From: Biniam Haile \(SWE\) (eritrea.lave@comhem.se)
Date: Thu Jul 17 2008 - 18:58:44 EDT
Yemen says fighting over but rebels seize village
by Hammoud Mounassar
Published: July 17, 2008
SANAA (AFP) Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh said on Thursday that a
Shiite revolt in the country's northwest was over, but military sources
said the rebels had seized a village in the area and there had been
clashes in the past 24 hours.
Military and local sources said at least 19 people, including a local
official and 12 soldiers, were killed in a series of ambushes and
clashes on Wednesday.
"The war in Saada province ended three days ago, and God willing, it
will not resume," Saleh said, referring to the four-year-old rebellion
in which thousands of people have died.
"We had victims because of extremism, ignorance and backwardness," he
added.
Saleh, 66, made his comments during the launch of a programme of youth
summer activities as he marked his 30th year at the helm.
He first took power in 1978 as leader of the then North Yemen and
steered the country to reunification in 1990 as the communist south's
sponsor, the Soviet Union, headed for collapse.
The mountainous Saada province on the border with Saudi Arabia has been
the heartland of the on-off uprising launched by Zaidi Shiite rebels in
2004.
Less than an hour after Saleh made his remarks, military sources in the
province told AFP that the rebels launched an assault on the village of
Mahza, east of the town of Saada, and had seized the locality.
On Wednesday, the defence ministry said a local council official and his
two bodyguards were killed in Al-Jawf province, southeast of Saada.
Tribal sources said armed tribesmen retaliated by attacking the rebels,
killing a local rebel commander.
Local sources in Saada said 12 soldiers were killed during clashes with
rebels on Wednesday. A local security official was wounded and three of
his aides were killed when a landmine exploded in Amran province, south
of Saada.
The rebels are fighting to restore the Zaidi imamate which was
overthrown in a 1962 republican coup. An offshoot of Shiite Islam,
Zaidis are a minority in mainly Sunni Yemen but the majority in the
northwest.
Saleh is himself a Zaidi but the rebels reject his regime as
illegitimate.
The two sides signed a Qatari-brokered peace deal in June 2007, but
there has been repeated wrangling about its implementation. In February
they met again in Qatar to revive the deal.
The accord requires the government to release rebel prisoners, dismantle
roadblocks and withdraw troops from areas of Saada province in return
for rebel disarmament.
Each side has accused the other of reneging on the deal.
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