SANAA (Agencies)
Fifteen people were killed in Yemen during fierce gun battles between Shiite rebels and members of a tribe loyal to the government, witnesses said on Sunday.
Another thirteen people were wounded in the fighting between the Al-Bukhtan tribe and the rebels, they said.
The fighting, which broke-out on Saturday in a market in the mountainous northern Saada province near the border with Saudi Arabia, came two months after Zaidi rebels killed an Al-Bukhtan member who they accused of supporting the government.
Government forces have since joined the battle by shelling Zaidi rebel positions.
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Rabbi house Also on Sunday, the rebels destroyed the vacant house of Yemen's top rabbi, a security official said.
Residents said the assailants destroyed the house of Yehia Youssuf in Saada. The security official said it was not immediately known what weapons were used in the attack.
About 200 Yemeni Jews who lived in Saada, including Youssef, have been living in the capital Sanaa due to sporadic fighting between government forces and the Zaidi rebel group, known as the Houthis, after their leader.
The on-off insurgency has claimed thousands of lives since 2004. Their aim is to restore the Zaidi imamate, which was overthrown in a 1962 republican coup in one of the world's poorest countries.
The rebels reject the regime of Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh as illegitimate, although Saleh is himself a Zaidi.
Sunni Muslims make up the majority of Yemen's 19 million population, while most of the rest are Zaidis. Jews are estimated at a few hundreds. |
