Region

ANKARA — The United Nations would offer humanitarian assistance for proposed "safe zones" inside Syria even if they were created without a Security Council resolution, the UN's top humanitarian official Valerie Amos said on Monday.

An estimated 3 million people have fled Syria since 2011, when an uprising began against President Bashar Assad. About half of them are in neighbouring Turkey, which wants the zones to be set up in Syria close to the its border where civilians could be protected from the civil war.

"If there happened to be areas of Syria that were established as protection or safe areas... we would get to those areas to give people help," Amos, the Undersecretary General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator told Reuters in an interview.

So far Turkey's call has received at best a lukewarm response. The United States has said it is not a priority while Iran and the Syrian government have warned against the move, saying it would break international law.

Russia, which holds the power of veto on the UN Security Council, is also thought to oppose to the idea.

Amos said any secure zone would require a force on the ground ensuring the protection of civilians, and ideally this should be done with the backing of a UN resolution. "The political differences we've seen on the Security Council make it less likely that this will be passed," she said, while adding: "I hope that I'm wrong."

"Of course some countries may decide this is important enough for them to go it alone. Whichever one of those things happens, the important thing is that if there is protection area or a safe zone, is that people are kept safe," she said.

The UN already operates in parts of Syria where the government is not present, and also negotiates with rebel groups to reach some of the estimated 11 million people trapped inside the country and in need of help.

Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said last week he favoured a UN-led effort to establish a no-fly zone over northern Syria, seen as a crucial first step towards establishing safe zones. However, he also said that an "international coalition" could decide to act if members of the Security Council vetoed the plans.

Turkish officials say they have spent over $4 billion helping refugees, but there are growing fears of social and economic upheaval if they are unable to go home.

The fate of the Syrian border town of Kobani, besieged by Islamic State fighters for more than a month, has put growing pressure on Ankara to take a more active role in tackling the militants on its frontiers.

Turkish officials have repeatedly said that a comprehensive strategy to pacify Syria is the only way to tackle Islamic State and other groups like it which have taken advantage of the chaos to seize territory.

Amos warned that US-led approach of bombing Islamic State did not offer a solution to Syria's complex problems.

"Of course I'm frustrated," she said. "Without a solution we're just going to see these numbers [of refugees] spiralling even more out of control, in a year where we're seeing so many crises around the world... where we are running out of resources, out of money, out of people who are able to do the work that's needed."

OCCUPIED JERUSALEM — Israeli guards quietly occupied two purchased residential buildings in a Palestinian district of East Jerusalem on Monday, expanding a Jewish settler project in defiance of US criticism.

A previous move on September 30 by settlers into homes bought in the Silwan neighbourhood, in an area occupied by Israel in a 1967 war, coincided with a US visit by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and drew White House condemnation.

Hoping to cement Israel's claim on all of Jerusalem, far-right Jews have been paying top dollar for Silwan properties, often through Arab middle-men to circumvent Palestinian taboos on such sales.

An estimated 500 settlers, armed or protected by paramilitary police, live in Silwan among 50,000 Palestinians. Israel's claim to all of Jerusalem as its capital is not recognised internationally.

In an apparent bid to stave off fresh scrutiny and possible confrontations, Monday's Israeli arrivals slipped in by night and holed up in the two buildings whose 10 apartments, Palestinians said, had been vacant for months after being sold through a local intermediary who had since absconded.

Neighbours were aghast to learn the new owners were Jews.

"I sometimes go up on my roof without my hijab, but how can I do that now? They'll look at me! Muslims know not to do so," exclaimed Umm Adel Qaraq, a matriarch in her 70s, from her balcony abutting one of the new Israeli-held properties.

Three young Israeli men smiled wordlessly from a barred window next door. Four others, pistol bulges under their windbreakers, could be seen through the door of the second building, a five-minute walk away through the warren of homes clinging to a ravine over the biblical Siloam pool.

Avi Segal, an Israeli lawyer representing the real estate company that bought the buildings, said he expected eight Jewish families would eventually move in. Segal did not immediately provide further details about the company, Kudram Ltd.

US criticism

Netanyahu has swatted away US criticism of the Silwan settlers and other Israeli construction on land occupied in 1967, saying restricting the right of anyone to live in homes they bought legally flew in the face of "American values".

