Another waypoint on the ceasefire between the Houthi rebels of the government of Yemen (via the National):
Yemen's plan to release nearly 300 al Houthi rebels and southern separatists is moving forward, a Yemeni security official said yesterday, in line with a promise the president made last week.
Not much good news out of Yemen these last few days, where a gunfight in Saada province continues to threaten the already shaky cease-fire between the government and the Huthi rebels.
Huthi rebels shot and killed a Yemeni soldier in Saada late last night, then dumped his body in a well, according to Reuters, which in turn cites the government media office in Sana'a. The soldier, Namran Suleiman Jaber Hadshan, was reportedly a bodyguard to a member of parliament.
But the Huthis issued a statement (عربي) denying any connection with the soldier's killing. They also issued a separate statement yesterday denying responsibility for Thursday's shooting on a military plane flying over Saada.
"We are not responsible for any shot at a military airplane on Thursday morning, and we have not fired at any airplane since the beginning of the truce on February 12," the statement said.
The rebels promised to cooperate with any inquiry into the source of the anti-aircraft fire (which missed the plane). Journalists can't operate independently in Saada, so it's impossible to know who's telling the truth about either incident.
Reuters and Mareb Press (عربي) are both reporting that a Yemeni military plane came under anti-aircraft fire while flying over the city of Saada. The committee monitoring the cease-fire between the government and the Huthi rebels calls the incident a "serious violation" of the truce.
The aircraft -- an Antonov transport -- was not hit in the shooting. It was reportedly on a "routine" mission, according to Mareb Press, carrying government and military officials from Sana'a to Saada province.
The two-month-old cease-fire has shown several signs of strain in recent weeks. The monitoring committee said last week that the rebels aren't holding up their end of the truce; and a shootout on Tuesday between rebels and a school guard left two people dead.
A couple of other news items from northern Yemen (apart from the Amnesty International photos):
The Yemeni government released 161 rebels detained during the latest phase of the Huthi war. The release of prisoners (on both sides) was one of the conditions of the cease-fire signed back in February. A spokesman for the rebels called any prisoner release "a positive step."
Amnesty International released a handful of photos of Yemen's Sa'ada province from a batch of hundreds it says it received from an "independent source."
Sa'ada -- the site of the recently-paused Yemeni-Huthi conflict -- has been a virtual no-go zone for years. Journalists are simply barred from the province; NGOs are allowed to work in Sa'ada, but strictly forbidden to talk with the press. Amnesty International's photos are the first independent images I've seen from Sa'ada in some time.
We won't reproduce any of them here; go take a look on Amnesty's Web site. Only three of the photos are posted right now, but we've contacted Amnesty to see if they plan to release more.
The Yemeni-Huthi truce, signed more than a month ago, is still holding on -- and a couple of recent developments suggest the Huthis are serious about implementing its terms.
The Huthis released 178 prisoners today, according to the cease-fire monitoring committee, a government body that oversees implementation of the truce. The prisoners include both soldiers and civilians; they've been transported from Saada to Sana'a.
Earlier this week, Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh extended an offer of negotiation to southern separatists who have grown increasingly strident about their grievances with Sana'a, but he also sounded a warning.
"I am certain the flags of separation will burn in the days and weeks ahead," Saleh said.
With thousands gathering across southern Yemen to protest today, Saleh got his chance to demonstrate the hard side of the government's carrot-and-stick approach.
Aside from a mid-February flare-up, the cease fire between the government of Yemen and the Huthi rebels in the north seems to be holding. So I guess that means it's time for the southern separatist movement to take on responsibility for unrest in the country: Yemeni security forces engaged in a gun battle while trying to arrest a reputed arms dealer in the southern Abyan province today, killing the man, his wife and his three children.
If I can paraphrase the latest statement (عربي) from Ali Mohamed Mujawar, Yemen's prime minister: We're not looking to start a sixth civil war with the Huthis, but we're not averse to it, either!
Mujawar warned today that the government would resume its fight against the Huthis unless they quickly implement the six terms of the cease-fire. The rebels say they're already well on their way to implementing the terms: The Huthis say they withdrew from Sa'ada province earlier today; they've returned all of their (living) Saudi prisoners; they've reportedly started dismantling roadblocks.
I said it two weeks ago, and I'll say it again: The West is really not serious about implementing a holistic Yemen policy.
The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees just approved a $5 million "bridge loan" so it can keep providing basic services to refugees and IDPs in northern Yemen. It's shifting money away from one UNHCR program, in other words, to keep its Yemen program afloat. UNHCR helps more than 250,000 people in Sa'ada province displaced by the Yemeni-Huthi and Saudi-Huthi fighting.
