Yemeni opposition will not enter any dialogue until power is transferred to Vice President – Source

Sanaa, Asharq Al-Awsat – The Yemeni Republican Guard renewed their shelling of the Arhab and Nehm areas, north of Sanaa yesterday, resulting in the destruction of  a number of buildings, including the home of a prominent member of the Yemeni opposition.

Local sources in Arhab told Asharq Al-Awsat that Brigade 62 of the Republican Guards attempted an incursion against a number of villages in the region, although the local residents repelled this attack, destroying a number of military vehicles.  The sources also revealed that a number of local fighters were wounded in the fighting, whilst other reports indicate that as many as 23 tribal fighters may have been killed in overnight clashes with the Republican Guard, who are loyal to embattled President Ali Abdullah Saleh.

The Republic Guard operations did not center on Arhab, but also neighboring areas such as Nehm.  The pro-Saleh troops reportedly targeted villages in Nehm utilizing Katyusha rockets, destroying a number of buildings, including the home of a senior member of the Nasserite Unionist People’s Organization and the Joint Meeting Parties [JMP], Hatem Abo Hatem.   Hatem Abo Hatem told Asharq Al-Awsat that his home is approximately 25 km outside of the battlefield and was targeted deliberately.  He revealed that his business partner – and his family – were living in this house and were injured in the attack, particularly as this was an old unfortified house.

Abo Hatem attributed the attacks on Arhab and Nehm to the Yemeni citizens there peacefully preventing two Republic Guard brigades from leaving the area and moving on Sanaa and Hadramout to suppress the peaceful demonstrations demanding that Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh step down from power.

The senior member of the opposition also told Asharq Al-Awsat that the JMP will not enter any dialogue with any party until power is transferred to Yemeni Vice President Major General Abdul Rabou Mansour Hadi.  Abo Hatem also stressed that the Yemeni opposition refuses to discuss or sign any initiative in this regard other than the Gulf Initiative that President Saleh is refusing to sign.

Prominent Yemeni cleric Sheikh Abdul Majid Al Zindani denied media reports that he had deployed hundreds of Yemeni fighters returning from Afghanistan to the Arhab area to fight the Republican Guard forces.

In a statement issued by the office of Sheikh Abdul Majid Al Zindani, who is the head of the Iman University in Yemen, he said “we completely deny these allegations out of hand.  They are outright and baseless lies; everybody inside Yemen and abroad knows that these fabrications are part of a ploy being implemented by the regime to alienate the opposition and cling to power.”

The official Yemeni News Agency [SABA] issued a report claiming that “Al-Zindani has sent more than 300 terrorists from different Yemeni provinces to fight the Yemeni army forces.”  Quoting unnamed tribal sources, the SABA report claimed that “these terrorists are known as the Afghan mujahedeen and most of them belong to Al Qaeda.”

The statement issued by the office of Sheikh Al-Zindani stressed that “the Yemeni official news report is part of an unfair campaign that has been implemented by the authority for months against Sheikh Al Zindani in order to lend legitimacy to what is happening in the country, and discredit Al Zindani and his position supporting the peaceful youth revolution confronting tyranny and injustice, and the violation of the [Yemeni] constitution and laws.”

The statement confirmed that “we reaffirm Sheikh Al Zindani’s position, which he has repeated a number of times, namely prohibiting aggression or attacks on peaceful citizens in their towns and villages and homes, and prohibiting the bloodshed of all Yemeni people.”

The Al Zindani statement also called on “our brothers and sons in the security and armed forces to carry out their missions according to the [Yemeni] constitution and laws, and stand against the personal desires of some for the armed forces to deviate from their legitimate and national duty to protect the homeland and its people.”

In other news, a car bomb exploded inside a government compound held by Shiite Houthi rebels in the city of Al-Matamma in Al-Jawf province, northeast of the capital Sanaa, on Monday night.  Information remains vague at this time, with estimates of the death toll ranging from 2 to 14 killed.  Local sources informed Asharq Al-Awsat that this was a suicide attack, with the driver of the car being killed in the explosion.

This attack came just a few days after the Houthi rebels and the Yemeni opposition Islamist Islah party agreed to a truce to end the sporadic fighting between the two groups.

Sources informed Asharq Al-Awsat that the suicide attack bore all the hallmarks of the Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula [AQAP] group, which had previously targeted Houthi rebels in Al-Jawf and Saada province last year.  However the Houthi rebels have accused Washington of responsibility, issuing a statement claiming that “this is clearly a US intelligence-style criminal act.”