Palestinians scorn that argument, saying it side-steps their internationally backed push for an independent state in the occupied West Bank and the Gaza Strip, with East Jerusalem as its capital. Peace talks with Israel broke down in April.

"It can't work — a government that serves them, the settlers, and tramples on us," said Salem Shiyuchi, 71, who shares a two-room Silwan dwelling with two of his children.

Pointing up the valley to Jerusalem's walled Old City, he said: "I came from there, but was driven out by the Israelis during the war. Now I live here. I would never sell to them."

Shiyuchi's sister-in-law, Asma, voiced worry that violence would follow the growing Jewish presence in Silwan, whose Palestinian residents point to litter-strewn streets and jumbled construction as evidence of neglect by Israeli authorities.

On Monday, however, just four Israeli forces vehicles were on hand, parked at the district's outskirts.

"There'll be problems, especially with the kids," said Asma Shiyuchi, 50, adding that three of her children had spent time in Israeli detention. "Silwan is Arab and Muslim, only Arab and Muslim."

Another Silwan woman who runs a grocery store down the alleyway from one of the new Israeli-held buildings said that while she would never sell property to the Jews, she would accept them as customers.

"I already sell my wares to Israeli police, so why not the settlers?" said the store-owner, who declined to give her name.

CAIRO — A roadside bomb killed seven Egyptian soldiers and wounded four in the restive Sinai Peninsula on Sunday, security officials said.

The bomb exploded next to an armoured vehicle guarding a gas pipeline in north Sinai, the officials said.

Militants have killed scores of policemen and soldiers in the rugged peninsula since the military overthrew Islamist president Mohamed Morsi in July 2013.

A military official said first responders were still assessing the casualties.

The attack came three days after a similar bombing killed two policemen in the north Sinai provincial capital of El Arish. 

Militants killed 17 policemen in Sinai in two bombings in September and later released footage of the attacks.

Those attacks were claimed by Ansar Beit Al Maqdis, the most active militant group in Egypt. It tried to assassinate the interior minister in Cairo last year with a car bomb.

The group has expressed support for Islamic State jihadists in Iraq and Syria, although it has not formally pledged its allegiance.

President Abdel Fattah Al Sisi, the army chief who overthrew Morsi and later won elections, has pledged to eradicate the militants.

The military has said it killed at least 22 militants in October, including a local Ansar Beit Al Maqdis commander.

The group itself has acknowledged the arrest or deaths of its cadres, but so far the army has been unable to quell the militants despite a massive operation in which it has deployed attack helicopters and tanks.

The militants sometimes operate openly in north Sinai, setting up impromptu checkpoints and handing out leaflets.

They say they target policemen and soldiers to avenge a bloody police crackdown on Islamists after Morsi's overthrow, which killed hundreds in street clashes and imprisoned thousands.

Squeezed by the police crackdown, pro-Morsi protests have grown smaller and less frequent, but disaffected Islamists are thought to be increasingly drawn to militancy.

The government has declared Morsi's Muslim Brotherhood group a terrorist organisation after blaming it for an attack conducted by Ansar Beit Al Maqdis.

The group, whose name means Partisans of Jerusalem in English, formed after the 2011 uprising that overthrew veteran strongman Hosni Mubarak and ushered in a period of lawlessness, especially in the sparsely populated Sinai Peninsula.

They initially focused their attacks on neighbouring Israel, firing rockets and conducting two cross border raids that killed a number of Israeli civilians and soldiers.

Ansar Beit Al Maqdis' leaders are believed to be Bedouin and some of its members had fought in Syria alongside jihadists before returning to Egypt.

SANAA — Yemen's Shiite rebels captured a town south of the capital Sanaa early on Sunday, when they also blew up the house of a rival Islamist politician, security officials said.

In Sanaa, the rebels, known as the Houthis, stormed the headquarters of the capital's local government chasing out the governor, Abdul-Ghani Jameel, who they accuse of corruption, according to the officials.

The Yemeni officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorised to speak to the media.

Sunday's developments reflected the growing strength of the Houthis, who overran Sanaa last month and captured a key Red Sea port city last week along with a province south of the capital.

Early on Sunday, the Houthis captured the town of Yarim about 170 kilometres south of Sanaa in the province of Ibb. Yarim has a population of more than 100,000 and lies along the main road to Yemen's southern provinces.

