HOUTHI rebels and al-Qaida militants battled in Yemen’s streets today as thousands of residents fled the town of Raad, at the heart of the fighting.

The Shia Houthi rebellion has gained enormous ground in the impoverished country recently, taking control of the capital Sana’a, the governorates of Saada and Amran in the north and this week Damar governorate and the Red Sea port of Hodeida.

But their battle with the government has now taken a back seat to direct confrontation in southern Yemen with what the US sees as al-Qaida’s most active national organisation.

Initial casualty figures listed six al-Qaida and five Houthi fatalities in Raad, but the real number was expected to be higher.

The al-Qaida insurgency in the south has troubled Yemen for years, with arbitrary US drone assassinations doing more to recruit militants than defeat them.

But Houthi successes elsewhere have prompted them to seek the comprehensive defeat of the terror network — which has fought back with its signature tactic of suicide bombs directed at Shia civilians.

Southern separatists continued a mass sit-in in the port of Aden demanding renewed independence for South Yemen, which was an independent socialist state during the cold war but was joined to North Yemen in 1990.