Shia Houthi rebels watch a televised speech by their leader Abdelmalik al-Houthi in Sanaa yesterday.

President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi warned yesterday of “civil war” in Sunni-majority Yemen and vowed to restore state authority as Shia rebels in apparent near-total control of Sanaa hailed their “victory”.

Yemen “is facing a conspiracy” and “the danger of slipping into civil war”, Hadi said in a speech at the presidential palace, two days after Ansarullah rebels took all other key state institutions in the capital, overshadowing a UN-brokered peace deal.

In a televised speech, rebel leader Abdelmalek al-Houthi hailed what he called the “victory” of his fighters.

“We congratulate our people on the victory of their popular revolution that has established a new era based on co-operation,” Houthi said.

Hadi had earlier evoked the spectre of foreign plots aimed at torpedoing progress in Yemen.

“Internal and foreign forces (have) allied to... overthrow the Yemeni model” of power transition following an Arab Spring-inspired uprising, the president said.

Yemen was the only Arab Spring country where an uprising led to a political settlement by which Hadi replaced former autocrat Ali Abdullah Saleh.

Hundreds of rebels manned checkpoints on the airport road and other major thoroughfares yesterday while heavily armed patrols cruised the streets in four-wheel-drive vehicles.

Insurgents alongside small detachments of military police guarded public offices the rebels entered on Sunday, including the main government building, parliament, army headquarters and the central bank.

But Hadi insisted: “Sanaa will not fall.”

UN envoy Jamal Benomar, who mediated the accord aimed at ending deadly fighting between the rebels and Sunni Islamists, said the rebels’ taking of key institutions virtually without resistance seemed to signify the “collapse” of the security forces in Sanaa.

“What has happened these past few days could lead to the collapse of the Yemeni state and the end of the political transition,” he told Al Arabiya television late Monday.

As Benomar spoke, the peace accord appeared to be holding after a week of clashes that the government said killed at least 200 people.

Yemeni authorities have repeatedly accused Iran of backing the Houthi rebels, who also appear heavily influenced by Hezbollah, Lebanon’s powerful Shia militia that is backed by Tehran.

Ansarullah waged a decade-long insurgency in the mountainous north before launching a bid for power in Sanaa last month.

Sunday’s UN-brokered deal aims to put the troubled transition back on track.

The speed of the rebel advance reflected the fragility of Yemen’s regime three years after the uprising.

“You were shocked to learn that public and military institutions were handed over (to rebels), but be aware that the plot was already brewing,” Hadi told Yemenis yesterday.

Saleh is himself a Zaidi Shia, a community which forms 30% of Yemen’s mostly Sunni population but is the majority in the northern highlands, including Sanaa province.

He was repeatedly accused by his opponents of impeding the transition.

“There is no doubt that Saleh has facilitated Houthi expansion in and around the capital,” April Longley Alley, a specialist on Yemen with the International Crisis Group, said.

“At the very least he has not discouraged his tribal and political supporters from supporting Houthi mobilisation.”

However, “the extent of his involvement is unclear”, she said. 

 

Drone crashes in south Yemen:  witnesses

A drone similar to those used by the United States to track down and attack suspected Al Qaeda militants in Yemen crashed in the southern part of the country yeserday, witnesses and a local official said.

Witnesses said the aircraft crashed after it hit a mountain near the city of Beihan in the southern Yemeni Shabwa province.

A local official confirmed the aircraft crashed after it struck Shoab Mountain near Beihan and said that Yemeni troops and members of a local militia allied with the government quickly surrounded the area of the crash to keep onlookers away.

The United States regularly uses drones to attack Islamist militants in countries such as Yemen as part of a strategy to combat Al Qaeda militants without committing troops on the ground.

In April, a series of drone strikes killed about 65 militants in southern and central provinces. The Yemeni army followed up with an air and ground offensive to dislodge fighters of Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula from their main strongholds in the south.

In a separate incident, a gunman shot and killed the head of security and his bodyguard at oil facilities in Hadramout, a local official said.

Aden al-Ghad, an online newspaper based in the southern port city of Aden, said the security chief, an army officer, was killed by a tribesman in the town of Ghayl bin Yamin. Another bodyguard returned fire and killed the tribesman, it said.

 

 

 

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