Agencies/Sanaa
Yemen yesterday said it would stop its war on Shia northern rebels only if they agree to a six-point truce offer, including a pledge not to attack Saudi Arabia, as fighting raged on three fronts.
The offer came amid government claims that another 24 Houthi rebels were killed.
“If the Houthi (rebels) agree to start implementing the six points ... the government does not see a problem in stopping military operations,” Yemen’s Supreme National Defence Council announced.
The rebels’ truce offer on Saturday was rejected, a government official said, “because it does not include a sixth point, which demands a pledge from the Houthis not to attack Saudi territory.”
Of the six points, the defence council stressed that the rebels should “pledge not to attack Saudi territory and to hand over Yemeni and Saudi captives without any delay.”
Reel leader Abdul-Malik al-Houthi had offered in an audio message released on the Internet on Saturday to accept the government’s “five” conditions to end the war, but demanded a halt to military attacks as a precondition.
“I announce our acceptance of the (government’s) five points, after the aggression stops,” he said. “The ball is now in the other party’s court.”
Initially, the government had set five conditions to end the war. The pledge to end attacks against neighbouring Saudi Arabia was apparently added after the rebels locked horns with Riyadh.
The five conditions include a withdrawal from official buildings, reopening roads in the north, returning weapons seized from security services, freeing all military and civilian prisoners, including Saudis, and abandoning military posts in the mountains.
Houthi said in his message the rebels would accept the terms “in order to stop the bloodshed and the genocide against civilians, and to end the catastrophic situation in the country.”
His statement came on the heels of another rebel announcement last Monday that they had withdrawn from Saudi territory they had occupied since November.
Saudi Arabia entered the fight that month after Riyadh accused the rebels of killing a border guard and occupying two small border villages.
Meanwhile, clashes continued in northern Yemen, with the defence ministry yesterday reporting that 24 rebels were killed in separate clashes.
Officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, said fighting had erupted on three fronts near Saada, 240km north of the capital Sanaa, and that government warplanes were carrying out air strikes in the area.
The defence ministry news website 26sep.net said a rebel chief, identified as Qaed Abu Malik, was killed along with 20 comrades in the Safia area of Saada province.
It also claimed the killing of three other rebels near Al Aqab, also in Saada province, a stronghold of the rebels.
There was no way immediately to verify these claims.
Government forces launched an all-out offensive against the rebels in August, with the aim of eradicating their five-year uprising.
The UN refugee agency on Friday warned that a humanitarian crisis in northern Yemen was growing worse as the number of people displaced by the conflict has soared to about 250,000.
Besides battling the Shia rebels, Yemen has intensified military operations against Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, which said it was behind the botched Christmas Day attack on a US airliner approaching Detroit.
An international meeting in London on Wednesday saw world powers pledge to stand side-by-side with Yemen to stop Al Qaeda from creating a haven in the impoverished Arab country.
Yemen also faces a growing secessionist movement in the south.
Yemen’s President Ali Abdullah Saleh, its foreign minister and other senior officials met Daniel Benjamin, the US State Department’s coordinator for counter-terrorism, state media reported.
“They discussed counter-terrorism and ways to co-operate between the US and Yemen, especially in the military, security and development areas,” a senior official said.
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