SANAA, Yemen
(AP) -- The leader of the Shiite rebels who control Yemen's capital and
seized the presidential palace on Tuesday warned of a further escalation
if President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi stands in the way of political
reform. In a lengthy speech aired by the
group's TV network, Abdel-Malek al-Houthi said "all options are open"
and that escalation "has no ceiling" if the president does not "speed
up" implementation of a U.N.-brokered peace deal. That
deal would grant the Shiite rebels, known as Houthis, greater power and
shake up a committee tasked with drafting a new constitution. Houthi
also voiced defiance to the U.N. Security Council, which held a
closed-door meeting on the Yemeni crisis on Tuesday, saying "any measure
you take to force this country to succumb ... will not benefit you." THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Check back soon for further information. AP's earlier story is below. Yemen's
powerful Shiite Houthi rebels shelled the residence of the country's
embattled president Tuesday and simultaneously swept into the
presidential palace in the capital, Sanaa, as a top military commander
warned that a full-fledged "coup" was underway. President
Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi was inside the residence as it came under
"heavy shelling" for half an hour but he was unharmed and protected by
guards, officials said. In New York, the U.N. Security Council held an
emergency meeting over the chaos in Sanaa. The
shelling was a dramatic development that put the U.S.-backed Hadi into a
precarious position and represented the starkest challenge to his
authority since the Houthis swept into Sanaa from their northern
stronghold and seized the capital in September. Information
Minister Nadia al-Sakkaf posted on her Twitter account that the
shelling started at 3 p.m. local time "by armed forces positioned over
rooftops facing" the president's house. At the
same time, Houthi rebels also raided the president's offices, sweeping
into the presidential palace and looting the grounds' arms depots,
according to Col. Saleh al-Jamalani, the commander of the Presidential
Protection Force that guards the palace. "This
is a coup. There is no other word to describe what is happening but a
coup," al-Jamalani told The Associated Press, adding that the rebels
were likely aided by insiders. In a starkly
different narrative, the Houthis' TV network al-Masseria claimed the
rebels intercepted and foiled attempts by an unspecified group to loot
weapons from the presidential palace. The
escalation shattered a tense cease-fire that had held overnight and
throughout the morning, following Monday's heavy clashes that engulfed
the city, leaving ordinary Yemenis stunned and fearing for their
country. The U.N. Secretary-General Ban
Ki-moon expressed concern over the "deteriorating situation" in Yemen
and urged all sides to cease hostilities. The
latest spasm of violence followed apparently unsuccessful negotiations
earlier in the day between Hadi and a representative of the Houthis at
his residence. Also earlier Tuesday, Houthi
fighters roamed the streets on foot and in pickup trucks mounted with
anti-aircraft guns, manned checkpoints across Sanaa and near the prime
minister's residence, and beefed up their presence around other key
building, including the intelligence headquarters. The
show of force came after they seized control of state media in Sanaa
and clashed with Yemeni soldiers near the presidential palace on Monday.
Heavy machine gun fire and artillery shells struck around the
presidential palace and sent civilians fleeing as columns of black smoke
rose and sirens wailed throughout the city. Monday's
violence left at least nine people dead and 67 were wounded, Yemen's
deputy health minister, Nasser Baoum, said, while both Houthis and
Hadi's forces blamed each other for the outbreak. Houthis' power grab has been long anticipated and analysts say they are only "finishing the job" they began in September. "What
is happening now is just one more step toward (the Houthis')
consolidation of power," said Abdel-Bari Taher, a veteran Yemeni
journalist and writer. Tuesday's negotiations
at Hadi's residence focused on the shake-up of an 85-member commission
tasked with coming up with the outline of Yemen's future federation, as
stated in the draft constitution, Cabinet spokesman Rageh Badi said. Reforming
the commission has long been overdue and was part of a U.N.-brokered
peace deal following the Houthis' capture of Sanaa. The
Houthis accuse Hadi of violating that deal by calling in the current
members of the commission to a meeting days ago, prompting the rebels to
retaliate and abduct his top aide, Ahmed bin Mubarak, and setting the
wheels in motion for the latest violence. But
one of Hadi's advisers, Yassin Mekkawi, claimed a "deal" to resolve the
violence had been struck during the talks at the president's residence
and that it would be announced later Tuesday. He declined to elaborate. The
weakening of Hadi, a top U.S. ally, also undermines efforts by America
and its allies to battle al-Qaida's Yemeni affiliate, which claimed
responsibility for the attack on a Paris satirical magazine earlier this
month. Washington has long viewed Al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula, or
AQAP as the Yemeni branch is known, as the global terror network's most
dangerous affiliate. The Houthis' blitz in
Sanaa and expansionist aspirations in central Yemen, where Sunni
tribesmen dominate, also threatens to transform the current conflict
into a sharply sectarian one, pitting Sunnis against Shiites. Al-Qaida
in Yemen, which has waged deadly attacks targeting both the Houthis and
Hadi's forces, stands to benefit. The Houthis
are also seen by their critics as a proxy of Shiite Iran and are
believed to be allied with former President Ali Abdullah Saleh, who
ruled Yemen for more than three decades before he was ousted in 2012
after Arab Spring protests. The rebels deny any Iran links. Suspected
al-Qaida militants on Tuesday tried to assassinate a top army commander
in the southern Hadramawt province, killing five of his guards in the
attack, military officials said. The militants
set off explosives, hurling them at the commander's convoy, then opened
gunfire but the commander managed to escape unharmed, the officials
said, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not
authorized to speak to media.- Associated Press writers Maggie Michael and Sarah El Deeb contributed to this report from Cairo.
Yemeni rebel leader vows escalation if reforms stall

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