YEMEN - President Ali Abdullah Saleh gave al-Houthi rebels in Sa'adah a final chance to unconditionally come back to the right path and stop their rebellion and destruction.
President Saleh addressed the nation on the occasion of the Holy Month of Ramadan Friday night affirming the government's keenness to prevent further bloodshed and to achieve unconditional peace. "You have enough time over the next few days to consider our proposal and come back to the right path and be like other citizens," said Saleh addressing the rebels.
He said that the rebels have to stick to the six conditions the government suggested before to establish peace in the region. The conditions include: lifting all road checkpoints that impede citizens’ travels, abandoning their military strongholds and coming down from the mountain peaks, handing over all civil and military equipment that they had seized, disclosing the fate of the six kidnapped foreigners, one British man and a German family, handing over the kidnapped Sa'adah citizens, and ending all interference with the local authority's affairs and full withdrawal from all Sa'adah districts and eliminating all checkpoints from all roads.
If these conditions were to be accepted by al-Houthi rebels, the government would be responsible for reconstructing all the war-damaged areas as well as paving the way for comprehensive development throughout Sa'adah, said President Saleh.
Saleh again warned al-Houthi followers against continuing rebellion and lawbreaking, assuring that security forces will face sabotaging and rebellion strictly and with all the available capabilities.
Clashes renewed on Friday and Thursday morning between the Yemeni army and al-Houthi rebels near the passport office, republican palace and Central Security in Sa’adah, resulting in several deaths and injuries from the two warring parties.
Military sources said that the army and security units are conducting cleaning up operations on rebels in several areas. According to the sources, the armed and security units have taken control of many areas which were in the hands of the rebels and are currently conducting broad combing operations in chasing those elements that fled from area to area. The army and security units are on the verge of eliminating the last pockets of rebels and achieving total control over all the areas that were controlled previously by al-Houthis, said military sources. The government refused on Thursday an initiative by some of the rebel leaders’ relatives to put an end to the war.
Abdulmalik al-Houthi employed a number of his relatives that hold government positions to mediate a truce with President Saleh. The sources say that the mediators submitted their initiative to the presidency but it was rejected. Mediators were told that the government gave ample opportunity to the rebels and warned against the consequences of missing the opportunity before starting their campaign, even pledging to release detainees, said official sources. It stressed that because al-Houthis had ignored the opportunities given to them, the State would not back down from its determination to wipe out the insurgency once and for all.
The sources pointed out that the armed forces and security troops have achieved sweeping victories and they are now in their final battles against the rebels in the Matarah and al-Naqah areas, and are continuing to clean up some small pockets of insurgents in other remote areas. Military sources said that they are confident that they are driving the last nail into the insurgency’s coffin. The sources said on Thursday night that the General Armed Forces Command will issue an official statement a few hours later, informing the public of the outcome of the battles and associated events with all the facts. Adding that there is a possibility of resolving the battles before the holy month of Ramadan, and that the mediation by al-Houthi indicates their impending death.
A group of al-Houthi relatives have submitted a message to the president on Wednesday consisting of eleven points which include the lifting of military checkpoints and the redeployment and return of military forces to their barracks, in return al-Houthis pledge to withdraw from the areas that they occupy and declare loyalty to the state, stipulating that the government should appoint directors as well as security and educational managers from al-Houthis. The memo also stated that al-Houthis should keep the Matarah and Naqah areas under their control, and that the army would withdraw its heavy military equipment from these two Houthi dominated areas and al-Houthis would return the areas back to the government within three years time. It also stipulated the release of war detainees and that al-Houthis should be free to teach their Zaidi faith.
Meanwhile in a statement issued by Amnesty International last Thursday it said it sent a letter to president Saleh urging him to take all possible steps to ensure that the recent upsurge in clashes between government forces and al-Houthis do not result in a repeat of the gross human rights abuses which occurred during earlier unrest in Sa’adah governorate. Also Amnesty International in its letter said it fully recognized the government’s responsibility to protect public safety and to punish crimes, but when doing so must abide at all times by the requirements of international law, including the prohibition of torture and respect for the right to life.
