SANAA, Yemen —Shiite rebels shelled the residence of Yemen’s leader and swept into the nearby presidential palace Tuesday in what a top army commander said was an unfolding coup.
President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi — an important U.S. ally in the fight against the highly lethal Yemeni branch of al-Qaeda that claimed responsibility for the newspaper-office attack in Paris — was unharmed, authorities said.
But his grip on power appeared increasingly precarious.
The Shiite rebels, known as Houthis, took over the capital Sanaa in September as part of a long power struggle with Hadi. They effectively govern several other cities as well.
It was unclear whether they intend to seize power altogether or allow the internationally backed president to remain in office.
In a lengthy speech aired by the group’s TV network, rebel leader Abdel-Malek al-Houthi said that “all options are open” and that the escalation “has no ceiling” if Hadi does not speed up implementation of a U.N.-brokered peace deal that would grant the Houthis greater power over a commission that has been assigned to draft a new constitution and outline a new federal system. Critics of the Houthis say they are using the U.N. deal as a pretext to seize more power.
In Washington, U.S. officials said the rebel violence is undermining American military and intelligence operations against the al-Qaeda branch, which claimed to have carried out the recent attack on the satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo that left 12 people dead in Paris.
Washington has long viewed the Yemeni branch, known as Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, as the global terror network’s most dangerous affiliate.
Yemeni Information Minister Nadia al-Sakkaf posted to Twitter that armed forces positioned on rooftops began bombarding the president’s house. Hadi was inside the heavily guarded residence at the time but was not harmed, officials said.
“This is a coup. There is no other word to describe what is happening but a coup,” said Col. Saleh al-Jamalani, palace guard unit commander. He added that the rebels probably were aided by insiders.
