Hundreds massed in the capital against the Houthi fighters, who manned checkpoints and guarded government buildings they control. The militants, bedecked in tribal robes and automatic rifles, shot in the air and thrust daggers at the crowds opposing their rule.

Tens of thousands of people also carried banners and chanted anti-Houthi slogans in Taiz, which the militants have not taken.

The Iranian-backed Houthi movement has called its seizure of power a revolution and says it wants to rid the country of corruption and economic peril -- though Yemen's rich Sunni Muslim Gulf Arab neighbors say it is a coup.