Yemen rebels 'ready to talk' if war stops - Yemen slams Shebab pledge to send fighters
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Fri, 01 Jan 2010 22:06:17 GMT
The Houthi fighters in Yemen say Saudi warplanes have
carried out several airstrikes on the country's beleaguered
northern areas, leaving a child dead.
http://www.presstv.ir/photo/20100102/beglari20100102012937421.jpg
According to the fighters, the warplanes targeted more than
20 villages in Sa'ada province on Friday.
The fighters also reported that they have repelled an
incursion by Saudi troops in an area near the border.
Saudi Arabia joined the Yemeni government's campaign of
cracking down on the Houthi fighters on November 3. Sana'a
launched Operation Scorched Earth in August 2009, claiming
that the fighters had breached the terms of a ceasefire by
taking foreign tourists hostage.
The Houthis, however, deny the charges accusing the Yemeni
government of violation of their civil rights, political,
economic and religious marginalization as well as large-
scale corruption.
Meanwhile, a Yemeni government source claimed that eleven
fighters were killed in clashes with the country's military.
The Source added that a number of "others were wounded in
widespread combing operations and strikes by military and
security units on Thursday against gatherings of Houthis,"
Reuters reported on Friday.
Another unnamed source also claimed that Yemeni forces
destroyed what he called a "terrorist den" in the northern
Sa'ada region on Thursday, Reuters reported.
SB/SS/MMN
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http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=115138§ionid=351020206
Yemen rebels 'ready to talk' if war stops
by Mohamed Hasni Mohamed Hasni - Sat Jan 2, 8:33 am ET
AFP/Yemeni Army/File - An undated handout picture from the
Yemeni army shows a soldier manning a machinegun in Saada province
http://d.yimg.com/a/p/afp/20100102/capt.photo_1262427601456-2-0.jpg
DUBAI (AFP) - Shiite rebels battling government forces in
north Yemen told AFP on Saturday they are ready for talks
with Sanaa once the government declares a "definitive" end
to hostilities against them.
"When the war stops we will be ready for dialogue," Mohammed
Abdelsalam told AFP in Dubai by telephone, adding that he
was reacting to an appeal from President Ali Abdullah Saleh.
In an article published on Friday to mark the new year,
Saleh appealed for reason from the insurgents.
He urged the Zaidi rebels, also known as Huthis, to agree to
the conditions laid down by the government for a return to
peace, saying they should cease hostilities, withdraw from
official buildings and respect the law.
"If these elements accept this plea for peace, the state
will offer the hand of peace," he wrote in the government
daily Al-Thawra.
Abdelsalam said: "Today, we favourably welcome the proposal
of the president of the republic to renew dialogue, which we
view as a positive gesture and a step toward peace and the
re-establishment of security and stability."
Saleh also called on the rebels to end their incursions into
Saudi Arabia.
Saudi forces entered the fray on November 4 after the
rebels, protesting against alleged Saudi backing for Sanaa,
killed a Saudi border guard and occupied two small villages
inside Saudi territory the previous day.
Abdelsalam said the rebels "had never sought to attack Saudi
territory" and were simply acting to "rebel Saudi aggression
against Yemeni territory."
Last week, the rebels offered to withdraw from Saudi
positions if Riyadh stopped attacking them, but the Saudis
ignored them.
Sanaa has been engaged in sporadic fighting with the rebels
since 2004.
On August 11, 2009 government forces launched "Operation
Scorched Earth," an all-out offensive to stamp out the
uprising among the Zaidis, a minority in mainly Sunni Yemen
but the majority group in the northern mountains.
The rebels complain of being marginalised and oppressed by
the government, which accuses them of seeking to reinstate a
form of clerical rule that ended in a republican coup in
1962. The rebels deny the claim.
Aid agencies estimate that the violence has caused 150,000
people in northern Yemen to flee their homes in the five
years since the fighting first broke out.
