Pro-government forces in the capital opened fire on Tuesday at thousands of demonstrators from the Shiite religious minority, killing six and injuring dozens, officials and witnesses said.
The killings marked the first outbreak of violence inside the capital, Sana’a, after three weeks of escalating pressure by thousands of Shiite protesters who have held daily rallies on the outskirts of the city demanding that the government roll back cuts to price subsidies and then step down.
Security forces seeking to dismantle a roadblock that protesters had erected near the city’s main airport also killed two people in clashes on Sunday, setting the stage for the violence in the capital.
The protesters support a rebel group known as the Houthis that is based in northern Yemen. Named for the clan that dominates the group, the Houthis have also been clashing with fighters from Sunni tribes in the area.
The Houthis’ increasingly aggressive movements from the North have combined with an escalating al-Qaeda-linked Sunni insurgency based in the South to squeeze the weak central government from both sides. Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, the Yemeni branch of al-Qaeda, has strongholds throughout the South.
However, after the violence in the capital on Tuesday, the Houthis from the North may now pose a more serious threat to the government’s survival.
The Yemeni Ministry of Defense on Tuesday said that army troops had killed 10 militants from the Yemeni al-Qaeda branch and that two soldiers had been killed in fighting in a remote area of Hadramout Province in the southeast. The ministry said the militants had detonated a car bomb and opened fire at a checkpoint in the village of Wadi Sar, initiating the battle.
The clashes in the capital on Tuesday began when Houthi supporters attempted to march to the offices of senior government officials. Security guards fired tear gas, but soon escalated to live ammunition as they fought to keep the crowd of thousands from approaching the Cabinet building, according to guards there and reports from the official Saba news agency.
The government’s Supreme Security Committee, asserting that the protesters were armed, said that the soldiers had carried out their duty to protect the buildings from the Houthis. It denied that soldiers had shot any protesters, saying that unidentified snipers had fired from rooftops at both the protesters and the soldiers.
However, the Houthis’ television channel, Al Masirah, showed live footage of masked men in military uniforms firing at the protesters as well as graphic photographs of people shot in the streets.
Further clashes broke out north of Sana’a after the shootings. The Houthis said that troops had attacked their supporters camping in the area. Local media reports said that clashes broke out when the army prevented armed Houthis from entering Sana’a.
“We will continue mounting more protests as one of many peaceful and disruptive options,” Houthi spokesman Ali Al Qohum, said.
Qohum said the movement would not use arms, but would work to block streets and “paralyze traffic” in the capital.
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