Al Qaeda Militants Take Yemeni Town

The New York Times reports:

Islamist militants battled Yemeni security forces in the southern province of Abyan on Sunday even as the government struck a deal for a cease-fire in the capital, Sana, with its tribal rivals, bringing relative calm here after days of fierce fighting.

In Sana, Yemeni officials said President Ali Abdullah had agreed to a truce with his historic tribal rivals the Ahmar family. Violence broke out between the two sides last Monday after Mr. Saleh refused to follow through on his promise to sign an agreement leading to his resignation.

“There is a truce and it is still holding,” said Abdul Karim Aleryani, prominent governing party official and adviser to Mr. Saleh. However other officials described the truce as tenuous and far from set in stone.

Still, after more than 100 people were killed last week in fighting that provoked fears of civil war, there were tangible signs of a reduction in tensions. Tribesmen from the Hashid tribal confederation loyal to the Ahmar family began Sunday to hand over to authorities government buildings that they had occupied last week.

“We will hand over the other ministries one by one gradually,” said Hashem al-Ahmar, one of the 10 Ahmar brothers, told reporters on Sunday.

However, a spokesperson for Sheik Sadiq al-Ahmar, Abdulqawi Qaisi, told local reporters that the Ahmars will fully comply with a cease-fire only if the government removes its security forces from their posts in houses near the Ahmar compound in the Hasaba district in northern Sana.

Even if the cease-fire holds, the crisis in Yemen is far from resolved. Peaceful protests calling for Mr. Saleh’s ouster have drawn hundreds of thousands of people on the streets for months.