Two tribesmen were killed in fierce clashes on Thursday in Yemen’s capital between troops loyal to embattled President Ali Abdullah Saleh and rival tribesmen and military forces that have defected. The firefights broke out in north Sanaa between forces from the elite Republican Guard, led by Saleh’s son Ahmed, and soldiers from Ahmar’s First Armoured Division, which provides protection for anti-Saleh protesters, witnesses said.
They said heavy shelling believed to be coming from Republican Guard bases north of the capital was targeting a residential neighbourhood near state television, with residents pleading for help and to be spared.
Earlier on Thursday, loyalist troops clashed with Ahmar tribesmen in Al-Hasaba, in renewed fighting with the influential tribe whose leader Sheikh Sadiq al-Ahmar has sided with the protesters. The gunbattle erupted a day after other tribesmen fighting the Republican Guard north of Sanaa shot down a fighter jet. Saleh, who is under international pressure to relinquish power and allow new elections, returned to the country on Friday, sparking violence in which scores of people have been killed. The 69-year-old president has repeatedly refused to sign a power transfer deal brokered by the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) under which he would hand over to Vice President Abdrabuh Mansur Hadi in return for immunity from prosecution.
Hadi warned on Wednesday of civil war in the troubled country, in a meeting with the ambassadors of the permanent member states of the UN Security Council, the European Union and the GCC.
