Shia Houthi rebels stand on a tank at the compound of the army’s First Armoured Division in Sanaa yesterday.
AFP/Sanaa
A peace accord appeared to be holding in Yemen yesterday after a week of clashes between Shia rebels and Sunni militiamen that the government said killed at least 200 people.
The Houthi rebels, who had waged a decade-long insurgency in the mountainous north before launching a bid for power in Sanaa last month, were seen in the capital guarding government offices and army bases alongside troops.
Sunday’s UN-brokered deal, signed by the president and all the main political parties, is intended to put the troubled transition back on track in impoverished Yemen which is a key US ally in the fight against Al Qaeda.
Residents ventured into the streets of Sanaa as the guns fell silent following the clashes between the Houthis, also known as Ansarullah, and their Sunni Islamist opponents.
Commanders said they had orders to co-operate with the rebels, who manned joint checkpoints with troops outside the offices they entered in Sunday’s lightning advance, including the government building, parliament, army headquarters and the central bank.
“We are working side by side with Ansarullah to protect public buildings and property,” a military police commander said at a checkpoint near the rebel-controlled state radio headquarters.
Emergency workers retrieved 53 corpses yesterday from areas affected by the clashes, taking to 200 the number of bodies counted since the fighting broke out on September 16, the health ministry said.
They also treated 461 people wounded.
The rebels hail from the Zaidi Shia community, that makes up 30% of Yemen’s mostly Sunni population but is the majority community in the northern highlands, including Sanaa province.
The speed of their advance reflected the fragility of the regime three years after a deadly uprising which forced veteran strongman Ali Abdullah Saleh from power.
The rebels brought reinforcements into the capital overnight from their strongholds further north, tribal sources said.
They carried out searches through the night and into yesterday of the homes of their Sunni Islamist opponents, multiple sources said.
The Houthis also took control of at least 16 tanks and other armoured vehicles from the headquarters of the armed forces and the base of the army’s Sixth Division.
The Sunni militiamen included leading figures in the Islah party as well as General Ali Mohsen al-Ahmar, a veteran army officer close to the Islamists.
Under Sunday’s deal, President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi has three days to bring a rebel representative into government as an adviser and to name a neutral replacement for prime minister Mohamed Basindawa.
Basindawa tendered his resignation as the security forces surrendered state institutions without a fight on Sunday although it has yet to be accepted by the president.
In his resignation letter, Basindawa accused Hadi of being “autocratic”, according to the text released by the cabinet.
“The partnership between myself and the president in leading the country only lasted for a short period, before it was replaced by autocracy to the extent that the government and I no longer knew anything about the military and security situation,” he wrote.
A security protocol to Sunday’s agreement requires the rebels to hand over the institutions they have seized, and once a new prime minister has been named, to start dismantling armed protest camps they established in and around the capital last month.
But rebel representatives refused to sign the protocol at Sunday’s ceremony.
Rebel spokesman Mohamed Abdessalam said they would only do so once the security forces had apologised for the deaths of rebel protesters during an attempt to storm government headquarters earlier this month.
The deal also requires the president to name an adviser from the separatist Southern Movement which has been campaigning for the secession of the formerly independent south.
Rebels in rare clash with Qaeda
Shia rebels who descended from northern Yemen to seize parts of Sanaa have clashed with Al Qaeda-linked militants hundreds of kilometres south of the capital, a US monitor said yesterday.
The rare clashes between the Houthi rebels and militants from the Al Qaeda affiliated Ansar al-Shariah occurred over the weekend in the town of Al Dali, SITE Intelligence Group said in a statement.
The fighting broke out on Saturday when militants captured and killed a businessman linked to the Houthis, SITE reported, citing a post from an Ansar al-Shariah news account on Twitter.
According to the report, four militants from Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) were killed along with the same number of Houthis.
The next day Ansar al-Shariah militants captured eight Houthis.
