SANAA, 9 November 2007 — At least 10 government soldiers and six tribesmen were killed yesterday and 20 others injured in fierce clashes in southern Yemen sparked by protests over jobs, security officials said. Among the dead was Col. Abdullah Alwan, the commander of a military contingent providing protection to a Ukrainian construction company that works for firms exploring oil in the southeastern province of Shabwa, the officials said.
The fighting took place amid a dispute between the authorities and tribesmen from the Balharith clan over jobs with foreign oil companies operating in Shabwa province, some 580 km southeast of the capital Sanaa.
Shooting broke out early in the day after authorities sent police enforcements to the Ausailan district of Shabwa, following the death of a soldier in an ambush set up by armed tribesmen, sources in the area said. Eyewitnesses told Arab News that the tribesmen also set fire to two vehicles at the scene of the fighting.
Mediation by municipal officials and tribal dignitaries managed to bring the firefight to a halt by the afternoon.
Shabwa, on the Arabian Sea, was the scene of a violent protest on March 5 when hundreds of Yemeni workers, outraged by an alleged desecration of the Qur’an by a French engineer, attacked the houses of foreign experts and destroyed facilities at a giant gas-exporting project.
Disgruntled tribesmen often target foreign oil companies or state-run oil facilities in their areas to press for jobs or better services in their remote and impoverished areas.
On Monday tribesmen blew up an oil pipeline in the neighboring province of Marib, but there were no reports of casualties.
Two foreign oil engineers and their local driver were briefly kidnapped by a Yemeni tribe in the southern province of Abyan two months ago in a dispute over a work contract. In all, more than 200 foreigners have been abducted by tribesmen in Yemen during the past 15 years but all have been released unharmed.
The only foreign hostages to have died in Yemen were three Britons and an Australian seized by Islamic militants who were killed when security forces stormed their hide-out in December 1998.
— Additional input from agencies
