear gas and smoke.”

That there’s public discussion of the use of sarin gas against unarmed protesters illustrates how hyperbolic the accusations on both sides have become.

On Tuesday, gunfights between pro-regime loyalists and opposition forces resulted in the death of a major opposition leader, according to Arab News. In other tribal violence on Tuesday, armed men attacked an oil pipeline carrying 120,000 barrels of oil per day to the Red Sea, forcing two oil fields to be shut down, according to Bloomberg.

The increased level of violence is devastating Yemen’s economy, especially the local banks, according to the Islamic Globe. Investors and savers are withdrawing large amounts of cash in US dollars from the Yemeni banking system and ceasing contributions, creating “chronic instability” which is “paralyzing the local banks.”

Bahrain declares three month state of emergency and martial law

Violence also escalated on the streets of Bahrain on Tuesday, causing two more deaths, and over 200 new injuries, according to AFP.

The three-month state of emergence will hand wholesale power to Bahrain’s security forces, and this will undoubtedly stoke further conflicts.

The world has changed very rapidly in the last couple of months. Japan is melting down, countries on the Arabian Peninsula, including Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Oman and Yemen, are facing anything from protests to sectarian violence, and global stock markets have become extremely volatile.

From the point of view of Generational Dynamics, these are the kinds of breakdowns that occur in generational Crisis eras. Earthquakes, tsunamis and protests can occur in any era, and in non-crisis eras, countries and societiets can take them in their stride. But in a Crisis era, with the survivors of the previous crisis war (WW II) almost completely gone, countries and societies cannot take these events in stride, but allow them to turn into greater crises. That’s what happening today, and what’s expected to continue to happen in the months to come.