SANAA, 5 May 2008 — Qatari mediators returned to Yemen’s volatile northern province of Saada yesterday, hoping to salvage a truce brought to the verge of collapse by a mosque bombing and days of clashes between rebels and the army.
Rebels led by Abdul-Malik Al-Houthi seized a government building in the town of Manbah after clashes on Saturday and the army has surrounded the compound, local tribal sources said. Tribal elders were mediating an end to the standoff.
A security official said five soldiers and six rebels died in Manbah, an area a few kilometers north of Saada. An eyewitness said a sixth soldier died in a separate area 15 kilometers to the northwest.
“The Qataris and the government delegation have now returned to Saada amid continued tensions,” the chief rebel negotiator Saleh Habra said.
The situation in Saada remained tense after a bomb killed 15 people outside a mosque on Friday, with security checkpoints around the city and few people on the streets, he said.
Yemen has witnessed attacks by different groups targeting everything from tourists to government offices in recent years, but attacks on mosques were virtually unheard of until Friday.
Fighting has raged on and off in Saada since a conflict broke out in 2004 between government forces and Al-Houthi’s rebels.
A Qatari-brokered truce ended six months of intense fighting in June but violence has increased in recent weeks as a lack of trust on both sides and disagreements over the release of prisoners and handover of arms threaten to undermine the deal.
The cease-fire agreement committed Yemen to rebuild rebel areas and required rebels to give up their heavy weapons but did not include a clear mechanism for implementation. Qatari mediators face a tough task salvaging the deal with both sides claiming the other is not serious about making peace.
“There is a chance (for peace) but it requires strong and serious will from the political leadership,” Al-Houthi told Al Jazeera TV. “We have the will and we are serious ... the problem is that the other side conducts continual assaults on us.”
The rebels are worried that if they give up their weapons and prisoners first, they will be attacked.
