Northern Yemen Claims Troops Are Close to Taking Southern City

Northern Yemen claimed that its troops had battled toward the outskirts of Aden, the southern stronghold, where the rival leadership ordered a general mobilization Sunday to defend the city.

In a radio broadcast, the south denied the claims. But northern officials predicted that Aden would fall by Monday.

As Yemen sank deeper into civil war, foreigners fled on boats, planes and helicopters. The German military evacuated more than 200 people from the northern capital, Sana, to Djibouti on Sunday. About 1,500 people, mainly Americans and Europeans, had left by Saturday.

The U.S. Embassy advised all 5,000 Americans to leave, and the French Foreign Ministry said it will begin evacuations today.

Yemen, on the tip of the Arabian Peninsula, had been edging toward civil war since August when Vice President Ali Salim Bidh, a southerner, walked out of the government. He was dissatisfied with the slow pace of integration following the May, 1990, merger of conservative, tribal North Yemen and socialist South Yemen. Bidh also accused northerners of killing more than 150 of his supporters.

Unification was popular with impoverished Yemen’s 14 million people, who regard themselves as one nation. But Bidh and President Ali Abdullah Saleh, a northerner, continued to feud, and the militaries were never integrated.

There were conflicting reports from northern officials about fighting Sunday in Lahij, north of Aden. The Defense Ministry claimed that northern troops had wiped out southern forces there, but the Information Ministry said fighting was still going on.