SAN'A, Yemen – Nearly 87 civilians were killed in a strike by government warplanes that hit a camp of people fleeing fighting in northern Yemen, a tribal leader said Thursday. It was a sign of increasing bloodiness in a remote war against Shiite rebels in this turmoil-ridden Arab nation.
The Yemeni government has said it is determined to stamp out the 5-year-old rebellion, despite U.S. pressure for it to do more against al-Qaida, which has been strengthening its presence in the country.
Every day, warplanes screech over the ornate mud-brick skyline of San'a, the capital, to bomb the Shiite rebels in the northern region of Saada, on the border with Saudi Arabia. Some 150,000 Yemenis have fled their homes since 2004, cramming into camps, schools and barns as aid groups struggle to bring in supplies.
On Wednesday, government jets bombed a makeshift camp packed with displaced people near the front-line town of Horf Sufyan, witnesses said. Sheik Mohammed Hassan, who attended a mass funeral for the victims Thursday, put the death toll at 87, most of them women and children.
The strikes hit near a school as well as a bridge under which many had taken shelter from the bombardment, crushing them, said Hassan, who is a member of the pro-government Sufyan tribe in the area and was among local leaders who organized the funeral. Tractors dug a trench in the area in which the dead were buried. Some of the bodies, torn apart in the blasts, were wrapped in plastic sheets, said a witness at the scene, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of fears of trouble with the government.
"The situation is horrendous. Whoever did this must be held accountable," said Hassan, who was among local tribal chiefs who helped organize the recovery effort and funeral.
Government officials have refused to confirm the strike and none attended the funeral. Yemen's Supreme Security Committee, which is headed by President Ali Abdullah Saleh, ordered an investigation into the reports, the state news agency SABA reported. It cited an unidentified official from the committee accusing rebels of using civilians as human shields and preventing civilians from moving to safe areas.
The International Red Cross and the U.N. refugee agency on Thursday expressed alarm over the reported deaths in Wednesday's strike.
The Shiite rebels, known as the Hawthis, have claimed that government warplanes have hit civilians previously, including a reported hit on a market earlier this week. But independent confirmation of the reports — or of casualties in general from the fighting — has not been possible because the government has restricting travel to the mountainous region.
The turmoil in Saada and the resulting humanitarian crisis pile yet more woes onto Yemen, the most impoverished nation in the Arab world. The question is whether President Saleh's government can handle it all — rebels in the north, secessionists in the south, al-Qaida militants in the east, pirates off its coasts and disgruntled tribes all over.
The United States has urged a cease-fire in the war with rebels and made clear to Yemeni leaders their frustration at the sporadic attention paid to al-Qaida. More broadly, Washington has openly expressed concern that Yemen could fall apart and become another Afghanistan with an open door for al-Qaida.
If that happened, it would give the terror network a stronghold in a highly strategic location, close to Saudi Arabia and other oil-rich Gulf countries. It would also bracket the Gulf of Aden and its important oil shipping lanes with Islamic militants on both sides — in Yemen and even more chaotic Somalia.
Yemen is Osama bin Laden's ancestral homeland, in whose waters al-Qaida bombed the USS Cole in 2000, killing 17 American sailors. More recent attacks include an assault on the U.S. Embassy a year ago.
Yemen, however, insists that the Shiite rebels it has been fighting since June 2004 are an existential threat, saying they want to overthrow the government and turn Yemen into a Shiite "Imamate."
The rebels are "a real threat to Yemen's stability and its constitutional government," Foreign Minister Abu-Bakr al-Qirbi told The Associated Press. They are "an insurgency that is now destabilizing part of the country and if not stemmed it will expand and ... al-Qaida will take advantage of the situation," he said.
The government has depicted the war as a regional conflict, saying mainly Shiite Iran is backing the rebels to get a foothold in the region.
Saudi Arabia is alarmed at the possibility. The Sunni-led kingdom sees a threat from al-Qaida militants in Yemen. A Saudi official told AP that his country is concerned Iran may start working with al-Qaida in its war-torn neighbor. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue.
"The economic situation is making it very difficult for the government to decide where to start" with all the other problems, al-Qirbi, the foreign minister, said. "If you tackle one or two the others may grow bigger."
Buddha shaped pears are seen in an orchard in China. REUTERS/Pillar Lee
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