Yemen’s new unity government formed amid fresh clashes in Sana’a

Yemen’s Prime Minister-designate Mohammed Basindawa said on Wednesday he had finalized his new unity government and would disclose the line-up later in the day.

“The government has been formed and we will announce it formally this evening,” Basindawa told AFP in the Yemeni capital Sana’a.

“We have agreed on all the names,” he added.

Half of the new cabinet ministers will be from the opposition, while loyalists of embattled President Ali Abdullah Saleh will make up the other half, a condition stipulated in the Gulf brokered power-transfer deal signed by Saleh on November 23.

Yemen’s opposition Common Forum spokesman Mohammed Qahtan told AFP last week that Saleh loyalists would keep the ministries of defense, foreign affairs, oil, telecommunications and civil services.

He said the opposition meanwhile would head the ministries of interior, finance, cooperation, information and human rights.

The newly formed transitional cabinet will carry-out government duties for three months, after which elections will be held and Vice President Abdrabuh Mansur Hadi will formally take over the presidency.

The Gulf Cooperation Council plan, which is backed by the United Nations, forced Saleh to hand over power to Hadi in return for immunity from prosecution for him and his family.

The GCC deal also allows Saleh to remain honorary president until Hadi’s election.

Meanwhile, pro-government forces and tribesmen opposed to Saleh traded artillery fire on the streets Sana’a, witnesses said.

The fighting, which raged near government buildings and the compound of Sadeq al-Ahmar, a foe of Saleh commanding significant forces, were the latest challenge to the Gulf-brokered transition plan to prevent civil war after 10 months of bloodstained protests demanding an end to Saleh’s 33-year rule.

Top oil exporter Saudi Arabia shares U.S. fears that a slide toward more chaos in Yemen would embolden the country’s al-Qaeda wing - against which Washington has waged a campaign of drone strikes - in a country sitting next to oil shipping routes.

Witnesses said government forces clashed in the capital’s al-Hasaba district, a stronghold of al-Ahmar, with shells falling on government buildings including the headquarters of state radio and the prime ministerial offices.

“Militants and army soldiers have been fighting near the Interior Ministry since dawn. They’re using machineguns and RPGs,” Abdul Rahman, a Sana’a resident, said by phone as gunfire reverberated in the background.

“We are trapped in our homes and can’t get out,” he said.

The capital saw open warfare between Saleh’s forces and those of al-Ahmar, a leader of the powerful Hashed tribal confederation, in May after Saleh ducked out of signing the transition deal backed by the Gulf Cooperation Council.

Any new government in Yemen faces challenges including rising separatist sentiment in the south, once an independent socialist republic, with which Saleh’s north fought a civil war in 1994 following unification four years earlier.

The region is also the site of conflict between government forces and Islamist fighters which has displaced tens of thousands of people.