SANAA – More than 40 Yemenis were killed in pitched street battles in the capital yesterday as fighting aimed at ending President Ali Abdullah Saleh’s 30-year rule threatened to ignite civil war.
Residents were fleeing Sanaa by the hundreds, hurriedly fastening possessions to the roofs of cars, hoping to escape the violence in which more than 80 people have died since Monday.
The fighting, pitting the security forces of President Ali Abdullah Saleh against members of the country’s most powerful Hashed tribe led by Sadiq al-Ahmar, was the bloodiest Yemen has experience since protests began in January.
The defence ministry said 28 people were killed in an explosion in an arms storage area of Sanaa at dawn.
Sporadic explosions could be heard in the capital near the protest site, where thousands of people demanding Mr Saleh leave after nearly 33 years in power are still camped.
Black smoke from mortar fire mixed with a haze of pollution and dust hangs over Sanaa like a shroud.
The US and Saudi Arabia, both targets of foiled attacks by a wing of al-Qaeda based in Yemen, have tried to defuse the crisis and stem any contagion that could give the global terror group more room to operate.
Worries exist that Yemen, already teetering on the brink of financial ruin, could become a failed state that would undermine regional security and pose a risk to its neighbour Saudi Arabia, the world’s biggest oil exporter.
US secretary of state Hillary Clinton, speaking in Paris, said: “We continue to support the departure of President Saleh, who has consistently agreed that he would be stepping down from power and then consistently reneged on those agreements.”
Yemen’s state prosecutor ordered the arrest of “rebellious” leaders of the tribal group led by the al-Ahmar family and a government official said the headquarters of an opposition television station had been “destroyed”, without giving details. – (Reuters)