"Deployment of the army along the border is making no headway because of the rebel refusal to conform to the terms of the cease-fire" agreed last week to end six months of fighting, said the source. "Rather than dismantle their positions to permit the army deployment, they have simply redeployed those positions in the region of Malahidh," in Saada province, said the source.
Rebel sources could not immediately be reached for comment.
On Thursday, cease-fire monitors had said the army could begin taking up positions along the border on Saturday if demining operations were completed. The rebels announced their withdrawal from the border area on Tuesday.
Saudi Arabia has asked Sanaa to deploy troops on the Yemeni side of the border to secure it. The Kingdom was forced to join the war between the rebels and the Yemeni government on Nov. 4, a day after the rebels killed a Saudi border guard and occupied two villages inside Saudi territory. The rebels announced Jan. 25 that they had withdrawn from Saudi land. The Kingdom said they had been driven out.
Under a cease-fire agreed with the Yemeni government, the rebels are also to return all captive Saudi soldiers. They have returned three of the five soldiers. The Kingdom says it holds 500 Yemeni intruders.
Separately, secessionists in south Yemen killed the director of a criminal investigations unit in an ambush of his vehicle on Friday, security sources said. Another person was killed and three were injured in the shooting as they drove through a southern Yemeni province, they said.
Aside from facing the northern rebels, the government of Yemen is battling a secessionist movement in the south.
In another incident, clashes erupted Friday between security forces and unidentified gunmen in the southern province of Al-Dalea. No injuries were reported.
People in the south, home to most of Yemen's oil facilities, have long complained that northerners have abused a 1990 agreement uniting the country to grab their resources and discriminate against them.
Western governments and Saudi Arabia fear Al-Qaeda is exploiting the instability in Yemen to recruit and train militants to launch attacks in the region and beyond.
