Street battles between Yemeni government
forces and armed tribesmen killed dozens of people Wednesday in this
country teetering on the brink of civil war, forcing residents to cower
in basements or brave gunfire to fetch bread and water.
Nearly
four months of mass protests calling for President Ali Abdullah Saleh's
ouster have exacerbated already dire poverty, shuttering businesses and
forcing up prices of essential goods. It's a trend that does not bode
well for long-term stability in this gun-ridden corner of the Arabian
Peninsula, home to an active al-Qaida branch and other armed Islamist
groups.
Yemen's mainly peaceful protests gave way to fighting
last week between Saleh's security forces and fighters loyal to the
head of Yemen's most powerful tribal coalition, Sheik Sadeq al-Ahmar.
That was the tipping point that pushed the anti-government uprising
toward civil war.
At least 41 people were killed Wednesday as clashes spread to new quarters of the city.
Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said Saleh's refusal to step down was prolonging the crisis.
"We
cannot expect this conflict to end unless President Saleh and his
government move out of the way to permit the opposition and civil
society to begin a transition to political and economic reform," she
told reporters in Washington.
President Barack Obama's Homeland
Security and Counterterrorism adviser John Brennan was to travel to
Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates this week for talks on Yemen.
Fighting
in the capital raged from early morning though midday, sending the
crackle of gunfire and the booms of artillery strikes across the city.
The clashes spread Wednesday from the Hassaba neighborhood where
tribesmen have seized more than a dozen government buildings, to new
areas.
The clashes forced Talal Hazza to crowd into a neighbor's basement with 20 others, half of them children.
"We
are suffering and living through trying days," Hazza told The
Associated Press. "It wears you out because the shells fall on us like
rain, especially at night."
The explosions terrify the children,
and only the men go out for food, Hazza said. They have to venture out
daily because the area has had no electricity for two days, meaning
there is no way refrigerate food.
"We can hear explosions outside, but we are afraid to go up and look because they are very close," he said.
Tribal
fighters seized the prosecutor general's office in the city's
northwest. They were accompanied by two vehicles from the 1st Armored
Division, whose powerful commander abandoned Saleh two months ago. So
far, however, his troops have not participated in the street battles.
The
Interior Ministry said in a statement that tribesmen also took over a
five-story building in the city's southern Hadda neighborhood, a
stronghold of Saleh supporters.
Yemen's official news agency SABA
called the tribal fighters "armed gangs" and accused them of looting
supplies, furniture and documents from government buildings.
Witnesses
said units of the elite Presidential Guard, commanded by one of Saleh's
sons, shelled the headquarters of an army brigade that guards
government institutions, sending up columns of smoke and fire. Army
officers who have joined the opposition said they believed the move was
a pre-emptive strike against a commander the government feared would
join the movement to oust Saleh.
Fighting diminished in the
afternoon, when Yemenis routinely gather to chew qat, a mildly
addictive stimulant. But artillery strikes resumed at dusk, forcing
residents back to their basements.
"We feel besieged in our
neighborhood and can't leave our house because of the clashes and the
random shelling," said resident Abdu Salem. A shell landed near his
house, spraying his neighbor's leg with shrapnel, Salem said, but the
clashes prevented an ambulance from coming for four hours.
Saleh
has met the protests with promised reforms and brutal crackdowns,
sometimes sending tanks or snipers to clear public squares where the
protesters camp out. The crackdowns have turned the U.S. away from
Saleh, once considered a key ally against al-Qaida.
As the
uprising has dragged on, prices for food, petrol and cooking gas have
skyrocketed, cutting into family budgets in a country where the United
Nations says 31 percent of people are underfed.
Experts say
growing poverty and a depleted government budget heighten the chances
of longtime instability in a nation that is home to al-Qaida in the
Arabian Peninsula, which has been linked to attempted attacks on U.S.
soil, including the failed Christmas Day attack in 2009.
"We're
already talking about the poorest country in the Arab world, and the
average Yemeni has the least room to absorb this," said Christopher
Bouceck of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. "The longer
this goes on, the worse it gets."
Shopkeeper Najib al-Habaishi
said his foodstuffs are scarce and his prices high because distributors
balk at delivering to the capital.
Running water has cut out in
much of the capital, meaning residents buy supplies from tanker trucks.
But the price of a fill up has quadrupled during the uprising, forcing
many to limit bathing and laundry to once a week.
The price of cooking gas, too, has increased steeply, meaning some many now light wood fires on their roofs to cook.
Rising
gas prices have caused shortages, forcing people to wait for hours in
long lines at gas stations. Once at the pump, they face quotas that
limit them to about a third of a tank.
Electricity comes and goes, and has been cut in the Hassaba neighborhood for nearly three days.
While
protests, defections and international diplomacy have not forced Saleh
from power, economic pressures could prove the final blow, said April
Longley Alley of the International Crisis Group think tank. Saleh has
tapped state coffers to pay his forces, fund boisterous pro-government
rallies and buy support from tribes, she said. He can't keep that up
forever.
"If Saleh is unable to pay military and security
salaries and to maintain critical patronage networks within the tribes,
it will certainly be game over," she said. AP
