(Reuters) - An
improvised bomb exploded outside the republican palace in the Yemeni
capital Sanaa on Saturday and wounded three Shi'ite Muslim militiamen
guarding it, eyewitnesses said. The attack came a day
after the Houthi Shi'ite militant group dissolved parliament and
formally took power of the impoverished and strife-town Arabian
Peninsula country. Once the home of the resigned Yemeni
prime minister, the republican palace now houses Mohammed al-Houthi, a
top official in the Iranian-backed movement's military wing whose gunmen
now hold sway over much of Yemen. There
was no immediate claim of responsibility for the bomb But Sunni Muslim
militants in al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) have repeatedly
bombed and clashed with the Houthis, raising fears of a slide toward
all-out sectarian conflict. Also
on Saturday morning, Houthi gunmen fired in the air to disperse dozens
of people protesting against the movement's actions near Sanaa's main
university. The Houthis
entered Sanaa in September and began to fan out into more cities in
Yemen's south and west. Armed Houthi personnel were out in force after
their Friday announcement, manning checkpoints around key government
buildings. Yemen has been
in political limbo since President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi and the
government of Prime Minister Khaled Bahah resigned last month after the
Houthis seized the presidential palace and confined the head of state to
his residence in a struggle to tighten control over the country. The
United States and Yemen's energy-rich Gulf neighbors fear the breakdown
in stability there might strengthen AQAP and unravel an international
plan for a transition to democracy that has struggled to take hold since
Arab Spring protests ousted Hadi's predecessor, veteran autocrat Ali
Abdullah Saleh. "The
unilateral declaration issued today by the Houthis does not meet the
standard of a consensus-based solution to Yemen’s political crisis,"
U.S. State Department spokeswoman Marie Harf told reporters on Friday.
Blast hits republican palace in Yemeni capital, wounding three militiamen

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