The Houthis, widely suspected to have links with Iran, took over the house of a prominent Islamist politician in Yarim on Saturday, setting off clashes that left 12 people dead. The politician, who comes from the powerful Islah (Reform) Party, was not home at the time. On Sunday, according to the officials, they blew up the house.

The Houthis are at sharp odds with the Islah Party and powerful Sunni tribes allied with it. 

The rebels say they are demanding a bigger share of power and a change to the country’s political order following the 2011 protests that forced longtime leader Ali Abdullah Saleh out of office. But their military advances suggest they are seeking to take full control of Yemen’s northern provinces at a time when secessionist sentiments are growing in the once-independent south of Yemen.

On Sunday, thousands in the Houthi-controlled port of Hodeida demonstrated to press demands for the rebels to leave the city. Similar protests had taken place in Sanaa in recent weeks.

Yemen has been beset for years by an Al Qaeda-led insurgency that has staged dozens of suicide attacks against military and security personnel. It also has endured crushing poverty that has bred resentment — and outright rebellion — that took root in a secessionist movement in its southern region.

The advances by the anti-American Shiite rebels take advantage of the disarray in the Yemen’s army and security forces. Yemen is one of the most active battlegrounds in the US campaign against Al Qaeda’s leaders, hideouts and camps, and American drones operate openly there with permission from the Yemeni government. The country’s proximity to the vast oilfields of Washington’s Gulf Arab allies also adds to Yemen’s strategic value.

URFA, Turkey — The fiercest fighting in days shook the Syrian border town of Kobani overnight as Islamic State (IS) fighters attacked Kurdish defenders with mortars and car bombs, sources in the town and a monitoring group said on Sunday.

IS, which controls much of Syria and Iraq, fired 44 mortars at Kurdish parts of the town on Saturday and some of the shells fell inside nearby Turkey, according to the British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. It said four more mortars were fired on Sunday.

The month-long battle for Kobani has ebbed and flowed. A week ago, Kurds said the town would soon fall. The United States and its coalition partners then stepped up air strikes on IS, which wants to take Kobani in order to strengthen its position in northern Syria.

The coalition has been bombing IS targets in Iraq since August and extended the campaign to Syria in September after IS, a group that espouses a rigid interpretation of Islam and initially fought Syrian President Bashar Assad’s forces, made huge territorial gains.

Raids on IS around Kobani have been stepped up, with the fate of the town seen as an important test for US President Barack Obama’s campaign against the Islamists.

NATO member Turkey, whose forces are ranged along the border overlooking Kobani, is reluctant to intervene. It insists the allies should also confront Assad to end Syria’s civil war, which has killed close to 200,000 people since March 2011.

“We had the most intense clashes in days, perhaps a week, last night [IS] attacked from three different sides including the municipality building and the marketplace,” said Abdulrahman Gok, a journalist in Kobani.

“Clashes did not stop until the morning. We have had an early morning walk inside the city and have seen lots of damaged cars on the streets and unexploded mortar shells,” he said.

Car bombs

The observatory reported two IS car bombs hit Kurdish positions on Saturday evening, leading to casualties. A cloud of black smoke towered over Kobani on Sunday.

A fighter from one of the female units of the main Syrian Kurdish militia in Kobani, YPG, said Kurdish fighters were able to detonate the car bombs before they reached their targets.

“Last night there were clashes all across Kobani... this morning the clashes are still ongoing,” she said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

The observatory said 70 IS fighters had been killed in the past two days, according to sources at the hospital in the nearby town of Tel Abyab, where IS bodies are taken. Reuters cannot independently confirm the reports due to security restrictions.

The observatory said some Syrian Arab fighters from the Revolutionaries of Raqqa Brigade, who are fighting alongside Kurdish fighters, had executed two IS captives.

“One was a child of around 15 years old. They shot them in the head,” he said.

IS have also used executions throughout their campaigns in Syria and Iraq, killing hundreds of enemy combatants and civilians who oppose their cause, according to IS videos and statements.

Welat Omer, a doctor caring for the few remaining civilians in Kobani, told Reuters by telephone that he was looking after 15 patients, including children and the elderly.

“We need medicine, including antibiotics and milk for the children, and medicine for the elderly, who have heart conditions, diabetes and high blood pressure,” Omer said.

Hundreds of thousands have fled IS’ advance. Turkey hosts about 1.5 million Syrian refugees, including almost 200,000 Syrian Kurds from Kobani.