Why was this necessary? Because international donors have contributed less than 10 percent of the $40 million UNHCR needs to provide basic services this year -- and less than 3 percent of the $177 million it needs for longer-term efforts.
Making news out of Yemen this week: Huthi rebels in the country's north have returned a prisoner of war to Saudi Arabia, and Christmas Day underwear bomber Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab told investigators that he trained with other English-speaking Al-Qaeda terrorists-to-be in the country.
Not making news out of Yemen this week: American aid to the hundreds of thousands of Yemenis displaced by the Huthi rebellion.
Yemen's Huthi rebels have reportedly released the first of five Saudi Arabian prisoners of war in their custody.
Rebels say they released the first soldier, Yahya Abdullah al-Khazai, as a humanitarian gesture (عربي); Khazai was wounded in the leg during fighting earlier this year. The Huthis say they will free the other four prisoners "in the hours and days to come."
Saudi Arabia gave the rebels a 48-hour deadline to free their captives on Saturday. The rebels won't meet that deadline -- but Saudi Arabia doesn't seem interested in restarting the war just yet, and today's goodwill gesture will buy the Huthis some time.
Yemen's Huthi rebels say they have withdrawn their forces from around the airport in Saada province, and they're planning to release their Saudi prisoners of war (عربي).
The rebels say they're also close to removing the last of their roadblocks in Saada -- another one of the Yemeni government's six conditions for the truce. And they deny that they're responsible for yesterday's assassination attempt against Gen. Mohammed Abdullah al-Qussi, a deputy interior minister, whose car was sprayed with bullets yesterday.
The Yemeni government says Huthi rebels killed three soldiers and destroyed a government building in Saada province -- just hours after declaring a cease-fire.
AFP reports that the rebels tried to kill Gen. Mohammed Abdullah al-Qussi, the head of army operations in Saada. Qussi survived the assassination attempt, but several people were killed and injured in the shooting.
"I escaped an assassination attempt by the rebels who opened fire on my car," the head of army operations for Saada province, General Mohammed Abdullah al-Qussi, told AFP.
Qussi says the rebels also staged several other attacks in Saada's Iqab district. As usual, none of these claims can be independently confirmed.
Mareb Press quotes unnamed Yemeni military sources (عربي) who say they're holding up their end of the cease-fire. But the whole thing could quickly unravel: The last cease-fire, in September, fell apart after both sides accused the other of violating the truce.
Following up on this morning's post: Yemeni president Ali Abdullah Saleh has announced a cease-fire with the Huthi rebels. Saleh read a decree announcing the truce on state television; it takes effect at midnight Yemen time (2100 GMT).
The state-run Al-Thawra has more details (عربي) on Saleh's decree. It's similar to the proposals that were reported this morning -- the "six conditions," several parliamentary committees to monitor their implementation, etc.
The big question now, of course, is whether it will hold. The north has not been quiet for long: AFP reported fighting late last night (عربي) in Amran province, which is due south of Saada province; 12 Yemeni soldiers and 24 rebels were reportedly killed following a surprise attack by the Huthis. And the last cease-fire, announced in September, collapsed after about 24 hours.
I tweeted yesterday about some new reports of an imminent cease-fire between the Yemeni government and the Huthi rebels.
Those reports have multiplied in the last 24 hours or so: Wire services report that both sides exchanged proposals this week, and Al-Jazeera's Hashem Ahelbarra says an envoy from Sana'a is meeting today with Abdel Malik al-Huthi, the rebel leader.
Anwar al-Awlaqi, the Muslim spiritual leader who leaped into the news following revelations of his contact with Ford Hood shooter Nidal Malik Hasan, gave a rare interview to Al-Jazeera over the weekend in which he laid out his support for attempted Christmas Day airline bomber Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab but said he did not personally order Abdulmutallab's attack.
Meanwhile, an audiotape posted on a jihadi forum, purportedly from the deputy commander of Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), Sa'id al-Shihri, called on Muslims in the region to "attack and eliminate" American and "Crusader" interests everywhere, according to the BBC.
Hard to tell, as usual, exactly what's happening up in Saada province, but Yemeni president Ali Abdullah Saleh is signalling -- in word and in deed -- that he's not terribly interested in a cease-fire with the Huthi rebels.
16 rebels were killed in Saada earlier this week, according to state media reports; the dead reportedly included a number of "leaders," but the government hasn't identified any of them. The army says it also destroyed a vehicle carrying ammunition to the rebels (عربي), and seized several farms which were being used as rebel hideouts.
At least 20 people have been killed in Saada province in fighting between the Huthi rebels and the Yemeni army over the last 24 hours. Saudi Arabia says it is no longer receiving fire from "Huthi snipers" -- a mildly encouraging sign for the Huthi-Saudi cease-fire -- but the Yemeni army is still fighting heavily.
