Govt troops deploy in Yemen after truce deal

SANAA: Yemeni troops began to deploy in the northern province of Saada on Saturday to monitor a cease-fire between Shiite rebels and Salafis, a security official said.
The deal brokered late Friday by a presidential commission ends fighting that erupted in late October centered on a Salafi mosque and Qur'anic school in the town of Dammaj.
But the deadly conflict had spread in the northern provinces, embroiling Sunni tribes wary of the Shiite rebels, known as Huthis, who have been accused of receiving support from Iran.
“Forces have begun deploying in the areas surrounding Dammaj,” the Saada-based security official told AFP, adding some gunmen had not yet vacated their posts. The deal stipulated the two sides would withdraw from the areas around Dammaj to be replaced by army troops who would monitor the cease-fire, said Yahya Abu Isba, head of the presidential mediation commission.
“This agreement ends the military conflict between the Huthis and the Salafis in Dammaj... and prevents a sectarian war that was looming over Yemen,” he told state television. The Huthis, named after their late leader Abdel Malek Al-Huthi, are part of the Zaidi Shiite community.
They rose up in 2004 in their stronghold of Saada against former president Ali Abdullah Saleh’s government, complaining of marginalization.
They accuse radical Sunnis in Dammaj of turning the town center into “a real barracks for thousands of armed foreigners,” a reference to the Dar Al-Hadith Qur'anic school, where foreigners study.
The security official said a plane was expected to evacuate “foreign students” and the leader of the Salafis in Dammaj, Yahya Al-Hujuri, on Saturday.