Yemen said 46 followers of an anti-U.S. Muslim “extremist” cleric had been killed and 35 wounded in clashes with security forces in a siege in a mountainous area of the Arab country.
Helicopters, supporting armed forces, opened fire on various sites in the area during the siege, security sources said.
An Interior Ministry statement, carried by the official Saba news agency late on Thursday, said 43 “rebel” supporters of cleric Hussein al-Houthi had also been arrested since clashes began on June 20 when police tried to arrest the Muslim leader.
Security and military forces were still surrounding Houthi and a “small number of deviant elements,” the ministry said.
The statement did not mention any casualties among security forces, but a security source told Saba two policemen were killed and five wounded in the clashes in Saada, 150 miles north of the capital, Sanaa.
One source close to Houthi told Reuters the death toll among the group was higher and put it at around 200. Government officials were not immediately available for comment.
The poor country of 19 million people is fighting to root out militants linked to Saudi-born Osama bin Laden’s al-Qaida group. Houthi has not been accused of having links to al-Qaida.
Anti-U.S. sentiment is high in the region over the U.S.-led occupation of Iraq and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Some clerics in Yemen still preach hatred for America and the West.
Destabilizing
Yemeni authorities believe Houthi, a leader of the Zaidi Shiite sect in Saada, is also head of the rebel group 'The Believing Youth’, which has led violent protests against the United States and Israel at mosques, security sources say.
“The clashes that started several days ago between security and armed forces and unconstitutional and illegal rebel elements destabilizing security...have resulted in the death of 46 and the wounding of 35 of those rebel elements,” the ministry said.
It said the 43 arrested would appear before judicial authorities and added guns, rocket-propelled grenades and landmines were also seized in their hideouts.
The ministry accused Houthi of inciting sectarian strife and said his “extremist ideology” harmed Yemen’s unity and security.
A security official earlier told Saba the group faced charges of killing security and armed forces, attacking government establishments, attacking mosque preachers, flying the flag of “foreign parties” and spreading “deviant and extremist thought” to destabilize stability and security.
Yemeni opposition groups urged the government in a statement on Friday to end the siege and try to negotiate.
The security official had said the state tried to persuade Houthi and other leaders of the group to stop their operations.
He said some of the group’s members were involved in a separatist rebellion to form a breakaway state in Yemen’s 1994 civil war. North and south Yemen were unified in 1990.
The state launched a massive campaign to disarm a largely tribal population but has had little success in the majority of the country at the southern tip of the Arabian peninsula.