Ankara has refused to rearm beleaguered Kurdish fighters, who complain they are at huge disadvantage in the face of IS’ weaponry, much of it seized from the Iraqi military when the militants took the city of Mosul in June.

Turkey views the YPG with suspicion for its long-standing links with the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), which has waged a 30-year armed campaign for self-rule in Turkey.

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan was quoted in the Turkish media on Sunday as saying Ankara will never arm the YPG through its political wing, the PYD.

“There has been talk of arming the PYD to establish a front here against IS. For us, the PYD is the same as the PKK, it’s a terrorist organisation,” he was quoted as saying.

This stance has sparked outrage among Turkey’s own Kurds, who make up about 20 per cent of the population. Riots in several cities earlier this month left more than 35 people dead.

In a call with Erdogan on Saturday night, Obama expressed appreciation for Turkey hosting over a million refugees, including thousands from Kobani.

“The two leaders pledged to continue to work closely together to strengthen cooperation against ISIL [Islamic State],” the White House said.

Obama’s approach to IS has drawn fire from his political opponents at home.

“We have dropped a bomb here and a missile there, but it has been a photo-op foreign policy,” US Senator Ted Cruz of Texas, a Republican and a potential presidential candidate in 2016, said on CNN’s “State of the Union” show.

He criticised Obama for delays in aiding Kurdish fighters in desperate need of weapons and assistance.

KARACA, Turkey — The stone house has just two rooms but is now home to five Syrian families who fled the besieged town of Kobani to the relative safety of Turkey just a few kilometres away.

The Turkish village of Karaca is just 50 metres from the border. But for the families taking refuge there it is the difference between peace and war as Islamic State fighters seek to take their hometown from Syrian Kurds in a battle that has now raged for over a month.

Between a field and the front yard of the house in Karaca, there is a narrow street. At the end of it a Turkish flag flies and behind that looms Kobani itself.

There is no gate, only a Turkish police post straddling the border.

The Syrian Kurdish families crammed into the house all have different stories of how they arrived in Turkey, with some risking a perilous journey through a minefield on the border.

Their reward is relative safety but squalid conditions, with just one toilet for all to share and nights spent packed together on the floor.

"How long can we survive in this situation? At nights, we are packed like sardines in this room in order to sleep," said an elderly woman, Sebah Temo, there with her seven children.

Next to the house is a pit two metres in depth, covered with concrete, that functions as a sewer system since the village appears to be lacking one.

The families are all united by one single wish — to go back to their own lives, and their beloved homes.

Many of the refugees in the house crossed into Turkey having waited for days on the border — in the hope of seeing the Turkish army allowing them safe passage across the frontier, or expecting the IS extremists to leave their town.

"I waited on the border for 17-18 days," said Sevket Hesin, who fled to Turkey five days ago along with his wife and his two-month baby.

"It was raining. My baby was going to be sick. I took the risk. I crossed the barbed wire illegally. I could have been arrested but God willing, I did not and we made our way to Turkey," he said.

The journey is often pitted with dangers, whether from mines or involving smugglers who offer to take Syrians to a safe-haven in Turkey.

"It is dangerous. One of my neighbours walked into a minefield by mistake and he was injured. His legs were cut," said Hesin.

But he added: "This risk is nothing compared to ISIS," using an alternative name for the militant group.

'How long can we survive?' 

Fierce clashes between Kurdish fighters and IS insurgents have been raging for a month and around 200,000 people, mainly Syrian Kurds, from the Kobani region have fled to Turkey.

In this border village, they are safe but they endure miserable living conditions with limited assistance. There is one bathroom — which serves as both washroom and latrine for 30 people.

Speaking through tears, Sebah Temo gazed up at a roof where bags of aid assistance from nearby Turkish villages were piled.

"I am trying to make my heart and my mind survive this dire situation," she said. "Even in my dreams, I would never have thought we would go through this."

Fifty-year-old Sabiha, living in the house with her 12 children, longs for her own house in Kobani.

"We used to have a beautiful house: It was our property, our soil. We have nothing here," she said.

"This is not our house. We are temporarily here. We could be forced to leave any moment," she added. "To return home is my only hope. What else could I ask?"

In the meantime, she says, the only option is to soldier on.

"We wake up in the morning and we bake a lot of bread because now we are a big family."

ALGIERS — Tensions flared Sunday between Algeria and Morocco after Rabat accused an Algerian soldier of firing on Moroccan civilians across their joint border and seriously wounding one of them.

