Violence in Saada
PCN:
Five soldiers and three followers of an outlawed Shiite group have been killed in tit-for-tat attacks in the northern Yemeni province of Saada during the past few days, a press report said on Monday.
The report by the al-Sahwa newspaper, run by the Islamic-oriented Islah party, said that armed followers of the Shiite cleric Badruddin al-Houthi opened fire at a military checkpoint in al-Hushar district of Saada on Friday, leaving five soldiers killed.
Quoting local sources in Saada, some 250 kilometres north of the capital Sana’a, the report said the attack came one day after an attack by unknown armed men on al-Houthi followers, in which three of al-Houthi’s henchmen were killed.
Authorities in Sana’a did not comment on the confrontations.
Government forces engaged in fierce battles in April 2006 with armed followers of Badruddin al-Houthi, whom authorities have accused of leading the outlawed Shiite “Believing Youth” group. Some 525 troops and hundreds of rebels have been killed in fighting, according to official figures.
The last year’s battles followed another revolt led by the group’s founder, Hussein Badruddin al-Houthi, the elder son Badruddin, who was killed by the army in September 2004 after leading a nearly three-month rebellion that left more than 400 insurgents and troops killed.
Authorities have accused Hussein al-Houthi, a former MP and an ideologue of Yemen’s Zaidi Shiite sect of Islam, of setting up an underground armed group and inciting against the United States and Israel through violent protests.
Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh announced in May last year a general amnesty for the Houthis after government forces crushed their rebellion and captured their mountain strongholds in Saada.
