Yemen temporarily closed the Sanaa International Airport today after opposition forces shelled a nearby military air field, destroying a pair of fighter jets and causing a fire at a weapons depot. No casualties were reported.
Yemen’s Saleh regime said they are still looking for “suspects” for the attack, but in response shelled an opposition neighborhood in the capital’s north, killing four civilians including three children.
Yemeni troops have been fighting an off-and-on battle with defectors and tribesmen in the capital for months, ever since one of the military’s top generals, Ali Mohsen, defected in March and brought much of the military’s armored brigades with him.
Between the defectors and the tribesmen who are backing pro-democracy protesters, the Yemeni military has been unable to reclaim the capital city, and violence has also engulfed much of the nation’s southern coast, with officials blaming this on al-Qaeda.
Yep, that is Saleh's regime. After bombing many times neighborhoods in Sana'a, Taiz, Hodeidah, and scores of little towns in the south, along with the regular US drone attacks, now — a wonder of wonders — military is split up, and is bombing government facilties. Saleh is a practical man. He has learned much from the West. Bomb civilian neighborhoods, bomb their infrastructure, and sooner or later, the popular uprising will be exausted. Add to that curtailing of trade and other punishments, he wants towns to surrender. Well, unlike in many other countries, Yemen actually has individually owned agriculture that produces enough for sustinence. While there is not much surplus product left, the city population have relatives in the country, and get their food that way. This is why modern corporations hate small farmers. They are independent people, poor but free, and that is a BIG NO-NO in our corporate run world.