Four Yemeni soldiers killed by Shiite rebels

AFP - Thursday, May 8 11:29 am

SANAA (AFP) - Four Yemeni soldiers were killed and two others were wounded on Thursday when they were ambushed by suspected Shiite rebel gunmen in the northwestern region of Amran, a local official said.

The attack targeted the convoy of army colonel Hamid al-Qoud as it passed through Harf Sufian market in Amran, 55 kilometres (34 miles) northwest of the capital Sanaa, the official said, requesting anonymity.

He said that the gunmen, thought to be Huthi rebels, fled the scene in a car after the attack.

Amran is on the road linking Sanaa with the rebel stronghold in Saada. The official said that police have set up roadblocks on the route in the hunt for the attackers.

More than 50 people have been killed in renewed violence between security forces and rebels over the past week, including 18 who died in a blast outside a mosque after Friday prayers six days ago.

The rebels are fighting to restore a Zaidi Shiite imamate which was overthrown in a 1962 republican coup in Yemen, one of the world's poorest countries.

The insurgents are known as Huthis after their late commander, Hussein Badr Eddin al-Huthi, who was killed by the army in September 2004. Hussein was succeeded as field commander by Abdul Malak, his brother.

The rebels reject President Ali Abdullah Saleh's regime as illegitimate, even though Saleh himself is a Zaidi.

Thursday's ambush deals another blow to continuing Qatari mediation to implement a peace deal that was brokered in Doha in June 2007.

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