15 dead as Yemen truce collapses

A truce reached by Yemen's government and dissidents, who have been locked in bloody battles for weeks, collapsed as soon as it was announced today with fresh fighting rocking the capital.

Fifteen people were killed in Sanaa and Taez, most of them in Yemen's second largest city, medical and tribal sources said.

Medics said at least seven people were killed in Taez, including a seven-year-old child, a woman and a policeman, during what residents said was random shelling by government forces of neighbourhoods.

The interior ministry said four policemen also died.

In Sanaa, the truce failed to take hold. Tribal sources said at least one man was killed and nine people were wounded when shelling rocked the northern Al-Hasaba neighbourhood.

The government and dissident general Ali Mohsen al-Ahmar had reached a ceasefire agreement, according to an official statement.

Tribal forces in Al-Hasaba led by powerful chief Sheikh Sadiq al-Ahmar, who backs the general and has thrown his support behind pro-democracy protests across Yemen, also agreed to the ceasefire, sources in his office told AFP.

The government statement said the truce went into immediate effect, but Sadiq's brother, Sheikh Hemyar, told AFP that President Ali Abdullah Saleh's troops continued to attack the Ahmars' homes.

"The truce was not respected for one second by the government," Sheikh Hemyar told AFP by telephone. "As I talk to you, our homes are being shelled" in the district of Al-Hasaba.

Residents in Al-Hasaba confirmed that the area was being raked by gunfire and explosions.