Yemen Huthis rally after killing strongman
SANAA: Thousands of Huthi supporters rallied in Sanaa on Tuesday as the rebels cemented their grip on the Yemeni capital after killing their former ally expresident Ali Abdullah Saleh.
Following Saleh’s death at the hands of Huthi fi ghters Monday, fears had mounted of an uptick in the violence that has devastated the Arab world’s poorest country over the past few years.
A night of heavy air strikes followed in Sanaa as well as skirmishes between the Huthis and Saleh’s supporters in southern districts that had been loyal to the slain strongman.
But there was no repetition of the fierce fighting that had rocked the capital for the five previous nights.
A least 234 people have been killed and 400 wounded in those clashes, the International Committee of the Red Cross said on Tuesday.
New checkpoints manned by rebels sprung up across Sanaa as their leaders hailed their control of the capital, rallying supporters and pledging that backers of Saleh were safe.
Huthi supporters massed in their thousands near the capital’s international airport, shouting ‘Sanaa is free and the state still stands!’ and ‘Yemenis are one!’ as rebel chiefs struck a conciliatory tone, declaring they were ‘ensuring the safety’ of members of Saleh’s General People’s Congress party.
But the GPC slammed the rebels as “militias of treason and backstabbing” in an obituary for one of their top leaders.
Tarek Saleh, a nephew of the ex-president and commander in his troops, died after sustaining a shrapnel wound during the Sanaa clashes, the GPC announced Tuesday.
Reports of widespread arrests of suspected Saleh supporters in the army and the rebel government also spread. They were confi rmed by GPC vice president and Yemeni Prime Minister Ahmed Bin Daghr, although not the Huthis.
Saleh al- Sammad, head of the Huthi’s political council, said Monday he had ordered the security forces to “take steps against the saboteurs and all those who collaborated with them”.
Former strongman Saleh retained the loyalty of some of the best equipped units of the army after being forced to step down as president in 2012.
Saleh, who ruled Yemen for three decades, had joined forces with the Huthis in 2014 when they took control of large parts of the country, including Sanaa.
But that alliance unravelled over the past week as Saleh reached out to the Saudi-led coalition that has waged an air campaign against the Huthis since March 2015.
The coalition stepped up its bombardment of the capital overnight, carrying out at least seven strikes on the rebel-held presidential palace, witnesses said.
There was no word of any casualties.
Yemen’s war has left thousands dead, led to one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises and deepened tensions between arch-rivals Saudi Arabia and Iran, who both took a fi rm stand on Tuesday.
Saudi Arabia called for a Yemen free of ‘militias supported by Iran’ in its fi rst official statement since Saleh’s death.
Iranian President Hassan Rouhani meanwhile warned that “the people of Yemen will make their aggressors regret their actions”, in reference to the Saudiled coalition. — AFP