SAN’A, Yemen — Yemeni government forces used artillery and aircraft to attack Shiite rebels near the border with Saudi Arabia killing dozens in an escalation of the five-year-old conflict, rebels and local officials said today.
The government offensive, which is believed to have started late Tuesday and continued today, followed reports of rebels seizing more control of the northern Saada province from government forces. A high-level security committee, headed by President Ali Abdullah Saleh, promised to respond to the rebels “with an iron-fist.”
Government and rebel sources gave conflicting reports about an air strike today that killed at least 15 people in the area of Haydan in southwestern Saada province, which has been the scene of heavy bombardment.
A local government official said the 20 killed were rebels, while the rebel spokesman maintained 15 civilians killed in an open air market by the air strike.
In addition to the latest strike, a Health Ministry official in Saada said a total of 12 other people have been killed in the fighting, and 51 injured. Local officials and a rebel spokesman said hundreds of people have fled the bombing and clashes which took place in numerous areas of Saada province.
Rebel spokesman Mohammed Abdel-Salam said the government bombardment, which started late Tuesday, intensified early today before culminating in the strike on Haydan. He said some missiles fell in residential areas, killing civilians, and destroying homes.
“We remind the authorities that we are totally ready to confront their aggression, and their loss will be more than previous rounds,” Abdel-Salam said in a statement.
A rebel leader, Saleh Habra, said only one fighter was killed in the last four days of fighting. He accused the government of targeting villagers in the widened offensive.
The officials in Saada spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the media.
The rebellion in northern Saada province, which borders predominantly Sunni Saudi Arabia, pits Shiite Muslims against Yemen’s Sunni-led government.
The impoverished Arabian peninsula country is already battling a separate uprising to the south and a resurgent al-Qaida. The Yemeni government has little authority in the mountainous areas outside the major cities and has tried repeatedly to suppress the rebellion, but with little success.
The stability of Yemen, the ancestral homeland of Osama bin Laden, is a key concern for both Saudi Arabia and the U.S.
Saudi Arabia fears the conflict could make the kingdom’s own disgruntled Shiite tribes more restive.
The Shiite rebellion is also a cause for concern for other Sunni Arab countries, who worry about the widening influence of Shiite Iran.
Shiites in Yemen complain the government ignores their needs and has allowed Wahhabis — people adhering to an ultra-conservative version of Sunni Islam found in neighboring Saudi Arabia — too strong of a voice in the country.
The Wahhabis, who consider Shiites to be heretics, gained influence after helping the Yemeni government win the 1994 civil war with the secessionist south.
The Shiite rebels are often referred to as Hawthis after the cleric Hussein Badr Eddin al-Hawthi who led the 2004 uprising and was killed later that year.
Rebel officials say they are fighting to get rid of the army presence in the province.
Habra told The Associated Press his fighters seized control of a military post in the area of Malahidh Tuesday, after hundreds of government soldiers fled the area. The fighters seized control of weapons left behind, he said.
“We are not afraid of anyone. We get our strength from God, and we don’t fear missiles,” he said.
A local security official said the army arrested a number of rebels, but didn’t give a figure. The officials were speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not allowed to speak to the media.
The U.N. refugee agency official in northern Yemen, Claire Bourgeois, said the organization is looking to assist at least 1,500 families displaced in the area of Malahidh, where some of the worst fighting continued today.
“We fear the numbers could be much higher, many people fled their homes in an emergency, so we are assuming they didn’t take necessities with them,” she said.
Another U.N. official, Lina al-Mujahed, said more than 230 families have arrived in the provincial capital after traveling hundreds of kilometers from different parts of Saada. Al-Mujahed said food and tents were already distributed to half of them.
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