Today the Yemeni President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi has resigned after Shiite rebels had confined the leader to his home for the last two days.
The Houthis fighters remain stationed outside of his home and nearby presidential palace.
Jen Psaki, A State Department spokeswoman, said today that the U.S. is assessing the situation and looking for confirmation on the report.
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State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki said Thursday that the U.S. is assessing and seeking confirmation of the report.
The Yemeni government also submitted their resignation today prompting further fears and speculation that Yemen is completely without government at the moment and has lost control of the country.
Fox News reports:
It remains unclear who really controls the country.
Twenty-four hours after signing the deal, heavily armed Shiite rebels remained stationed outside Hadi’s house and the presidential palace.
Bahah’s technocratic government was formed in November as part of a United Nations-brokered peace deal after the Houthis overran the capital in September.
Bahah, a political independent, posted his resignation on his official Facebook page, saying he had held office in “very complicated circumstances.” He says he resigned in order to “avoid being dragged into an abyss of unconstructive policies based on no law.”
“We don’t want to be a party to what is happening or will happen,” he added.
In an attempt to end the logjam, U.N. Envoy Jamal Benomar arrived to the country and held a meeting with Houthis and other political factions to push for implementation of the deal.
In a brief press conference before the meeting, Benomar told reporters that the deal — in essence an activation of the previous UN-brokered agreement struck in September when Houthis overran the capital — is “the only solution for Yemen.”
Yemen’s emerging power vacuum has raised fears that the country’s dangerous Al Qaeda branch, which claimed the recent attack on a French satirical weekly, will only grow more powerful and popular as the nation slides toward fragmentation and the conflict takes on an increasingly sectarian tone. The Shiite Houthis and the Sunni terror group are sworn enemies.
While the capital was free of violence, clashes did erupt southeast of Sanaa between Houthi gunmen and local tribesman. Tribal leaders said two tribesmen and four gunmen allied with Houthi rebels were killed in Khawlan-Watadah, 30 miles from Sanaa.
The violence appeared to subside by midday, but a serious flare-up in the region lying along the road to Marib province, an oil-rich area in central Yemen and a haven for Al Qaeda fighters, could torpedo peace efforts. At the entrance of Marib itself, clashes also erupted between Houthis and local tribesmen over new checkpoints erected by tribal fighters.
U.S. warship are currently stationed nearby around the Red Sea in readiness for an escalation of the situation in Yemen.
Sean Adl-Tabatabai
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