Sana’a: At least 16 people were killed in two days during sectarian clashes between Hawthi, a Shiite group, and hard-line Salafis in northern Yemen, media reported on Tuesday.
According to reports, in the north, sectarian clashes between hard-line Salafis and Hawthis, a Shiite group that joined last year’s uprising against Yemen’s president, have started up again in Saada, near the Saudi border. The city is dominated by Hawthis.
According to Hawthi spokesman Mohammed Abdel-Salam, four Hawthis were killed and six wounded in the clashes. He accused Saudi Arabia of supporting the Salafi groups against the Hawthis. A Salafi spokesman, Serour al-Wadie, said 12 Salafis were killed in the clashes.
Salafi groups live according to the ultra-conservative Wahhabi school of Islam. Saudi Arabia is the birthplace of Wahhabism.
Saudi Arabia was drawn into the conflict in November 2009 after rebels crossed the border and killed two Saudi border guards. Some 133 Saudi soldiers died in the fighting that followed.
The Hawthis fought a bloody six-year war against former president Ali Abdullah Saleh before reaching an agreement 2010 with Saleh, who then built the country’s biggest Wahhabi educational institute Saada.
During the yearlong uprising that forced Saleh to transfer power to his vice president in February, more than 200 people were killed in clashes between the Salafis and Hawthis before a cease-fire was brokered.
Some Salafis follow a militant ideology similar to al-Qaeda’s, but they are not formally affiliated. Many Sunni extremists do not consider Shiites to be true Muslims. In recent months, al-Qaida has called on some of its forces to fight the Shiite Hawthis.
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