Rebels continue fight in Yemeni capital

Press, 16 January 1986, Page 8

Rebels continue fight in Yemeni capital

NZPA-Reuter Bahrain Fighting continued between loyal troops and rebels in the South Yemeni capital of Aden more than 24 hours after reports of a bid to kill the President, Ali Nasser Muhammad. . “We hear there is shooting everywhere,” an Arab diplomat said in Djibouti, 20 minutes away by air from the capital across the Gulf of Aden. Western diplomatic sources in London said that tanks were on the streets and unidentified aircraft had bombed the international airport yesterday. One unconfirmed report from Aden said planes strafed both the Presidential palace and ships in the harbour. Reports from Kuwait and Djibouti said the President had been wounded — whether in the assassination

attempt or the fighting that followed was unclear — but diplomats elsewhere said they could not confirm this. The Djibouti sources said machine-gun fire and heavy mortar exchanges echoed across the capital, apparently centred on the eastern sector of the city round the Presidential palace. Libya’s Colonel Muammar Gadaffi, offered troops to halt the fighting. Aden Radio said on Monday that the former President, Abdul-Fatah Ismail, and three other hardline Marxists had been executed after trying to kill Nasser Muhammad and stage a coup. Diplomatic sources said the men might still be alive and leading the fight against Government troops. < Telephone and telex links to Aden remained cut yesterday and there was no clear

word from the capital on which way the fighting was going. South Yemen has an army of some 24,000 men, mostly conscript troops, but there has so far been no sign of how many of them remain loyal to the President. The British Embassy was hit in the fighting, said the Foreign Office in London. Gunfire had slightly damaged the building, a spokesman said. The “Daily Telegraph” newspaper said the Portuguese mission in Aden had been severely damaged. It said armed men had taken up positions at the Soviet Embassy. The Soviet Union, a major ally of South Yemen, commands loyalty from rival Marxist factions in the impoverished country.