SANA’A: President Abdrabuh Mansur Hadi warned yesterday of “civil war” in Sunni-majority Yemen and vowed to restore state authority as Shia rebels in apparent near-total control of Sanaa hailed their “victory”.
Yemen “is facing a conspiracy” and “the danger of slipping into civil war”, Hadi said in a speech at the Presidential Palace, two days after Ansarullah rebels took all other key state institutions in the capital, overshadowing a UN-brokered peace deal.
In a televised speech, rebel leader Abdelmalek Al Houthi hailed what he called the “victory” of his fighters.
“We congratulate our people on the victory of their popular revolution that has established a new era based on cooperation,” Huthi said. Hadi had earlier evoked the spectre of foreign plots aimed at torpedoing progress in Yemen. “Internal and foreign forces (have) allied to... overthrow the Yemeni model” of power transition following an Arab Spring-inspired uprising, the president said.
Yemen was the only Arab Spring country where an uprising led to a political settlement by which Hadi replaced former autocrat Ali Abdullah Saleh.
Egypt forces kill four in Sinai
CAIRO: Egyptian security forces yesterday killed four fighters from the country’s deadliest militant group on the Sinai Peninsula, where troops regularly battle jihadists, officials said.
The four fighters from Ansar Beit Al Maqdis (Partisans of Jerusalem) were killed when the car they were travelling in was struck by artillery fire south of the town of Sheikh Zuweid, the security officials said.
Eight other members of the group were arrested in separate raids in the towns of Sheikh Zuweid and Rafah.
Ansar Beit Al Maqdis has orchestrated a string of attacks targeting security forces to avenge a deadly government crackdown on supporters of ousted Islamist president Mohamed Mursi.Agencies
