Yemen sinks into new crisis after rebels reject new PM

With confusion reigning in rebel-controlled Sanaa, suspected Al Qaeda militants, who have vowed to battle the rebels, killed 10 policemen..

Shiite Houthi rebels patrol central Sanaa in a vehicle they recently took from the army on Wednesday. Khaled Abdullah / Reuters

SANAA // Yemeni Shiite rebels dug in their heels on Wednesday after rejecting the newly named premier, stirring fears of further violence as Al Qaeda and some tribes accused security forces of favouring the insurgents.

With confusion reigning in rebel-controlled Sanaa, suspected militants from Al Qaeda, which has vowed to battle the rebels, killed 10 policemen in central Yemen.

President Abdrabuh Mansur Hadi late on Tuesday named his chief of staff Ahmed Awad bin Mubarak as the new prime minister, after a UN-brokered peace deal agreed on September 21, the day the Houthi rebels overran the capital unopposed.

The accord provided for a rebel withdrawal from Sanaa once a neutral premier was named, for their disarmament and for the political transition to be revitalised.

But the rebels swiftly condemned Mr Bin Mubarak’s appointment as against the “will of the nation” and “at the behest of outside forces”, an apparent reference to American and Saudi influence.

“This decision has violated all the principles agreed upon by all parties,” the rebels, officially known as Ansarullah, said in a statement on Wednesday.

They said the move did not reflect a Yemeni agreement “as much as it was a foreign decision”.

Mr Hadi received the American and Saudi envoys shortly after he and his advisers discussed the overdue appointment of a new premier.

The rebel leader, Abdulmalik Al Houthi, has yet to comment on the nomination.

“Issues were not settled beforehand,” one western diplomat said on Wednesday, adding that the General People’s Congress of ousted president Ali Abdullah Saleh also rejected the appointment.

A GPC statement urged Mr Hadi to reconsider the “non-consensual decision” and propose a “consensual alternative”, accusing Mr Bin Mubarak of “never being neutral or independent”.

Five candidates had been shortlisted out of 21 candidates, before Mr Hadi reduced the number to three during a meeting with seven advisers, including a rebel representative who left the gathering in protest.

A Hadi aide accused the rebels of rejecting the decision because “they do not want to keep their commitments” under the peace deal.

Since swooping on Sanaa, the rebels have been continuously tightening their grip on the city while also looking to expand their control eastwards to oilfields and to the strategic south-western strait of Bab El Mandab.

Foes of the Houthi rebels accuse them of taking orders from Iran and rejecting Mr Bin Mubarak because of his political past as a student at Baghdad University, where he was in Saddam Hussein’s Baath party.

However the western diplomat downplayed Iran’s role in shaping the Houthi position, arguing that “Tehran has other strategic priorities in the region”.

The apparent Houthi strategy of seeking to exert gradual control of Yemen has sparked a strong reaction from Al Qaeda, which remains active in the south and east and taps the Sunni majority for recruits.

On Wednesday, suspected Al Qaeda militants launched a wave of dawn attacks on police and the army in the central town of Baida, killing 10 policemen, officials said.

The attacks came after a meeting of tribal chiefs – some with links to Al-Qaeda – decided to “respond to the increased presence of Shiite Houthi rebels in Baida”, an official said.

The heads of the Sunni Muslim tribes believe that members of the security services in Baida are sympathetic towards the Houthis.

Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, which the United States considers to be the global militant network’s most dangerous branch, has also vowed to fight the Houthis.

It had been hoped that last month’s peace deal would restore security and also put Yemen’s political transition back on track.

“The process of political transition should continue peacefully and president Hadi should keep his legitimacy,” said the western diplomat, stressing that the international community would not want to see the process collapse.

He insisted that Yemen was not at a political impasse, but did call the latest crisis a “damaging episode”.

* Agence France-Press