SANAA, Yemen _ Ali Abdullah Saleh, the deposed strongman who ruled Yemen for more than three decades and colluded with Iran-aligned rebels to topple his successor, was killed Monday as fighting raged in the capital between his followers and their former allies, according to officials on both sides.
Saleh's death removes one of the most cunning and resilient political figures in Yemen, injecting new uncertainty into a devastating civil war just days after he turned against the rebels, known as Houthis, and made overtures to the Saudi Arabia-led and U.S.-backed coalition that has sided with the country's internationally recognized government.
The Houthis announced Saleh's death after reports of an explosion at his family's compound in Sanaa, but there were conflicting accounts about the circumstances of his death. Houthi officials said their forces ambushed Saleh's convoy as he tried to flee the capital, but members of his political party, the General People's Congress, said a sniper shot him.
Video circulating on social media purported to show gunmen loading Saleh's body, wrapped in a floral blanket, onto the back of a pickup truck and shouting, "God is great!"
In the video, Saleh appeared to have suffered a head wound and his shirt was stained with blood. The authenticity of the short clip could not be independently verified.
The Houthis' leader, Abdel-Malek Houthi, hailed Saleh's death as "the fall of the conspiracy of cunning and betrayal."
"The conspiracy failed ... in less than three days," he said in an address broadcast on the group's television channel, Al Masirah. "Saudi Arabia, the Emirates, the United States and Britain were dealt a resounding historic defeat."
Saleh was toppled during the "Arab Spring" protests that swept the Middle East in 2011, but remained a powerful force in the country. Rogue elements of the military still loyal to the former president joined forces with the Houthis, whom they had previously opposed, to take over the capital in September 2014.
Saudi Arabia, which views the Houthis as a proxy of its arch-rival, Iran, formed a military alliance to restore to power Saleh's internationally recognized successor, President Abdu Rabu Mansour Hadi, who set up a parallel government in the southern port city of Aden.
Last week, Saleh switched sides again, urging Saudi Arabia in a televised interview to lift a crippling blockade and begin a dialogue as his followers clashed with their erstwhile allies in Sanaa.
His appeals to the kingdom to "open a new page" raised hopes among some diplomats and analysts that it might be possible to break the deadlock that has stymied efforts to negotiate a political resolution to a multisided war that has killed more than 10,000 people, displaced over 3 million and pushed the Arab world's poorest nation to the brink of famine.
With his death, peace in Yemen appears even further out of reach.
As coalition warplanes streaked over Sanaa late Monday, residents braced for what many expect will be a push by Saudi Arabia and its Persian Gulf allies into the capital.
"The roadmap for peace is now obsolete," said Adam Baron, a Yemen analyst at the European Council on Foreign Relations. "It's clear there will be more conflict ... and greater suffering for Yemenis is much more likely."
