Northern Yemen proclaimed an end to nine weeks of civil war after its forces overran the secessionist southern capital, but rebel leaders vowed to continue their battle from exile.
The northern-based government declared the war over Thursday after its troops entered Aden, the southern capital, aboard tanks and armored personnel carriers. The government committed itself to democracy and asked the United Nations to monitor conditions in the Arabian Peninsula nation.Ali Salem al-Beidh, the self-proclaimed southern president, fled to Oman, Yemen's eastern neighbor, with a group of aides, Oman's government confirmed today.
Beidh's deputy, Abdul Rahman Ali al-Jifri, vowed the southerners would fight on "for a good honorable life for our people," Mohsen Mohammed Farid, a Jifri aide, told The Associated Press in Saudi Arabia.
Jifri's whereabouts were not known.
About 2,000 southern holdouts backed by tanks and heavy armor attacked northern forces just east of Aden on Thursday night, the Kuwaiti News Agency reported.
The news agency, monitored in Bahrain, said street battles raged in suburbs east of the capital, but there was no independent confirmation and it was not known whether resistance continued today.
Thousands of people are believed to have died in fighting that began May 4 and ended a four-year merger of conservative, tribal North Yemen and communist South Yemen, which seceded May 20. The two states had fought several wars and skirmished since the 1960s.
Saudi Arabia Friday condemned northern Yemen's "insistence . . . to continue fighting without adherence to the decisions of international legitimacy," a reference to calls for a cease-fire.
Earlier, as northern troops entered Aden, the former southern stronghold, residents flashed V-for-victory signs and shouted "Ahlan wa sahlan," Arabic for "welcome."