Eight killed in Sunni-Shiite clashes in northern Yemen

Fighting casts doubts over government control

SANAA, Yemen: Eight gunmen were killed in clashes in northern Yemen between Zaidi Shiite rebels and Sunni hardliners amid continuing tensions between the rebels and the authorities, local sources said on Saturday.

The overnight fighting between rebels and tribesmen described as Salafists took place in the border area of Baqim, north of the restive Saada region which is the rebels’ main bastion, sources close to the rebels said.

Salafists, from a Sunni Muslim school of thought that prevails in neighboring Saudi Arabia, despise the Shiites.

Two of the dead gunmen were Zaidi rebels and the other six were Salafists, the sources said.

Other local sources close to the rebels said clashes with government forces have continued for several days in the Mahazer area of Saada, and that the main road linking Saada with the capital Sanaa has been blocked.

They said tensions are high with strong expectations of all-out war once again erupting between government forces and the rebels, known also as Huthis.

An emailed statement apparently from the Huthis on Saturday accused the government of preparing to launch a new offensive on Saada.

Huthis charged that MiG fighter jets and helicopters were being readied in Sana’a to launch attacks on rebel strongholds.

Rebel leader Abdel Malek al-Huthi claimed in a statement that the authorities dropped leaflets on Friday over several areas of Saada urging people to fight the Huthis, according to the Saudi newspaper Ash-Sharq al-Awsat.

The latest round of fighting is a major escalation in the five-year-old rebellion in Saada Province.

The rebels’ successful offensives cast renewed doubt on the government’s control over security.

Yemen’s stability is a key concern to both its largest neighbor, Saudi Arabia, and the US because increased lawlessness could provide cover for Al-Qaeda militants who have sought sanctuary in this impoverished nation on the southern tip of the Arabian Peninsula.

Yemen has allied with the US in its fight against terror, but the government has little authority in the mountainous areas outside the major cities. The country, which is the ancestral birthplace of Osama bin Laden, is also facing a growing separatist movement in the south that has sparked recent violence.

The escalation in Saada, which borders Saudi Arabia, could deepen the country’s security woes. The Shiite rebels fighting the Sunni-led government maintain that it is corrupt and too closely allied with the West.