Shiite rebels killed four clansmen of a prominent Yemeni tribal leader opposed to their month-long protest campaign in a gunbattle in a Sanaa suburb on Tuesday, a tribal source said.
The deaths came as U.N. envoy Jamal Benomar pressed efforts to broker a deal to end the protests, which have seen tens of thousands of armed rebel activists camp out across Sanaa, cutting road links between the capital and the provinces.
President Abdrabuh Mansur Hadi has already agreed to involve the rebels in the formation of a new government to replace the unpopular administration which imposed austerity measures, including a sharp fuel price increase, earlier this year.
But the rebels are also demanding positions in key state institutions and Benomar has been shuttling between the two sides to firm up the details of a deal.
Tuesday's fighting erupted near a new protest camp which the rebels set up this week close to an army barracks in the suburb of Hamdan, on the northern outskirts of the capital, the tribal source said.
The tent city is the eighth armed protest camp the rebels have set up in the Sanaa region since they launched their campaign on August 18.
It was the second day in a row rebel activists have clashed with loyalist tribesmen. On Monday, there was heavy fighting in Jawf province, northeast of the capital.
The rebels, who have waged an on-off insurgency in the northern highlands since 2004, have taken advantage of shifting alliances among the region's Zaidi Shiite tribes since veteran strongman Ali Abdullah Saleh was forced from power in 2012 to lay claim to a share of power in Sanaa.
The Zaidis are a minority in mainly Sunni Yemen but are the majority community in the northern highlands, including the Sanaa region.
The rebels, known as Huthis from the name of their leading family, are opposed by Sunni militants, including al-Qaida loyalists, as well as by some Zaidi tribes.
Their protest campaign has exacerbated an already difficult transition since Saleh's ouster, which has also seen mounting secessionist sentiment in the formerly independent south and persistent attacks on the security forces by al-Qaida.
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