Sana’a/Dubai: Al Houthi rebels fought Yemeni soldiers just 40 km northwest of the capital Sana’a on Wednesday, an official said, as they try to tighten their grip in the area before next year’s presidential election.
The government is considering giving greater autonomy to Yemen’s regions after the military split and the state’s control over its territory crumbled in the wake of 2011 Arab Spring protests which ousted veteran leader Ali Abdullah Saleh.
The official, deputy governor of Northern Amran province Ahmed Al Bakri, said that Al Houthi rebels were fighting government troops backed by tribal militia for a second day in several villages.
Tribal sources said Al Houthi insurgents were also fighting government troops in two districts on Sana’a’s western outskirts, also about 40 km from the centre of the capital.
There were no immediate reports of casualties.
Officials say Al Houthis, who have fought short but devastating wars with government forces since 2004, are getting weapons from Iran and pursuing autonomy along the lines of Shiite militia Hezbollah in Lebanon. They deny this.
A power struggle between President Abd Rabbo Mansour Hadi and his predecessor escalated this week, with government forces raiding a pro-Saleh TV station. They have also surrounded a mosque in central Sana’a they say his supporters were planning to use as a base to attack the presidential palace.
Yemen is also battling a secessionist movement in the south as well as Al Qaida militants whom Gulf neighbours and the United Sates view as a critical threat to regional security.
In January, Yemen’s political factions ended 10 months of reconciliation talks with a deal to turn Yemen into a federal state and outlining principles for a new constitution, on the basis of which presidential elections are expected in 2015.
Meanwhile, a suspected Al Qaida gunman seriously wounded a senior Yemeni intelligence officer in the capital on Wednesday, medical and security officials said.
Colonel Ali Al Sharafi, a key figure in the government’s fight against the jihadists, was undergoing emergency surgery after being hit by eight bullets, a medical official said.
The gunman, riding on the back of a motorbike, opened fire as Sharafi as he left his home in the capital’s Saba district, a security official said.
Sharafi headed a unit tasked with guarding Al Qaida suspects while on trial.
He also took part in the dismantling of a cell implicated in a spate of assassinations in the capital.
Police responded with a raid in a northern suburb of Sana’a in which they detained four people suspected of involvement in the shooting, the security official said.
They were also hunting a second group of suspects in the same Hasaba suburb, he added.
