"Citizens took full control of government buildings" in the administrative district of Munabbih, a rebel statement late on Wednesday said. It said local residents had turned against the authorities because of rights abuses. A government security source issued a statement saying the army had killed 62 rebels, referred to as Houthis after their leaders' clan, in mountainous Saada province where most of the Zaydi Shiites, a third of Yemen's 23 million population, live.
There was no official comment on the situation in Munabbih, which borders Saudi Arabia inside Saada province.
The United States and Saudi Arabia, the world's leading oil exporter, fear that fighting in the north of Yemen, and frequent street clashes with separatists in the south, could create instability that al Qaeda could exploit to carry out attacks in Saudi Arabia. It has already staged a comeback in Yemen in the past two years, with attacks on government and foreign targets.
The northern Zaydi rebels say they suffer religious discrimination by Sunni fundamentalists who have gained in strength because of President Ali Abdullah Saleh's close ties to Saudi Arabia, which adheres to a puritanical form of Sunni Islam.
