SANAA: Yemeni security officials and tribal leaders say clashes between Shiite rebels and tribesmen have killed 40 people over two days in the country’s north.

The officials said Saturday the fighting in Al-Jawf province killed 18 of the Huthi rebels and 22 tribesmen who are backed by an army unit and allied with the Muslim Brotherhood’s Islah party. The battle left dozens of wounded on both sides.

The officials said tribesmen have managed to take control of Huthi positions some 175 km east of the capital Sanaa.

Tribal sources said fighting in the Ghayl and Majzar regions straddling Jawf and Marib, east of Sanaa, killed 12 people, raising the death toll from clashes since Thursday to 34.

Twenty soldiers and tribesmen and 14 rebels were killed, the sources said.

Rebels used tanks and artillery against government forces and tribesmen defending the area, tribal sources said, insisting that the offensive was repelled.

Analysts say the rebels, also known as Zaidis or Ansarullah, are trying to establish themselves as the dominant political force in the northern highlands, where Shiites are the majority community in the mainly Sunni Arabian Peninsula nation.