SANAA, 16 July 2004 — Eight supporters of the radical Yemeni preacher Hussein Badruddin Al-Houthi whom government forces are hunting down in northern parts of the country, and 10 tribesmen backing the army have been killed during the last two days in continued clashes, a military source said yesterday.
The military-run 26 September weekly quoted army sources as saying that government sources “launched fierce artillery bombardments on the rebels’ hide-outs and demolished fortresses on three sites run by the followers of Al-Houthi,” in the northern province of Saada.
Forces recovered eight bodies buried under the rubble of three mountainous cave-styled barracks used by armed Al-Houthi followers, the source said.
A huge cache of weapons and ammunition was seized from those sites, one army officer told the paper, saying that authorities also discovered that the sites had been built nearly seven years ago, an indication that the Shiite cleric had been preparing for the battle for several years. Ten tribesmen from the powerful tribe of Osaimat, which is loyal to the government, were also killed in the past two days while fighting with military forces against the rebels. Among those killed was Sheikh Muhammad Jabir Janhadam, a prominent chieftain of the tribe.
Army brigades equipped with tanks, artillery and helicopters began a massive offensive on Al-Houthi’s strongholds on June 21, largely in inaccessible mountainous villages in Marran of Saada, 250 km to the north of Sanaa. The central government in accuses Al-Houthi, a former MP and Shiite ideologue, of leading an armed rebellion and inciting unrest. Local sources in Saada said the clashes calmed down yesterday. “The situation is calm today, and units of armed forces are making enormous progress in their pursuit of Al-Houthi supporters,” a Saada municipal official told Arab News.