In particular, it urged the President to ensure that all members of Yemen’s security forces are instructed to abide by key international standards such as the UN Principles on the Use of Force and Firearms and the UN Code of Conduct for Law Enforcement Officials, and that those who commit unlawful killings or other breaches will be held to account. Last Tuesday, President Saleh confirmed that the military and security forces will continue military operations until they completely eliminate al-Houthi rebels in Sa’adah and Amran provinces.
The President refused earlier to give the Houthis the chance of negotiating a truce, nor would he consider mediation as a means of bringing the war to an end; “We are determined to eliminate this sedition,” he said, referring to the rebels as a devilish plant. “We are going to destroy this cancer in the province of Sa’adah, or wherever it may be found with a strong and inflexible will,” Saleh declared at a graduation ceremony for a number of military and security batches held in Sana’a on August 18th.
He accused al-Houthi rebels of forcing the government to build fortifications instead of schools and of making the government spend money on weapons instead of on development. For his part the spokesperson of al-Houthis, Mohammed AbdulSalam announced dissatisfaction on President Saleh’s announcement to continue the military operations in Sa’adah till totally crushing the satanic rebel’s ordeal.
AbdulSalam said that such speech should not be directed by a president against his own people, “Whatever political or theological conflict occurs the president usually represents the people” “We are not settlers in this country. We are part of it and of its history’s depth,” said AbdulSalam.
He also claimed that the government forces could not achieve any progress whatsoever adding that the rebels could capture the whole of all-Malahit district bordering Saudi Arabia. In the same context, Sheikh of sheikhs of the Hashid tribe, Sheikh Sadiq Abdullah al-Ahmar, announced his tribe’s support for the military and security forces to hunt down all al-Houthi rebels and their supporters. Sheikh al-Ahmar maintained that “this gang of Houthis has breached and violated the law and the constitution and must be uprooted,” as stated in the letter that he sent to President Ali Abdullah Saleh.
Al-Ahmar called on the president to continue the elimination of al-Houthi rebels and to strike them with an iron fist until the supremacy of law has been achieved across Yemen. Foreign Minister Abu Bakr al-Qirbi has said that the international community, especially Arab and European countries, had demonstrated a full understanding of the government’s efforts to protect security and stability of Yemen as part of regional and global security.
“Yemen is working to provide protection and security to civilians in Sa’adah through providing essential services and food and establishing emergency camps in cooperation with international organizations”, al-Qirbi pointed out. Military and security troops have killed 100 rebels of al-Houthis in Sa’adah province and Harf Sufian in Amran province. Security and armed forces captured 300 rebels during operations they carried out in the areas of Malahit, Mahathir and Talh and other areas of Sa’adah which were under control of the rebels, said security sources.
Furthermore, arrest warrants have been issued, since last Tuesday, for the arrest of 55 rebel leaders in the northern province of Sa’adah and other provinces. Since launching an armed rebellion in 2004, al-Houthis have been continuing to fight governmental troops, kill innocent civilians, attack their property and commit banditry as well as hindering development projects and peace efforts. Among those sought is Badr al-Din Amir al-Din al-Houthi, the spiritual leader of al-Houthi rebels.
The Yemeni government accused on Tuesday outside institutions of offering financial and political support for elements of the insurgency in the Sa’adah province, said spokesman of the Yemeni government, Minister of Information Hassan al-Lawzi. Al-Lawzi said that these parties are committing crimes through their interference in Yemeni affairs. He explained that the Yemeni Foreign Minister held a meeting with one of the ambassadors in Yemen urging his country to put an end to their involvement and interference in Yemeni internal affairs.
The government spokesman added that there are sectarian associations trying to interfere in Yemen’s affairs and those associations are offering financial and political support for these terrorist acts that aim to undermine the security and stability in Yemen, particularly in the Sa’adah province.
Since the fighting erupted in 2004, thousands of people, soldiers and insurgents have been killed in Sa’adah, which lies close to border with Saudi Arabia, after the rebel group was founded by Shiite rebel leader Hussein al-Houthi. Hussein, the eldest brother of the current group leader Abdul-Malik, was killed by the army in September 2004. The Yemeni government accuses the al-Houthi group of trying to reinstall the rule of imams, which was toppled by a republican revolution in northern Yemen in 1962.