Foes, backers of Yemen transition deal fight in Sanaa

Backers of a Yemeni Islamist party that signed on to a plan to nudge the president from power scuffled with members of a Shi'ite rebel movement frozen out of the deal in the capital Sanaa on Tuesday, witnesses said.   

 They said loyalists of the Islah party traded blows with clubs and volleys of stones with members of the Houthi rebel movement, in the Sanaa square that has seen nearly a year of protests aimed at forcing the president from power.    

Activists said at least 20 people were injured during the scuffles, which a representative of the Houthis said erupted when Islah backers attacked a tent they had set up to denounce the deal to edge President Ali Abdullah Saleh out of office.    

That deal - crafted by Yemen's richer neighbors, and backed by a U.N. Security Council resolution and Washington - offers Saleh immunity from prosecution in exchange for handing power to his deputy, who is to work with a government including Islah and other opposition parties before a February presidential vote.    

Saleh had backed out of the deal several times before signing it last month in Saudi Arabia, which shares U.S. fears that the struggle over Saleh's fate could descend into civil war and chaos that strengthens al Qaeda's wing in Yemen.    

Any successor to Saleh would face multiple, overlapping conflicts including renewed separatist sentiment in the south, which fought a civil war with Saleh's north in 1994 after four turbulent years of formal union.

Reuters