SANAA, 26 June 2004 — At least seven soldiers and 46 supporters of an anti-US cleric have been killed and 41 others injured in four days of fierce clashes in mountainous areas of the northern Yemeni province of Saada, the Interior Ministry said yesterday.
The ministry said in a statement that 35 people had been injured in the fighting that erupted Monday when security and military forces tried to arrest Hussein Badruddin Al-Houthi, a prominent leader of the Shiite sect.
Authorities accuse Al-Houthi of spreading “misleading thought,” and inciting people against the United States by organizing anti-US demonstrations after weekly Friday prayers.
They believe Al-Houthi, a leader of the Zaidi Shiite sect, is head of the rebel group “The Believing Youth”, which has led violent protests against the United States and Israel at mosques, security sources say.
Among the charges against Al-Houthi and his group were attacking and killing security and military troops, raiding government buildings, and assaulting mosque preachers.
In a strongly worded statement, the ministry dubbed Al-Houthi and his followers as “outlaws, rebels and extremists,” and accused him of receiving “foreign financial aid.”
Military and security forces encircled strongholds of the cleric in the Marran district of Saada province, roughly 250 kilometers north of the capital Sanaa, supported by fighter jets and helicopters.
Hundreds of troops launched a massive offensive on the area in pursuit of Al-Houthi, who is a former MP and Shiite ideologue.
Residents said troops opened fire from helicopter gunships on several mountainous villages where the wanted cleric is believed to be hiding.
Tribal sources put the death toll among the villagers at as much as 150 people, but police officials in Sanaa refused to confirm or deny those counts.
The Interior Ministry statement did not mention any casualties among security forces, but a security source told the official Saba news agency two policemen were killed and five wounded in the clashes in Saada.
The statement said 43 suspected followers of Al-Houthi were apprehended, and that they were “being interrogated ahead of referring them to judicial authorities.”
According to the statement, security forces seized “a cache of machine guns, firearms, rocket-propelled grenades and land mines,” during the raids.
The ministry said, “Al-Houthi and a few of his deceived followers ... are still positioned on a mountain in Marran district, to which the security and military forces are laying siege.”
Yemeni opposition groups urged the government in a statement yesterday to end the siege and try to negotiate.
A security official said the state tried to persuade Houthi and other leaders of the group to stop their operations.
He said some of the group’s members were involved in a separatist rebellion to form a breakaway state in Yemen’s 1994 civil war. North and South Yemen were unified in 1990.
The state launched a massive campaign to disarm a largely tribal population but has had little success in the majority of the country.
The country of 19 million people is fighting to root out militants linked to Osama Bin Laden’s Al-Qaeda group. However, Al-Houthi has not been accused of having links to Al-Qaeda.
Anti-US sentiment is high in the country over the US-led occupation of Iraq and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Some clerics in Yemen still preach hatred for America and the West.
