Sana’a: Three people were killed on Sunday when Al Houthi rebels shelled a school in a northern Yemeni town where fighting has killed more than 100 people, a spokesman for a hardline Salafist group said.
Al Houthi fighters control much of the northerly Sa’ada province, on the border with Saudi Arabia, which has been their base for a long-running rebellion against the government, and the rivalry in the town of Damaj is now hampering reconciliation efforts.
Government-brokered ceasefires have failed to stop the fighting, which broke out last month when Al Houthis accused Salafists of recruiting thousands of foreign fighters to prepare to attack them. The toll of more than 100 dead does not include Al Houthis, who have not revealed their casualty figures.
The Salafists say the foreigners are religious students who travel from abroad to study Islamic theology at the Dar Al Hadith academy, established in the 1980s.
“The [Al] Houthis have shelled a school in Damaj. Three people were killed and 12 were wounded,” said Surour Al Wadi’i, a Salafist spokesman. “Five others have been killed by shelling by the [Al] Houthis since yesterday evening.” A spokesman for the Al Houthis, Ali Al Bakhity, would not confirm whether the rebels had fired shells on Sunday but denied that any attacks had targeted civilian areas.
“There is no shelling on schools or civilian areas. If there is shelling, then it is concentrated on the mountains, at barricades of armed foreigners,” said Bakhity, who is the spokesman for the Ansarullah group at national reconciliation talks.
Yemen is home to one of Al Qaida’s most active wings, and the United States provided aid and military support for the Yemeni government as part of its global fight against Islamist militants.
