My World Earth: Saudi troops retake village from Yemen Houthi rebels -Clashes in Yemen kill 17 rebels, eight soldiers

Tuesday, January 12, 2010

Saudi troops retake village from Yemen Houthi rebels -Clashes in Yemen kill 17 rebels, eight soldiers

Prince Khaled bin Sultan addressed state TV near the front line

Yemen has launched a major offensive against the rebels

Saudi troops have regained control of a border village occupied by Yemeni Shia rebels since November, the kingdom's deputy defence minister has said.

Prince Khaled bin Sultan told state TV that four Saudi soldiers and "hundreds" of rebels were killed in the clashes.

He said the overall death toll of Saudi soldiers in the border conflict with Yemen's Houthi rebels now stood at 82.

Riyadh began operations against the rebels in November after a Saudi soldier was killed along the border.

Regional threat

Prince Khaled bin Sultan said Yemeni rebels had "inflicted upon themselves hundreds of deaths" in the border village of al-Jabiri after ignoring a 48-hour deadline to quit their positions, the Reuters news agency reports.

"The infiltrators have been eliminated from al-Jabiri and the whole district has been taken under control," he told state-owned al-Ekhbariya television, adding that 21 Saudi soldiers were missing.

The rebels have repeatedly accused Saudi forces of targeting their villages and killing civilians, but Riyadh says its military operations have been confined to Saudi territory.

While the conflict between Saudi Arabia and the Houthis began recently, fighting between the rebels from the minority Shia Zaidi sect and the Yemeni government has occurred sporadically since 2004.

The rebels accuse the government of social, economic and religious marginalisation.

Also on Tuesday, Yemen's interior ministry said Yemeni forces killed at least 19 rebels in the northern city of Saada and arrested another 20.

According to the latest UN figures, an estimated 200,000 people have been displaced by the conflict.

Alongside the fighting in the north and a secessionist movement in the south, Western policymakers believe al-Qaeda is gaining a foothold in Yemen.

Last week, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said instability in Yemen was a global as well as regional threat.

Clashes in Yemen kill 17 rebels, eight soldiers

Fierce fighting in the mountains of northern Yemen has killed 17 Shiite rebels and eight soldiers, a military source told AFP on Monday.

"There was fierce fighting in the (northern) city of Saada on Sunday. Seventeen Huthis (rebels) and eight Yemeni soldiers were killed," the source said.

The rebels said in a statement posted on their website that clashes were still underway in Saada, where they charged the army was using bulldozers to "destroy" property.

"The army is undertaking to destroy the city," the statement said. "It is using bulldozers to destroy houses, mosques and historical buildings."

A report on the www.26sep.net website of the defence ministry's newspaper, said government forces had seized control of rebel hideouts in Saada's Old City.

"Men of the armed forces were able to gain control of a number of hideouts in which partisans of terrorism and sabotage were barricaded," the report said.

It described the fighting as part of "the final stage of the operation of clearing the remaining terrorist sleeper cells from the city."

On Sunday, President Ali Abdullah Saleh said in an interview that he was open to dialogue with the rebels as long as they gave up the armed struggle.

"We are prepared to deal with anyone who renounces violence and terrorism," Saleh said.

A rebel spokesman responded to the statement on Monday, saying: "How do you call for dialogue when you are bombing? Stop firing, then talk about dialogue."

The rebellion among the Zaidi Shiite community, a minority in the mainly Sunni Muslim country but the majority in the north, first erupted in 2004.

Last August, the government launched a major offensive in a bid to end the uprising.

Neighbouring Saudi Arabia joined the fray in November, after accusing the rebels of occupying two villages inside the kingdom's territory and of killing a Saudi border guard.

Aid organisations say more than 150,000 people have been displaced by the fighting.

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