SAADA, 27 June 2004 — Yemeni mediators were yesterday trying to persuade a besieged preacher to surrender following nearly a week of deadly clashes between his supporters and the army.

At least nine soldiers and 46 members of the Zaidi community, a Shiite sect dominant in northwestern Yemen, have been killed in the violence in this rugged mountainous region near the border with Saudi Arabia.

The mediation effort, launched by the Yemeni authorities, is being led by lawmakers who include a brother of controversial preacher, Hussein Badruddin Al-Houthi.

The mediation is taking place in the Maran region of Saada province, the site of the clashes that broke out late last Sunday and also left dozens wounded on both sides, according to an Interior Ministry statement.

But as the situation remained calm yesterday following four days of bloodshed, officials in Saada said Al-Houthi had refused to surrender.

The preacher, who has proclaimed himself “Emir Al-Mumineen”, or Leader of Believers, has meanwhile called on his supporters to swear allegiance to him, the officials said.

Al-Houthi has even adopted his own flag, a white banner with a tree at its center, and his supporters wear uniforms, the officials added.

Before taking refuge with his supporters in Saada, Al-Houthi bought and stockpiled huge quantities of arms, ammunition and anti-personnel mines.

He has also issued religious edicts blasting the majority of Muslim governments and branding them “illegitimate”, the officials added.

Efforts in the past by mediators to persuade Al-Houthi to renounce his ideas have been in vain, several residents of Maran and the nearby Hidan region said.

The residents also denounced Al-Houthi’s intrigues, which they said were against Yemeni laws and traditions.

The army has so far arrested 49 of the preacher’s supporters, accused by the authorities of provoking unrest in the area, which lies some 250 kilometers (150 miles) north of Sanaa.

An Interior Ministry official told the SABA news agency Friday that Al-Houthi’s followers “used mortars, land mines and rocket-propelled grenades against the army”.

“The deviant defiant elements who disrupted law and order under (Al-Houthi’s) command are accused by the government of acts of vandalism including the hoisting of the flag of another country instead of the Yemeni flag,” the news agency said.

Arms and ammunition were also seized from their hideouts.

Meanwhile, a Yemeni official has accused members of the country’s Jewish minority of supporting Al-Houthi. But analysts said yesterday the claims were aimed at garnering support for the crackdown on the dissident cleric.

Late Friday, the SABA news agency quoted an unidentified Yemeni official alleging that some members of Yemen’s Jewish minority, which number about 1,000, were supporting Al-Houthi’s campaign.

Most of the 50,000 Jews in Yemen in the early 1950s have emigrated to Israel. Only some 1,000 Jews are believed to remain in Yemen, living mainly in the north.

The official claimed a number of Jews in the Saada area have “cooperated with him in his rebellion and in breaching the constitution, law and order.”

Some Jews have allegedly sabotaged water projects, in turn depriving citizens and troops in the area of water, the official claimed without elaborating.

Police have arrested about 50 Al-Houthi followers, who are expected to stand trial. A security official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said however that no Jews have been detained.

Osama Ghaleb, a writer and political analyst, described the claims as a “desperate attempt” by the government to undermine Al-Houthi’s widespread popularity.

“They (authorities) are trying to use the anger in the Yemeni street against the Israeli policies in the Palestinian territories to incite people against Al-Houthi,” Ghaleb said. “They want to cast shadows over his credibility.”

Ghaleb said the “unprecedented” accusations were a “grave mistake” that “distance Yemeni Jews from our social fabric as if they were not (Yemeni) citizens.”

Mansour Hael, another writer and political analyst, said the government was linking Jews to Al-Houthi to “justify” to the public their crackdown against the dissident.

It was “contradictory” to claim that Al-Houthi, who is said to want Islamic rule imposed in Yemen, is cooperating with Jews, said Hael.

Yemeni authorities accuse Al-Houthi of stirring trouble by organizing anti-US demonstrations after Friday prayers.

His supporters have been branded “outlaws ... extremists and trouble-makers”, and accused of opening fire on government institutions, breaking into mosques and “roughing up students to stop them from going to school.”

Since the Sept. 11 attacks in the United States, Yemen has launched a major crackdown against Al-Qaeda sympathizers among the country’s Muslim majority, but the Zaidi community has been relatively quiescent.

Yemen is the ancestral home of Al-Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden and has seen a series of major attacks claimed by the militant network.