Algeria charged on Sunday that Rabat was misrepresenting the facts a day after Morocco had summoned the Algerian ambassador to "vigorously protest" about the shooting.

The borders between the two North African neighbours have been closed since 1994, and relations have been tense mainly because of a dispute over Western Sahara.

The Moroccan government said in a statement that an Algerian soldier on Saturday opened fire on a dozen civilians along the border near the northeastern city of Oujda.

One of them, a 28-year-old, was hit in the face by three bullets and "seriously wounded", said the statement.

It described the shooting as "a grave incident" and "an irresponsible act that comes on top of other provocative acts... along the border".

The foreign ministry summoned the Algerian ambassador to demand explanations while Interior Minister Mohamed Hassad said the soldier should be "brought to justice", said Morocco's MAP news agency.

But on Sunday the Algerian foreign ministry hit back, saying Rabat's allegations were "false".

A statement acknowledged that Algerian border guards had fired "two warning shots in the air" after coming under attack from "Moroccan smugglers who pelted them with stones".

"The border guards... reacted professionally by firing two warning shots in the air which can in no way cause anyone to be injured," the ministry said.

The "facts have been manipulated and the declarations of Moroccan officials... reflect an irresponsible attitude which does not fit with the values of fraternity and good neighbourly relations", it said.

Western Sahara has been a thorn in relations between Morocco and Algeria.

Morocco occupied much of Western Sahara in 1975 after former colonial power Spain withdrew but the territory is claimed by the pro-independence Algerian-backed Polisario Front.

The dispute has hindered the work of the five-nation Arab Maghreb Union — which also includes Libya, Tunisia and Mauritania — created in 1989 as a trade bloc.

BAGHDAD — The UN voiced alarm Sunday over the increasing use of the death penalty in Iraq in the decade since its reintroduction, warning such punishments would only fuel deadly sectarian conflict.

In a report released on Sunday, the United Nations office in Iraq said the increase culminated with the execution of 177 individuals in 2013, including up to 34 in a single day.

It also said at least 60 had been executed since the start of 2014 and that a total of 1,724 prisoners were on death row as of August.

"The large numbers of people who are sentenced to death in Iraq is alarming, especially since many of these convictions are based on questionable evidence and systemic failures in the administration of justice," said the UN's envoy in Iraq, Nickolay Mladenov.

The UN office said half the trials it monitored saw judges systematically ignore claims by defendants that they were subjected to torture to induce confessions.

It also said most defendants appeared in court unrepresented. When a lawyer was appointed, the defence was not granted enough time to prepare its defence.

"Far from providing justice to the victims of acts of violence and terrorism and their families, miscarriages of justice merely compound the effects of the crime by potentially claiming the life of another innocent person," the report said.

The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, HH Prince Zeid, warned that such court decisions would only fuel the flames of deadly sectarian conflict in Iraq.

"Given the weaknesses of the criminal justice system in Iraq, executing individuals whose guilt may be questionable merely compounds the sense of injustice and alienation among certain sectors of the population," he said.

According to Amnesty International, only China, Saudi Arabia and Iran have carried out more executions than Iraq since 2007.

As sectarian violence rages in Iraq, hundreds of summary executions have also been blamed on militias groups working hand in glove with the government.

BAGHDAD — A suicide bomber killed 19 at a funeral in Baghdad on Sunday as an ambush halted Iraqi forces' advance on a key northern city controlled by Islamic State fighters.

The bomber killed 19 and wounded 28 others outside a Shiite Muslim mosque, where people were attending a funeral service, in western Baghdad, a police officer and medical official said.

"The attacker approached the entrance of the mosque and blew himself up among the crowd," the police officer said, speaking on condition of anonymity about the attack in the affluent neighborhood of Harthiya.

Baghdad has witnessed a surge in bombings in the last month, most of them claimed by Islamic State, as the government, headed by Prime Minister Haider Al Abadi, seeks traction in its effort to subdue Sunni parts of the country that Islamic State has seized this year.

Elsewhere, Iraqi forces attempted to retake the northern city of Baiji, which is adjacent to the country's largest refinery, which continues to be in the hands of the government despite a siege by Islamic State.

The military operation, launched in the early hours of Saturday, was snarled when an armored vehicle blew up near the security forces' convoy in a village some 20km south of Baiji, officers said

The blast killed four soldiers and wounded seven.

