Opposition sources and a television report said a missile slammed into the home of the Sheikh Sadiq Al-Ahmar, who heads the Hashid tribal confederation from which Saleh also belongs, killing several people and wounding several others, among them Gen. Ghaleb Gamash, who was leading a mediation mission.
Sheikh Al-Ahmar, who pledged his support for the opposition in March, accused Saleh, who is facing mounting pressure to quit office after 33 years, of trying to spark a “civil war” in an attempt to remain in power.
The clashes have dimmed prospects for a political solution to end a transition of power tussle nearly four-month-old revolt inspired by protests that swept aside the leaders of Egypt and Tunisia.
“The clashes were violent. The sound of machinegun and mortar fire could be heard everywhere. I saw smoke rising from the entrance of the interior ministry,” one witness said.
“The attack on (Ahmar’s) house ... is a symptom of the hysteria experienced by President Saleh and his entourage and their insistence on engulfing the country in a civil war,” the opposition coalition said in a statement.
Several mediators, including a security police head, were injured in the attack on the Ahmar house, where they had gathered to try to end the fighting, an opposition leader said.
Ahmar’s house and the adjacent residence of another Ahmar tribal leader, were damaged in the attacks, residents said.
Footage, which Al Jazeera television said was from inside the house, showed dazed and bloodied tribal guards carrying wounded comrades across ornate halls as dust filled the air.
Saleh loyalists and army forces used mortars and rocket-propelled grenades in the attack, witnesses told Reuters.
Four tribal guards were killed, and six other people were wounded, an opposition leader said. Fighting in the same area of the capital on Monday killed seven people.
The government accused Ahmar’s men of “attempting a coup” by attacking the Interior Ministry and several other government and police buildings, the state news agency Saba reported.
The clashes followed the collapse on Sunday of a transition deal mediated by Gulf neighbors that Saleh was to have signed that would have given him immunity from prosecution.
Clashes had already killed at least 12 people in the past two days before the missile attack, tribal sources said earlier.
At least 90 people were reportly hurt in the clashes. A security official said one policeman died and four others were wounded.
The Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) bloc of Yemen’s wealthy oil-exporting neighbors that spearheaded the transition deal, which Saleh has three times rebuffed at the last minute, has suspended its peace effort due to a “lack of suitable conditions.”
In Washington, State Department spokesman Mark Toner said the United States believed the GCC deal was still on the table.
“President Saleh has an agreement in front of him. He needs to sign it and put Yemen on a positive path so that they can resolve the current situation,” Toner said.
Asked if the United States might consider adjusting its considerable financial assistance to Yemen if the stalemate continues, Toner indicated this was a possibility.
“There’s a number of options in front of us as the situation continues to fester, and we’re looking at all options,” he said, while declining to provide specifics.
In Riyadh, Abdullatif Al-Zayani, the GCC’s secretary-general, called for an immediate end to the fighting and suggested he could relaunch his mediation efforts.
“I’m always ready to visit (Yemen) if the visit will help the interests of the Yemeni people,” he told reporters.
The daily Asharq Al-Awsat said Saudi Arabia was still hoping the deal could be signed at the “earliest opportunity.”
The United States and Saudi Arabia, both targets of foiled attacks by a wing of Al-Qaeda based in Yemen, are keen to end the Yemeni stalemate and avert a spread of anarchy that could give the global militant network more room to operate.
Saleh, playing on Western fears of chaos, blamed the opposition for the deal’s collapse and said that if a civil war erupted “they will be responsible for it and the bloodshed.”
While Saleh has backed out of previous deals aimed at easing him out of power, Sunday’s turnabout appeared to be among the most forceful, coming after loyalist gunmen trapped Western and Arab diplomats in the United Arab Emirates embassy for hours.
