Yemeni forces have killed a top aide of anti-U.S. cleric Hussein al-Houthi, raising the number of rebels slain in two weeks of clashes to at least 141, a government source said on Tuesday.
"Yemeni forces killed Abdullah al-Ruzami, one of the biggest Houthi supporters, yesterday," the source said. "Five of our forces were killed and another five wounded."
On Monday, Yemeni officials said security forces had killed 10 members of Houthi's "Believing Youth" group in mountainous Saada province in northern Yemen.
The government accuses Houthi, a leader of the Zaidi Shi'ite sect, of setting up unlicensed religious centres in Saada and other provinces and forming an underground armed group which has staged violent protests against the United States and Israel.
President Ali Abdullah Saleh has urged Houthi to turn himself in and end the fighting which has claimed the lives of 109 rebels and 37 government troops in Saada, 240 km (150 miles) north of the capital Sanaa.
Sources close to Houthi have put the death toll in the clashes, which began on June 20, at about 200. Government sources say hundreds more of his supporters have been wounded or arrested or have surrendered to authorities.
Anti-U.S. sentiment in the region is high because of the U.S.-led occupation of Iraq and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Some clerics in Yemen preach hatred against America and the West.
Yemen, a poor country of 19 million people, is also fighting to root out militants linked to Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda group. Houthi has not been accused of links to al Qaeda.