SANAA (Jalal al-Sharaabi, AlArabiya.net, Agencies)
Qatari mediators returned to Yemen's volatile northern province of Saada on Sunday, hoping to salvage a crumbling truce, as Yemen's rebel leader warned the government of an all-out war.
Abdul-Malik al-Houthi warned that fighting will not be limited to rebel bases, as ten people were killed in clashes between the army and rebels in the north of the country, bringing the toll to 15 in roughly 24 hours of renewed fighting.
Al-Houthi told AlArabiya.net over the phone that the Yemeni authorities seem to be “trying to launch a fifth round of war against us everywhere,” citing clashes at Munbah in the northwestern province of Saada.
He was speaking a day after eighteen people, mostly soldiers, were killed on Friday when a blast blamed by authorities on the rebels exploded at the entrance to a mosque in the rebels' stronghold. The rebels denied responsibility.
The rebel leader revealed mediation efforts by tribal chiefs, saying they communicated with him in a bid to stop the renewed fighting in and around Saada.
“But if the government insisted on opting for confrontation, there will be an open war not only in Saada, but all around Yemen,” al-Houthi added. |
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Violence One soldier was killed, along with three rebel fighters and six tribesmen who have been supporting the army, in the latest round of fighting at Munbah.
On Friday night, after the bloody mosque blast in Saada, three policemen were killed in an attack on a Munbah checkpoint manned by special security forces. Two of the attackers also died and four more escaped.
Fighting between security forces and the Shiite Houthi rebels also erupted again overnight in Muran, northwest of Saada, where insurgents attacked army posts with rockets, tribesmen in the region said. |
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Qatar mediation The renewed violence deals another blow to continuing Qatari mediation to implement a peace deal between the government and the Zaidi rebels that was brokered in Doha in June 2007.
"The Qataris and the government delegation have now returned to Saada amid continued to tensions," the chief rebel negotiator Saleh Habra told Reuters.
A Qatari-brokered truce ended six months of intense fighting in June but violence has increased in recent weeks as a lack of trust on both sides and disagreements over the release of prisoners and handover of arms threaten to undermine the deal.
The ceasefire agreement committed Yemen to rebuild rebel areas and required rebels to give up their heavy weapons but did not include a clear mechanism for implementation.
The Qatari mediators face a tough task salvaging the deal with both sides claiming the other side is not serious about making peace.
The rebels are worried that if they give up their weapons and prisoners first, they will be attacked. The government is reluctant to release its prisoners since a state amnesty that freed 600 rebels in 2006 failed to end the revolt. |
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Ongoing conflict Fighting has raged on and off in Saada since a conflict broke out in 2004 between government forces and the Zaidi rebels which Houthi now leads.
Hundreds of people have been killed and thousands have fled their homes in Saada since the conflict began.
One of the poorest countries outside Africa, Yemen is also grappling with dwindling oil and water resources, unemployment, corruption and a large community of Somali refugees.
Yemeni officials say the rebels want to return to a form of clerical rule prevalent in the country until the 1960s. The rebels, who want Zaidi schools and oppose the government's alliance with the United States, say they are defending their villages against what they call government aggression.
Sunni Muslims form a majority of Yemen's 19 million population, while most of the rest are Zaidis, the closest of all Shiite sects to mainstream Sunni Islam.
The rebels reject President Ali Abdullah Saleh's regime as illegitimate, even though Saleh himself is a Zaidi. |
