A small girl was among four people killed on Friday as troops loyal to President Ali Abdullah Saleh pressed an assault on Yemen’s second city of Taez that has left 20 dead in 24 hours, medics said. The persistent bloodshed prompted recriminations between the government and the parliamentary opposition, which signed a hard-won power transfer agreement in Saudi Arabia last month that had raised hopes of an end to the violence.
The child, identified as Nuria al-Humairi, was hit by a shell before dawn as loyalist tanks and artillery on the city’s outskirts pounded central neighbourhoods held by pro-opposition troops and tribesmen, officials said. The other three people killed were attending funerals for some of the 16 people killed on Friday, they added. Five loyalist troops were among the dead in Thursday’s fighting, security sources said. Prime minister-designate Mohammed Basindawa, chosen by the opposition to head a government of national unity under the power transfer agreement, has threatened to resign unless the loyalist offensive in Taez stops. And opposition spokesman Mohammed Qahtan accused Saleh loyalists of blocking the formation of a key commission also stipulated by the accord that is to be given the task of reuniting the deeply divided security forces. As well as Taez, dissident troops also control a big swathe of the capital Sanaa and there have been repeated deadly clashes with loyalist units, some of them commanded by Saleh relatives. “The regime is delaying the establishment of this commission, perhaps out of a desire to take revenge as they have been doing in Taez, or in a bid to rid themselves of the agreement entirely,” Qahtan charged.
“The formation of the military commission is absolutely basic at this stage,” he added. But Deputy Information Minister Abdo al-Janadi, a Saleh loyalist, denied the opposition charge. “The president’s camp is not blocking the formation of the commission as Mr Saleh wants the Gulf plan to succeed,” he said.
