Yemeni rebels and troops form joint guard after peace deal signed
Residents venture back onto streets of Sanaa after peace deal signed
Shiite rebels guarded government offices and army bases in the Yemeni capital alongside troops yesterday after a UN- brokered peace agreement aimed at ending a week of deadly fighting that killed an estimated 340 people.
Sunday's deal, signed by the president and all the main political parties, is intended to put the troubled transition back on track in impoverished Yemen which borders oil kingpin Saudi Arabia and is a key US ally in the fight against al-Qaeda.
Sanaa residents began to venture into the streets as the guns fell silent after a week of deadly clashes between the rebels and their Sunni Islamist opponents.
Rebel fighters were manning checkpoints with troops outside the public offices - including the government building, parliament, army headquarters and the central bank - they entered in Sunday's lightning advance.
Government commanders said they had orders to cooperate with the rebels, known as Ansarullah or Huthis, who had waged a decade-long insurgency in the mountains of the far north before launching a bid for power in the capital last month.
"We are working side by side with Ansarullah to protect public buildings and property," a military police commander said at a checkpoint near the rebel-controlled state radio headquarters.
The speed of the advance reflected the fragility of the regime three years after a deadly uprising which forced veteran strongman Ali Abdullah Saleh from power.
The rebels brought reinforcements into the capital overnight from their strongholds further north, tribal sources said.
They carried out searches through the night and into Monday of the homes of their Sunni Islamist opponents, multiple sources said. They included leading figures in the Islah party as well as General Ali Mohsen al- Ahmar, a veteran army officer close to the Islamists.
Sanaa provincial governor Abdulqader Hilal resigned in protest late on Sunday after rebels seized his car at a checkpoint, sources close to him said.
The rebels hail from the Zaidi Shiite community that makes up 30 per cent of Yemen's mostly Sunni population but is the majority community in the northern highlands, including Sanaa province.
They have taken advantage of shifting alliances among the region's Zaidi tribes to lay claim to a stake in power.
Under Sunday's deal, President Abdrabuh Mansur Hadi has three days to bring a rebel representative into government as an adviser and to name a neutral replacement for prime minister Mohamed Basindawa.
Basindawa tendered his resignation as the security forces surrendered state institutions without a fight although it had yet to be accepted by the president on Monday.
A security protocol to Sunday's agreement requires the rebels to hand over the institutions they have seized, and once a new prime minister has been named, to start dismantling the armed protest camps they established in and around the capital.
But rebel representatives refused to sign the protocol at Sunday's ceremony.
