Clashes rage after Yemen ex-president Saleh killed

Strongman dies in Houthi RPG, shooting attack

SANAA: Yemen’s ex-president Ali Abdullah Saleh was killed yesterday as fighting raged between his forces and Iran-backed rebels, the insurgents and his party said, following the dramatic collapse of their anti-government alliance. Sources in the Houthi militia said its fighters stopped Saleh’s armored vehicle with an RPG rocket outside the embattled capital Sanaa and then shot him dead. President Abedrabbo Mansour Hadi, the head of Yemen’s internationally recognized government, moved to take advantage of the chaos by ordering an offensive to retake the capital.

Saleh, who ruled Yemen with an iron fist for three decades until 2012, had joined forces with the Shiite Houthi rebels three years ago when they took control of large parts of the Arabian Peninsula country including the capital Sanaa. But that alliance unraveled over the last week, with heavy fighting across the capital. His death could mark a major turning point in a conflict that has left thousands dead, led to one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises and deepened tensions between Middle East rivals Saudi Arabia and Iran. The Saudi-led military coalition backing Hadi’s government carried out a wave of air strikes on the capital and warned residents to evacuate areas under rebel control.

The Houthi-controlled interior ministry in Sanaa announced Saleh’s death on the rebels’ Al-Masirah television station. A statement read on the channel announced the “end of the crisis of militias”, referring to Saleh’s armed supporters, and “the killing of their leader and a number of his criminal supporters”. A video provided to AFP by the rebels showed what appeared to be a dead Saleh with a severe head injury, his body wrapped in a floral-print blanket. Armed men could be seen loading the body into the back of a pick-up truck in an empty, sandy lot.

“Praise God!” and “Hey Ali Affash!” (another name for Saleh) they were shouting.

Saleh’s political party, the General People’s Congress, confirmed the death of the 75-year-old, blaming the rebels. “He was martyred in the defense of the republic,” said Faiqa AlSayyid, a party leader. Sayyid said Saleh and other top party officials had come under Houthi gunfire as they fled Sanaa. His death was confirmed by Saleh’s nephew and former chief of Yemen’s security forces, Yahya Mohammed Abdullah Saleh, who hailed him as a martyr on his official Facebook page. A military source said the Houthis stopped their four-car convoy about 40 km south of Sanaa and shot dead Saleh and two other senior GPC officials.

The collapse of the alliance between Saleh and the rebels saw at least 100 people reported dead in fighting, accusations of betrayal and the former leader reaching out to the Saudi-led coalition. The fighting continued yesterday, with reports of heavy clashes and coalition strikes against Houthicontrolled government buildings and around Sanaa International Airport. The government, which has operated out of southern city Aden since being ousted from the capital, ordered an offensive to advance on Sanaa. “The president has ordered Vice President Ali Mohsen Al-Ahmar, who is in Marib (east of Sanaa), to activate military units and advance towards the capital,” a presidency official told AFP, speaking on condition of anonymity. Military and government sources said the army would advance on Sanaa from the east and northeast,

with at least seven battalions ordered to move forward.

The government also reached out to Saleh’s supporters with an offer of amnesty. “The president will soon announce a general amnesty for all those who collaborated with the Houthis in recent months and who have retracted that allegiance,” said Prime Minister Ahmad Obaid bin Daghr.

The Saleh-Houthi alliance had been fraught since its inception in 2014, when the two ended decades of enmity and joined ranks to capture Sanaa from Hadi’s government. Saudi Arabia, accusing Iran of backing the rebels, intervened in the Yemen war on behalf of the government the following year. Saleh on Saturday announced he was open to talks with Saudi Arabia and its allies on condition they ended their crippling blockade of Yemen’s ports and airports.

That dealt a serious blow to his already fragile alliance with rebel chief Abdul Malik Al-Houthi. In a televised speech yesterday, Houthi made no mention of Saleh’s death but expressed his satisfaction at the day’s events.

“Today marked the failure of the conspiracy and treason, a black day for the forces of aggression,” he said on AlMasirah. Houthi media and political sources also reported that the Houthis also advanced toward Saleh’s birthplace in a village outside Sanaa where he maintained a fortified palace.

The fresh violence has increased fears for civilian victims of Yemen’s war, which has claimed more than 8,750 lives since the Saudi-led coalition intervened. The conflict has pushed Yemen to the brink of mass starvation and triggered what the United Nations has called the world’s worst humanitarian crisis. International aid groups warned yesterday they were losing the ability to reach civilians in Sanaa. “Ambulances and medical teams can’t access injured, people can’t buy food and other supplies,” UNICEF’s Rajat Madhok said on Twitter. “Aid workers can’t travel and implement critical life-saving programs. This latest violence couldn’t come at a worse time.” — Agencies