Dozens Dead or Missing in Yemen Clashes as President Remains Ill
July 02, 2011, 5:48 PM EDTBy Miles Weiss
July 3 (Bloomberg) -- Dozens of Yemeni soldiers were dead or missing after clashes with Islamic militants suspected of ties to the al-Qaeda terrorist network, according to media outlets in the Middle East.
In the southern city of Zinjibar, 15 Yemeni soldiers died and 50 were reported missing since Thursday, the Associated Press reported, citing an anonymous military official.
Eight members of the Islamic militant group, Ansar al- Sharia, were killed in the fighting, the official told AP. He requested anonymity because he was not authorized to speak with the press.
The soldiers were guarding a stadium when they were attacked by the militants in the increasingly troubled southern part of the country, a witness said earlier this week.
The militants have been making advances as Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh, under pressure from within and without the country to step down, remains ill and out of sight, according to news reports. Saleh was injured in an assassination attempt in June.
Dozens of military officials were arrested Friday by Saleh’s son for suspected disloyalty, AP reported.
Fighting continued in other parts of the country, with four soldiers reported dead in Taiz, Yemen’s second-largest city, according to wire reports.
Syria
In Syria, President Bashar Assad dismissed the governor of the city of Hama following protests against Assad’s regime, AP reported. Assad fired Ahmed Abdul-Aziz because the governor failed to call in security forces to suppress the protests, Bassam Jaara, a Syrian opposition writer in London, told the news agency.
According to the AP, an estimated 300,000 people joined the protests in Hama. Activists such as Jaara are hoping the demonstrations will revive opposition to Assad’s regime.
The late Hafez al-Assad, Bashar’s father and predecessor a as president, used the Syrian army in 1982 to crush an uprising in Hama led by the Muslim Brotherhood movement. Thousands of people were killed as a result.
In Bahrain, opposition and pro-government groups convened what is expected to be a monthlong “national dialogue” to bridge the divide created when the Sunni-controlled government cracked down earlier this year on protesters, many of them Shiite.
Bahrain Talks
Some 300 people have been invited to the talks, the state- run Bahrain News Agency said on June 21, citing Parliament Speaker Khalifa bin Ahmed al-Dhahrani. They include representatives from political parties and civil and non- governmental organizations, as well as opinion leaders and prominent figures, the news agency said.
U.S. President Barack Obama “welcomes” the start of the talks, according to a release issued Saturday by the White House’s Office of the Press Secretary. In the release, Obama commended both sides for entering into a dialogue.
Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood expressed readiness to talk with the U.S. following Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s announcement that the U.S. is “re-engaging” with the group.
“We are ready for dialogue with the U.S. administration, if it so decides, within a framework of mutual respect,” Mahmoud Ghozlan, a spokesman for the Muslim Brotherhood, said in an e-mailed statement. The statement also said “no dialogue” has taken placed between the two sides, although the Muslim Brotherhood did have “contact” previously with the U.S. Embassy in Cairo.
The U.S. is relaxing the criteria for interaction with the Egyptian group, permitting diplomats to deal directly with low- level officials at the Muslim Brotherhood, Clinton said on June 30. In the past, the U.S. government restricted such communications.
--Editor: Maura Reynolds, Christian Thompson
To contact the reporter on this story: Miles Weiss in Washington at mweiss@bloomberg.net
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Mark Silva at msilva34@bloomberg.net
