Power struggle at root of Yemen violence

SAN'A, Yemen -- The deadly artillery barrages and sprawling street battles that have engulfed Yemen in recent days are rooted in a strategic power struggle among a renegade general, a billionaire tribal leader and the family of longtime President Ali Abdullah Saleh.

The animosities among the three factions are eclipsing a largely peaceful protest movement that for eight months has been unable to force Saleh from office. The intense fighting in the capital is rumbling closer to civil war as the president's main rivals maneuver for control of the nation.

Gunfire and explosions in a battle between soldiers for and against Saleh battered San'a for a third day yesterday. Ten people were killed, including two who died in a dawn rocket attack on a protester camp.

Since Sunday, nearly 60 people have been killed in the capital, many of them unarmed protesters targeted by artillery and snipers.

The violence has grown more ferocious as Maj. Gen. Ali Mohsin Saleh Ahmar, commander of the 1st Armored Division who defected with his troops in March to join protesters, has skirmished with forces backing the president's son, Ahmed Saleh, who heads the Republican Guard. The volatility has further increased as billionaire Hamid Ahmar, no relation to the general, has mobilized his clan against Saleh's family.

Fighting spread from the protesters' tents around Change Square to the affluent neighborhood of Hadda, where unconfirmed reports say Hamid Ahmar's compound came under fire.

"They all have their agendas," Mohammed Mutwakel, an opposition leader, said of the factions vying for control. "They want to take cover in the protests or use the protests to advance their goals."

Gen. Ahmar, who runs corrupt businesses and was long considered the second most powerful man in Yemen, is sympathetic to radical political Islam and could embolden the country's extremist clerics.

Hamid Ahmar, a scion of the Hashid tribe, made his fortune after Saleh allowed him to control a bank, oil businesses and the country's mobile phone network.

But over the last year he distanced himself from Saleh and is opposing Saleh's son becoming the next leader.