The conflict with northern rebels is just one issue
threatening the stability of the country.
On other fronts, Al-Qaeda has been moving to make Yemen, one
of the poorest countries on earth, a base for its
activities.
Long-standing concerns about that were highlighted on
Christmas Day when a Nigerian man allegedly trained in Yemen
was charged with trying to blow up a US airliner.
Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab reportedly confessed to being
trained by an Al-Qaeda bomb-maker in Yemen to blow up the
plane as it came in to land in Detroit.
Yemen is also troubled by a separatist movement in the
south.
South Yemen was an independent nation from the 1967 British
departure until 1990, when north and south united.
The south seceded in May 1994, sparking a short-lived civil
war that ended with northern troops invading the region.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20100102/ts_afp/yemenunrestrebels
Yemen slams Shebab pledge to send fighters
Sat Jan 2, 7:47 am ET
AFP/File - Yemeni anti-terror special forces take part in a
field training session at the Saref mountain area on �
http://d.yimg.com/a/p/afp/20100102/capt.photo_1262435184507-1-0.jpg
SANAA (AFP) - Yemen said on Saturday it will not allow
foreign fighters to infiltrate the country after Somalia's
Shebab insurgents said they will send militants to help an
Al-Qaeda affiliate behind the failed US airliner bombing.
"Yemen will not accept on its territory any presence by
(foreign) terrorist elements and will be on guard against
anyone who tries to act against its security and stability,"
the official Saba news agency quoted Foreign Minister Abu
Bakr al-Kurbi as saying.
Saba said Kurbi was "astounded" by the Shebab pledge to send
militants to fight Yemeni government forces who have been
battling Al-Qaeda.
Sheikh Mukhtar Robow Abu Mansour, a senior official of the
militia that pledges allegiance to Al-Qaeda, announced the
plan on Friday as he presented hundreds of newly trained
fighters in the north of Mogadishu.
"We tell our Muslim brothers in Yemen that we will cross the
water between us and reach your place to assist you fight
the enemy of Allah," said Robow, to chants of "Allahu Akbar"
-- God is greater -- by the young fighters.
"Today you see what is happening in Yemen, the enemy of
Allah is destroying your Muslim brothers," he added. "I call
upon the young men in Arab lands to join the fight there."
On Saturday Kurbi said: "It would have been wiser for those
who promise to export terrorism to work towards stability in
their own war-ridden state."
Yemeni forces last month launched raids on suspected Al-
Qaeda targets in the central and the Sanaa regions, killing
more than 60 Islamist militants.
Several others were also wounded in clashes this week in a
western province of the impoverished Arabian peninsula state
which lies north of Somalia across the Gulf of Aden.
Saba reported that Yemen was tightening security along the
coast and that the Coastguard had stepped up its maritime
search operations.
Yemen is Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden's ancestral
homeland and has seen a spate of attacks against Western
targets over the past decade.
An Al-Qaeda affiliate based in Yemen claimed it was behind
the botched Christmas Day plot to bring down a US airliner
from Amsterdam to Detroit.
On Saturday US President Barack Obama, in his weekly
broadcast, promised to hold Al-Qaeda in the Arabian
Peninsula to account for the attack, declaring the United
States was at war with a "far-reaching network of violence
and hatred."
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20100102/wl_mideast_afp/yemensomaliaunrestrebelsislam
Yemen rebels ready for talks once fighting stops
By Cynthia Johnston
DUBAI (Reuters) - Yemen's Shi'ite rebels are ready for talks
with the government once fighting stops, their leader said
on Saturday, responding to a presidential plea as fears grow
that al Qaeda could exploit the country's instability.
Abdul-Malik al-Houthi, leader of the northern Yemen-based
rebels, also denied that his group was targeting neighboring
Saudi Arabia which has been drawn into the conflict.
