SANA, Yemen — Yemen’s Shiite rebels proclaimed a formal takeover of the Arab nation Friday, dissolving parliament in a move that completes their power grab in the region’s poorest nation where an al-Qaeda terrorist offshoot flourishes.
Demonstrators protested the rebels’ move in rallies in several cities, raising fears of a full-blown sectarian conflict between Yemen’s new Shiite tribal rulers, known as Houthis, and the disenfranchised Sunni majority.
The unrest could strengthen Yemen’s al-Qaeda branch, considered the world’s most dangerous wing of the terrorism movement, and complicate U.S. counter-terrorism operations.
Although Houthi rebels are bitter enemies to al-Qaeda, they also are hostile to the United States and the predominantly Sunni Saudis. The region’s Shiite powerhouse, Iran, looms as a potential key backer.
White House spokesman Eric Schultz said the United States was “concerned with this unilateral step” but insisted that the Houthis’ declaration as the true government of Yemen after a four-month insurrection would not affect U.S. counterterrorism efforts there.
Houthi supporters filled the central square in Sana, the Yemeni capital, to celebrate the culmination of their coup. They exploded firecrackers and waved banners bearing their slogan “Death to America, death to Israel, a curse on the Jews and victory to Islam.”
Houthi leaders declared that their Revolutionary Committee — a panel of top security and intelligence officials — was Yemen’s new governing authority.
The declaration, read on the rebels’ Al-Masseria TV network, envisaged “a new era that will take Yemen to safe shores.”
But the Houthis, traditionally based in Yemen’s north bordering Saudi Arabia, don’t control the entire country. Secessionist forces and powerful tribes in the largely Sunni south are likely to confront with violence any effort by the Houthis to exert control there.