"The attacker surprised our forces as he was driving a military armoured vehicle. We thought it was our vehicle," said an army major participating in the operation.

"We are planning to retake Baiji as soon as possible to secure a key highway and to stop the daily attacks of terrorists on the Baiji refinery," he added.

The offensive looks to bypass the Iraqi city of Tikrit, which lies to the south of Baiji and is controlled by Islamic State, and instead to focus on Baiji itself.

Iraqi forces have protected the Baiji refinery since June despite being surrounded on all sides after the Iraqi army imploded in the north in the face of a major Islamic State military blitz.

The group holds territory across eastern Syria and northern and western Iraq, with the ambition of establishing rule based upon medieval Islamic precepts. The United States is leading an international coalition in conducting air strikes aimed to defeat the jihadists.

SANAA — Shiite rebels seeking to expand their territory across Yemen have clashed with Sunni tribesmen and Al Qaeda fighters in violence that has left dozens dead, officials said Saturday.

Yemen has been dogged by political instability since an Arab Spring-inspired uprising forced veteran strongman Ali Abdullah Saleh from power in 2012.

Rival armed groups, including both the Houthi Shiite rebels and Al Qaeda, have sought to step into the power vacuum.

At least 40 people are reported to have been killed in the past two days as the Houthi rebels push south with the security force largely absent.

The Houthis have already overrun the capital Sanaa and the Red Sea port city of Hudeida as they seek greater political clout in the country, located next to oil kingpin Saudi Arabia and important shipping routes in the Gulf of Aden.

As their advance has taken them out of the mainly Shiite northern highlands further south into predominantly Sunni areas, they have met increasingly fierce resistance from local tribes as well as Al Qaeda.

The rebels lost 12 fighters in a rocket-propelled grenade attack on their vehicle on Saturday in Ibb province, medics and local officials said.

Four tribesmen were also killed in fighting.

In Rada further east, the rebels withdrew just hours after entering the town, following twin suicide bombings and rocket-propelled grenade fire by Al Qaeda, tribal sources said.

Ultimatum ignored 

The Huthi rebels took control of the capital Sanaa on September 21 after orchestrating weeks of protests that paralysed the government.

The fighting in Ibb came despite an ultimatum by its governor, Yehya Al Iryani, for “armed groups from all sides to leave the province and end violence”.

Fighting for Ibb city killed 14 rebels and 10 tribesmen on Friday and Iryani threatened to take “all necessary measures to restore security and stability”.

But during the night, hundreds of armed tribesmen surrounded Ibb, laying siege to the rebels inside the city, witnesses said.

Saturday’s clashes came as the rebels tried to send reinforcements from Shiite areas further north, tribal sources said.

Meanwhile, Ibb police chief General Fuad Al Attab resigned “to prevent further bloodshed and block the way for those seeking sedition and destruction” of the province, he said in a resignation letter seen by AFP.

The rebels had been demanding the resignation of Attab, a member of the powerful Muslim Brotherhood-linked Al Islah (reform) Party.

President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi discussed the situation with US President Barack Obama by telephone on Friday, according to Yemen’s official Saba news agency.

Defending Sunnis 

Yemen is a key US ally in the fight against Al Qaeda.

Washington regards the extremist group’s Yemen branch as its most dangerous, and has carried out a drone war against its militants with the support of Hadi’s government.

Al Qaeda has vowed to fight the rebels in the name of Sunni Islam and claimed responsibility for a suicide bombing that killed 47 Huthi supporters in Sanaa earlier this month.

It has also carried out a string of other attacks against the rebels, who have vowed to hunt down the militants responsible.

In the southern province of Lahij, Al Qaeda suspects opened fire Saturday at a vehicle carrying a local chief of pro-army militiamen who have fought extremists alongside troops, security officials said.

In Sanaa, meanwhile, dozens of Huthis gathered outside Saudi Arabia’s embassy to protest a death sentence given by a Saudi court this week to prominent Shiite cleric Nimr Al Nimr for sedition.

They chanted Iran’s Islamic revolutionary slogan: “Death to America! Death to Israel!”, witnesses said.

Nimr was a driving force behind demonstrations against the Sunni authorities that erupted in Saudi Arabia’s oil-rich east in 2011.

Authorities in Yemen and Saudi Arabia accuse Shiite-dominated Iran of backing the Huthi rebels.