He was responding to a New Year's plea by President Ali
Abdullah Saleh offering to extend a hand of peace if
insurgents fulfilled conditions including abandoning
violence, releasing prisoners and agreeing to stop attacks
on Saudi territory.
"We welcome the call by the president of the republic to
return to dialogue, and consider it a positive call and a
right step to peace and a return to security and stability,"
Houthi said in a statement.
"We confront aggression and defend ourselves, and when the
war stops, we are ready for dialogue," he said in the
statement, carried on a rebel website.
There was no immediate response from the Yemeni government.
The United States and Saudi Arabia fear al Qaeda could
exploit instability in Yemen, which also faces separatist
sentiment in the south, to turn the Arab country into a
launchpad for more international attacks.
Al Qaeda's regional wing said it was behind a Christmas Day
attempt to blow up a U.S. passenger jet. The Nigerian who
tried to set off the bomb said he had received training and
equipment in Yemen.
The Shi'ite rebels from the Zaidi sect have been fighting
government troops in Yemen's mountainous north since 2004,
complaining of social, economic and religious
marginalization.
The conflict, which has killed hundreds and displaced tens
of thousands, drew in Saudi Arabia in November when the
rebels staged a cross-border incursion into the world's
biggest oil exporter.
The Yemeni president, writing in the state's al-Thawra
newspaper, had called on the northern rebels and southern
separatists on Friday to abandon violence and urged anyone
tempted by al Qaeda to reconsider.
"The time has come to lay down your weapons, to steer clear
of the violence and the terror and evil acts so as to save
your souls and be good citizens in your society," Saleh
said.
The minority Shi'ite rebels have already said they were
ready for talks to end fighting with Saudi Arabia. Houthi
said his group was not looking for a fight with its mainly
Sunni Muslim neighbor.
"With respect to Saudi land, we have stressed since the
beginning of the Saudi aggression on Yemeni land that we do
not target Saudi territory. But we faced a direct aggression
from its territory," he said.
U.S.-allied Arab countries such as Saudi Arabia and Egypt
are concerned that Shi'ite power Iran could gain influence
in Yemen through the Houthis. The rebels deny getting any
help from Tehran, which has offered to mediate in the
conflict.
(Additional reporting by Tamara Walid in Dubai and Mohamed
Sudan in Sanaa; editing by David Stamp)
http://ca.news.yahoo.com/s/reuters/100102/world/international_us_yemen_rebels
Houthis propose talks with government
Sat, 02 Jan 2010 14:25:54 GMT
Saudi special forces. Riyadh has been aiding Sana'a's
offensives against the Shia fighters.
Yemen's Houthi fighters have offered to hold talks with the
government on the condition that it halts its attacks on the
Shias.
A statement on the Houthis' website publicized the intention
for dialogue on Friday. A spokesman for the fighters said
the proposal had come after President Ali Abdullah Saleh
urged the Houthis to accept the government's conditions for
peace.
The central government has demonstrated five years of
hostilities against the Houthis, which it accuses of
violating the terms of earlier peace deals by taking foreign
visitors hostage.
The government stepped up its offensives earlier in the
year.
Saudi Arabia reinforced the armed campaign in November
reportedly venturing beyond the Houthis positions into the
areas resided by Shia civilians and using banned weaponry
including flesh-eating phosphorus bombs.
Riyadh, for its part, blamed the fighters for a cross-border
attack on the Saudi territory.
Yemen's Shia minority, accuse Riyadh and Sana'a of waging a
campaign of social, economic, and religious marginalization
of Shia communities and of funding al-Qaeda and Wahhabi
extremists to help quell the Shia resistance.
The offensives have claimed the lives of hundreds of people,
causing the displacement of more than 200,000 civilians.
The Houthis, however, have also offered to hold peace talks
with the Saudis, should the Kingdom abort the anti-Shia
operations. Riyadh, the fighters say, is to prove that it is
after peace and stability in Yemen, and that it respects the
rights of the Yemeni nationals.
HN/SC/MMN
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