SANAA, Yemen - Dissident tribesmen fought loyalist troops in the Yemeni capital for a third straight day on Thursday, leaving bodies on the streets and sending thousands of residents fleeing.
More than 60 people have now been confirmed killed in the fighting since a fragile truce between the forces of powerful tribal leader Sheikh Sadiq al-Ahmar and embattled President Ali Abdullah Saleh collapsed on Tuesday.
But medics said they had no word yet on casualties from Thursday's fighting as ambulance crews were unable to access the Al-Hasaba neighborhood of north Sanaa where Ahmar has his base.
"The bodies are still scattered in Al-Hasaba and ambulances cannot reach it due to the dangerous situation there," a medical official said.
At least 15 more people died in overnight fighting, medics said, adding to 47 killed on Tuesday and Wednesday.
A seven-year-old girl, who was hit by a stray bullet, also died of her wounds, an official at Al-Jumhuriya hospital said.
Residents said the fighting was the fiercest so far after loyalist special forces who had received US training as part of Washington's "war on terror" joined the battle.
Thousands of armed tribesmen were on their way to Sanaa to boost Ahmar's forces, tribal leaders said.
An advanced guard clashed with loyalist troops when it was stopped at a military post 15 kilometers north of the capital, they added.
Witnesses said a warplane broke the sound barrier over Ahmar's hometown of Khamr, 80 kilometers north of Sanaa, in an apparent attempt to intimidate the tribesmen of his Hashid confederation.
Mohsen Sinan, 70, said he and 30 members of his household were trying to flee Sanaa along with many other residents. "Sanaa is deserted now and if these battles continue, Yemen will be finished," he said.
Many shops were closed and long queues formed outside petrol stations. Those residents who remained in the city complained of water shortages and power cuts.
An aviation official said flights were being diverted from the capital's main international airport, which is just 10 kilometers from Al-Hasaba, but its director Naji al-Marqab later insisted flights were running normally.
Saleh, who has been in power in Sanaa since 1978, has faced nationwide protests against his rule since mid-January.
Ahmar, who heads one of the impoverished Arabian Peninsula nation's two main tribal confederations, threw his weight behind the protesters in March.
When Saleh last month refused to sign a plan brokered by Yemen's wealthy Gulf Arab neighbors for him to step down in return for a promise of immunity from prosecution, Ahmar's fighters seized a string of public buildings across the capital sparking clashes with troops loyal to the president.
A truce announced last week lasted just four days before clashes resumed with each side blaming the other.
A government spokesman on Thursday raised the possibility that Saleh might finally give in to international pressure and sign up to the transition plan drawn up by the 6-nation Gulf Cooperation Council.
"The date for the signing will be set soon based on consultations and coordination between Yemen and the Gulf Cooperation Council states," the official Saba news agency quoted the spokesman as saying.
In Yemen's second city Taez, protesters again took to the streets on Thursday, for the first time bearing weapons, witnesses said.
The protesters clashed with troops of the Republican Guard, an elite unit commanded by Saleh's son Ahmed, the witnesses said, adding that there were no immediate reports of casualties.
Loyalist troops smashed a long-running sit-in in the center of Taez earlier this week, leaving more than 50 protesters dead, according to the UN human rights office.
Nationwide, well over 200 demonstrators have died since the protests first erupted in January, according to an AFP tally based on reports from medics.
Scores more people have died in the fighting between dissident tribesmen and loyalist troops. Yemen has one of the highest rates of private gun ownership in the world with an average of some three per person.
'Sanaa airport flights not suspended'
Meanwhile, the head of Sanaa's airport denied Thursday that all flights to the Yemeni capital have been diverted to the southern city of Aden, as earlier stated by an aviation official.
No changes have been made to flight schedules at Sanaa airport, state television quoted the airport director, whom it did not name, as saying.
An aviation official earlier told AFP that flights to Sanaa have been suspended and diverted to Aden, as fighting raged between armed tribesmen and security forces in the capital.
"All flights have been diverted to Aden airport," said the official who requested anonymity.
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