Yemen's ex-president Saleh killed in RPG, gun attack on his car

SANAA: Yemen's rebel-controlled interior ministry on Monday announced the "killing" of former president Ali Abdullah Saleh, as a video emerged showing what appeared to be Saleh's corpse.

"The interior ministry announces the end of the crisis of militias and the killing of their leader and a number of his criminal supporters," an anchor said on the rebels' official Al-Masirah television, referring to armed supporters of Saleh.

Saleh on Saturday announced the end of his alliance with the Iran-backed Houthi rebels, with whom he has jointly ruled the capital for three years.

The statement came shortly after a video began to circulate on social media showing what appeared to be a dead Saleh, wrapped in a floral-print blanket with a severe head injury.

The 75-year-old strongman ruled Yemen for more than three decades, until his ouster under popular and political pressure in 2012.

Party confirms death

Officials in Saleh's General People's Congress party (GPC) confirmed to Reuters that the former Yemeni president has been killed outside Sanaa, in what sources in the Houthi group said was an RPG and gun attack.

The GPC officials said Saleh was killed south of the capital Sanaa along with the assistant secretary-general of the GPC, Yasser al-Awadi.

Sources in the Houthi group said fighters stopped his armoured vehicle with an RPG rocket and then shot him dead.