Sana’a: Armed men from Yemen’s newly dominant Al Houthi group took over a special forces army base in the capital Sana’a early on Wednesday, soldiers there said.
The clashes, which lasted around six hours, started late on Tuesday when Al Houthis shelled the camp with heavy weapons, soldiers from the camp said. At least 10 people were killed.
The troops had been trained and equipped by the US as an elite counterterrorism unit during the rule of ex-president Ali Abdullah Saleh, who was ousted by Arab Spring protests in 2011, military sources said.
Al Houthi militiamen seized Sana’a in September, eventually leading President Abd Rabbo Mansour Hadi to flee to Aden this week where he seeks to set up a rival centre of power.
For more than a decade the US has watched with alarm as Al Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula — the most powerful arm of the global militant group — has grown in Yemen as the political chaos has mounted.
The US military trained and kitted out Yemeni soldiers under Saleh, and under Hadi the CIA has stepped up drone strikes aimed at killing suspected militants.
US officials have expressed concern that the rule of the resolutely anti-American Al Houthis will harm their counterterrorism efforts in a country that shares a long border with Saudi Arabia, the world’s biggest oil exporter.
Yemen’s Gulf neighbours have decried the Al Houthi takeover as a coup, and the head of the Gulf Cooperation Council Abdul Latif Al Zayani arrived in Aden to meet Hadi on Wednesday, political sources there said.
The power struggle between the Al Houthis in Sana’a and Hadi in Aden casts more doubt on UN-sponsored talks to resolve Yemen’s crisis peacefully, and exacerbates sectarian and regional splits, which may plunge the country into civil war.
The Al Houthis said on Tuesday that Hadi had lost his legitimacy as head of state and was being sought as a fugitive from justice.
