SANAA, 23 June 2004 — Seven soldiers and three supporters of a radical anti-US scholar were killed in two days of armed clashes in northern Yemen, police and medical sources said yesterday. The army on Monday deployed hundreds of troops in the Marran district of the northern province of Saada bordering Saudi Arabia, in pursuit of the Shiite scholar Hussein Badruddin Al-Houthi.
Until this evening, seven soldiers were killed, an Interior Ministry official told Arab News, adding that four other soldiers were injured in the fierce fighting.
The official said the government forces had so far arrested 30 armed men were positioned in the rugged area of Marran, where the wanted cleric was hiding along with unspecified number of his supporters.
The operation will continue until we apprehend all the wanted men, he said.
Officials in the As-Salam hospital in Saada, some 250 km north of the capital Sanaa, said three tribesmen were killed and six wounded in the continued fighting yesterday.
“We received six inured and three bodies today,” one hospital official told Arab News by telephone. He said he expected more casualties in the ongoing clashes.
Local officials said tribal leaders launched a bid to mediate between the government forces and the besieged scholar.
Tribal sources said the clashes erupted late on Monday when forces moved into the area to arrest Al-Houthi, a former MP. They said the forces moved to the area after armed men believed to be henchmen of Al-Houthi attacked a military checkpoint on Sunday evening.
Authorities say Al-Houthi has been inciting followers to chant anti-US slogans inside mosques. A Defense Ministry newspaper earlier this month accused the Shiite leader of spreading fallacious ideas that are incompatible with principles of Islam.
Scores of radical Shiites used to shout anti-US and anti-Israeli slogans in mosques of Saada province, a Shiite stronghold.
Mosques in the capital Sanaa also witnessed such protests within the past few months, but authorities have always put them down. Prompted by the deadly clashes, the Yemeni government will close down private religious schools that are being run by extremist groups, a senior official said. The official said that a high profile security meeting ordered for all educational centers and schools that go against the law be closed.
