SANAA, 19 May 2007 — An envoy of Libyan President Muammar Qaddafi arrived in Sanaa on Thursday in a bid to ease a diplomatic crisis after reports on Libyan support to rebels fighting government forces in northern Yemen, officials said.

Sulaiman Al-Shahoumi was to deliver a message from Qaddafi to Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh, dealing with Libya’s position on the ongoing battles between army troops and followers of the Believing Youth group in the northern Yemeni province of Saada, a Yemeni presidential official said. “The message would clarify Libya’s position on the rebellion in Saada,” the official told Arab News.

Tens of thousands of army troops have been trying since late December to quell the rebellion led by armed followers of the underground group.

Yemeni officials have recently accused Libya and Iran of providing the rebels with financial aid that helped them buy weapons. On Saturday, Yemen recalled its ambassadors to Libya and Iran for consultations over the alleged support to rebels.

Libya has said it had only tried to mediate between the rebels and Yemeni government, while Iran denounced the accusations as “irresponsible allegations.”

On Feb. 15, Yemen formally asked Libya to extradite Yahya Al-Houthi, a member of the parliament whom authorities accuse of playing a leading role in the rebellion.

Meanwhile, religious leaders from across Yemen called on the rebels Thursday to put down their arms and surrender to authorities.

“Leaders of the rebellion must come back to the right path and lay down their arms ... to save their blood and the blood of other people,” the leaders said in a communiqué at the conclusion of a two-day conference in Sanaa.

Their call came in response to pleas from Saleh for help from religious scholars to end the bloody armed rebellion.

“There are waterfalls of blood that have been created by the wrong-headedness of those stray elements,” Saleh told the gathering on Tuesday.

Fighting broke out after Hussein Badruddin Al-Houthi, a radical cleric, established the Believing Youth movement in March 2004. Hussein was killed in clashes with the army in September the same year.

Waves of bloody confrontations between the rebels and army troops since mid-2004 have left around 1,800 government troops dead, according to official figures. Around 800 rebels were estimated killed.