[Beirut Daily Star: Region] Government forces bombed Shiite rebels in northern Yemen Wednesday, killing dozens and escalating a conflict along the Saudi border that could further destabilize the US-allied country as it faces a resurgent threat from Al-Qaeda. The offensive, which started late Tuesday, followed claims by local officials and rebels that they had seized more of northern Saada Province from government troops. A high-level security committee, headed by President Ali Abdullah Saleh, promised to crush the rebels "with an iron-fist." A rebel spokesman said 15 civilians died in an airstrike Wednesday on an outdoor market near the town of Haydan in Saada. A local government official said 20 rebels were killed. The discrepancy in the toll could not immediately be reconciled. A local Health Ministry official said 12 others died in fighting across Saada and 51 were injured.
Local officials and the rebels have said that hundreds have fled the clashes.
The five-year-old rebellion in Saada, which borders predominantly Sunni Saudi Arabia, pits Shiite Muslims against Yemen's Sunni-led government. The impoverished Arabian Peninsula country is already battling a separate uprising to the south, and a resurgent Al-Qaeda. The government has little authority outside the major cities and has tried repeatedly to suppress the Saada rebels, with little success.
The stability of Yemen -- the ancestral homeland of Osama bin Laden -- is a key concern for both Saudi Arabia and the US.
Christopher Boucek, a Yemen expert at the Carnegie Endowment, says the Saada fighting, "right next door to the world's biggest oil producer," compounds the region's security threat and underscores Yemen's weaknesses.
"The government has not been able to put down this uprising, so it's seen as increasingly weaker and this will embolden Al-Qaeda," Boucek told The Associated Press.
Saudi Arabia fears the conflict could make its own disgruntled Shiite tribes more restive.
Rebel spokesman MohamÂmad Abdel-Salam said that the bombing culminated in the strike on Haydan. He said some missiles fell in residential areas, killing civilians and destroying homes. "We remind the authorities that we are totally ready to confront their aggression, and their loss will be more than previous rounds," Abdel-Salam said in a statement.
A rebel leader, Saleh Habra, said only one fighter was killed in the last four days of fighting. He accused the government of targeting villagers in the widened offensive.