Sa’ada Fighting Erupts
Sana’a, Yemen – Fifteen people were killed and several others injured in fighting between Shiite rebels and tribesmen loyal to the government in northern Yemen, tribal sources said Sunday. The clashes broke out Saturday between members of the Al Bukhtan tribe and the rebels in the Al Salem area of Saada province that has been the scene of skirmishes between the rebels and the army for the past three years, the sources said.
Saada is located near Yemen’s north-western border with Saudi Arabia.
Al Bukhtan accused the rebels of killing a pro-government chieftain from the tribe last year, the sources said.
A vacant house belonged to the top rabbi of the country’s Jewish minority, Yahya Yousuf, was damaged during the fighting.
Residents in Al Salem said the house was hit by RPG shells, whose source was not known.
The rabbi and 44 other Yemeni Jews were transferred by the government to Sana’a last year during the battles between government forces and the rebels.
Government forces positioned in the area did not intervene to put an end to the clashes that continued until the late hours of Saturday.
The fighting took place as Qatari mediators were attending talks between rebel and government representatives in Saada to implement a Qatari-sponsored deal that ended the army-rebel hostilities in the region last June.
Under the Qatari-mediated ceasefire deal, authorities and the rebels agreed that the ceasefire would be followed by a government general amnesty for followers of the outlawed Shiite “Believing Youth” rebel movement, that led the rebellion in Saada for nearly three years.
The agreement provides that the rebel leader Abdul-Malik al-Houthi and his two brothers, Yahay and Abdul-Kareem, would be allowed to live in exile in Qatar.
Tens of thousands of army troops were deployed in Saada to crush a revolt that originally began after Shiite cleric Hussein al-Houthi, the elder brother of Abdul-Malik, established the movement in March 2004. Hussein was killed by the army in September the same year.
Waves of violent clashes since mid-2004 have left hundreds of government troops and rebels dead, and displaced thousands of civilians from Saada.
Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh has repeatedly accused the Houthis of trying to topple the republican regime and re-establish the rule of the Zaidi Imamate, a royal regime that was overthrown by a revolution in 1962.
Followers of al-Houthi belong mostly to the Zaidi sect of Islam, which is regarded as a moderate sect.
