By AHMED AL-HAJ
Heavy clashes erupted near the presidential palace in Yemen’s capital Sanaa on Monday as Shiite rebels battled soldiers and seized control of state-run media in a move that one official called “a step toward a coup.”
The fighting, centered on the palace and a military area south of it, marks the biggest challenge yet to the government of President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi by the rebels, known as Houthis, who swept down from their northern strongholds last year and captured the capital in September.
Hadi’s fall would plunge the Arab world’s poorest country further into chaos and complicate U.S. efforts to battle al-Qaida’s Yemeni affiliate, which claimed responsibility for the attack on a Paris satirical magazine earlier this month and which Washington has long viewed as the global network’s most dangerous branch.
The Houthis are seen by their critics as a proxy of Shiite Iran — charges they deny — and are believed to be allied with former President Ali Abdullah Saleh, ousted in a 2012 deal after Arab Spring protests. They have vowed to eradicate al-Qaida and have battled the group, but are also hostile to the U.S. Their official slogan is “Death to Israel. Death to America.”
The Houthis and forces loyal to Hadi have been in a tense standoff for months in the capital and it was not clear who fired the first shots early Monday. Witnesses said heavy machine gun fire could be heard as artillery shells struck around the presidential palace. Civilians in the area fled as columns of black smoke rose over the palace and sirens wailed throughout the city.
Hadi doesn’t live at the palace, and extra soldiers and tanks deployed around his private residence, which is nearby. Witnesses heard sporadic gunfire in the area.
The convoys of Yemen’s prime minister and a top presidential adviser affiliated with the Houthis came under fire, while Houthi fighters took over Yemen state television and its official SABA news agency, Information Minister Nadia Sakkaf said.
“This is a step toward a coup and it is targeting the state’s legitimacy,” Sakkaf told The Associated Press.
A medical official in Sanaa said the fighting killed at least three people. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he wasn’t authorized to speak to journalists.
Well-known Yemeni activist Hisham Al-Omeisy, who lives near the presidential palace, said the fighting began after 6 a.m. (0300 GMT, 10 p.m. EST) with a shell hitting a hill controlled by the Houthis. They responded with heavy artillery fire, he said.
He later saw two bodies in civilian clothes just outside his house. He said he couldn’t tell if the dead were civilians or Houthis, because the rebels also dress in civilian clothing.
Later, “I thought it was all quiet and I left my house. But a shell landed right near me,” he told the AP Monday afternoon.
Later in the afternoon, the Houthis and allied tribesmen attacked a military camp adjacent to the palace, pounding it with shells from hills nearby. The attack set off clashes with presidential guards and other military units in the camp. If the camp were to fall, it would effectively give the Houthis control of the palace.
The Houthis’ al-Maseera satellite television channel accused the army of opening fire without reason on a militia patrol near the palace, sparking the violence. A Yemeni military official, speaking on condition of anonymity as he wasn’t authorized to brief journalists, said the Houthis provoked the attack by approaching military positions in the area and setting up their own checkpoints.
Schools located near the clashes closed as Houthi rebels fortified their checkpoints throughout the city. Many families remained trapped in their homes.
“People are leaving on foot, searching for safety,” resident Tarfa al-Moamani said.
Sakkaf later told the AP that Hadi reached a cease-fire with Houthi rebels, though that apparently disintegrated into further gunfire. Prime Minister Khaled Bahah’s convoy came under fire after leaving Hadi’s home for a meeting with a Houthi representative, but he was unharmed, Sakkaf said.
Foreign envoys appeared to be attempting to help negotiate an end to the fighting.
“Working to promote cease-fire and political negotiations,” a message on British Ambassador Jane Marriott’s Twitter account read. “Challenging times. And all most Yemenis want is food and a job.”
The latest spasm of violence appears to be linked to the Houthis’ rejection of a draft constitution that would divide the country into six federal regions. On Saturday, the Houthis kidnapped one of Hadi’s top aides to disrupt a meeting scheduled for the same day that was to work on the new charter.
On Sunday Hadi chaired a meeting in which he demanded the army defend Sanaa, SABA reported. It wasn’t clear whether Hadi, who has made similar calls in the past, was ordering the security services to take back control of the capital.
Hadi and Houthis accuse each other of not implementing a U.N.- brokered peace deal calling for Hadi to form a new national unity government and reform government agencies as Houthis withdraw their fighters from cities they seized. The Houthis have also demanded integration of their militiamen into Yemen’s armed forces and security apparatus, something Hadi strongly opposes.
“The two sides have hit a dead end,” said al-Omeisy, the activist. “Everyone is strong-headed and everyone has their finger on the trigger. It was only a matter of time.”
The prolonged power struggle has undermined Yemen’s ability to battle al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula, and the Houthis’ push into predominantly Sunni areas has boosted local support for the terror group.
“The Houthis are already ruling. Them seizing power is 1,000 percent in our interest for many reasons,” an al-Qaida member told the AP on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media.
The al-Qaida affiliate claimed to have orchestrated the attack on the office of French magazine Charlie Hebdo, in which two French Islamic extremists killed 12 people, saying it had carried out the assault as “revenge” for cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad that were widely seen as offensive.
The group has been linked to a number of attempted terror attacks on the U.S. homeland, including the attempt to down a U.S.-bound airliner in 2009 using explosives hidden in a man’s underwear and a plot the following year to ship bombs concealed in printer cartridges to the U.S. on cargo planes from the Gulf.
The U.S. has provided extensive counterterrorism training and support to Yemeni forces and has targeted al-Qaida with a series of drone strikes in recent years, which have taken out several senior militants but also killed civilians, stoking popular anger.
Hadi was elected president in 2012 after a popular revolt toppled Saleh. Saleh and the Houthis are Zaydis, a branch of Shiite Islam that is very close to Sunni Islam. Zaydis make up around a third of Yemen’s population.
Saleh waged six-year-war against Houthis that ended in a cease-fire in 2010. Now, however, the old foes appear to have joined forces to challenge traditional power brokers, including top generals, tribal alliances and the Islamist Islah party, the Muslim Brotherhood’s branch in the country.
The U.N. Security Council last year put Saleh on a sanctions list, along with two Shiite leaders, for destabilizing the country. Saleh’s representatives have denied the allegations.
Security officials, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss intelligence matters, said they believed tribal fighters loyal to Saleh were racing into Sanaa to back the Houthis in the latest fighting.
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Associated Press writers Maamoun Youssef, Maggie Michael and Sarah El Deeb in Cairo contributed to this report.
