Yemen rebels overrun tribal strongholds

Rebels in northern Yemen have overrun tribal strongholds after weeks of fighting.

SANAA // Rebels overran tribal strongholds in northern Yemen on Sunday, following weeks of combat that has left scores dead.
Aiming to expand their hoped-for autonomous region in a future federal Yemen, the Shiite Huthi rebels have pushed out of the northern mountains to areas nearer the capital.
Local witnesses said the Huthis seized the town of Huth and village of Khamri, the seat of the Hashid tribal chief, as tribal defence lines crumbled. At least 40 people have been killed in the last two days.
The Huthis "completely took over the regions of Huth and Khamri," rebel spokesman Mohammed Abdulsalam said.
Tribal chief sheikh Hussein Al Ahmar ordered his fighters to evacuate his family's farm in Khamri and set it ablaze, witnesses said, adding that the tribesmen have retreated to neighbouring areas.
Scores have been captured by the advancing rebels, they added.
The Ansarullah website, run by the Huthis, said its fighters and allies were "pounding the fortifications of the militias of the Al Ahmar sons" in Al Khamri and Zu Anash areas in Omran province.
"The Al Ahmar militias and the religious hardliners are fleeing from the two areas, along with military hardware and equipment," it said.
Tribal sources said that at least 30 Huthi rebels and 10 fighters from the Hashid tribe died in the fighting.
The latest fighting was the most intense since clashes erupted in October. The Huthis, who control much of the northern Saada province on the border with Saudi Arabia, moved against Sunni Salafis allied to the Al Ahmar clan in the town of Dammaj. The Huthis have accused the Salafis of bringing foreign extremists into their region.
Since October 30, the fighting has claimed nearly 300 lives, including 210 who died in more than two months of clashes in Dammaj.
The Dammaj fighting ended earlier this month with a government-brokered ceasefire under which the Salafis, who adhere to an austere brand of Sunni Islam, agreed to relocate.
One of the poorest countries in the Arab world, Yemen has been in turmoil since mass protests in 2011 forced long-serving President Ali Abdullah Saleh to step down.
The capture of Khamri represents a severe blow to the powerful Ahmar clan, which leads the Hashid tribe.
Divisions within the Hashid could be behind the defeat, sources said, pointing out that some have sided with the Huthis in the fighting.
The division is a result of an continuing dispute between the Hashid chief sheikh Sadeq Al Ahmar and former president Ali Abdullah Saleh, who also belongs to the vast Hashid tribe.
Mr Al Ahmar had sided with nationwide Arab Spring protests that forced Mr Saleh to step down in February 2012 after 33 years in power.
Mediators dispatched by Yemen's current president, Abdrabuh Mansur Hadi, have succeeded in brokering ceasefires in several areas, but some of the truces have broken down.
The Huthis, named after their late leader Abdel Malek Al Huthi, are part of the Zaidi Shiite community.
They rose up in 2004 against Mr Saleh's government, accusing it of marginalising them politically and economically.
Mr Hadi has pledged that Yemen will adopt a federal constitution in a bid to address local grievances that have fuelled violence across the Arab world's poorest country.
But at a ceremony last month to mark the conclusion of a troubled 10-month national dialogue, he put off any decision on the thorny issue of how many components it will have, promising that a special commission will decide.
The prospect of a federal Yemen, originally mooted as way to address grievances of the formerly independent south — where secessionist violence has been on the rise — has spawned demands for autonomy elsewhere, including the rebel-held far north.
Yemen is also struggling to contain security threats which include a secessionist movement in the south.
* Agence France-Presse and Reuters