Yemen Shiite rebels claim receiving threats of breaking out all- around war

Yemeni Shiite rebels in the north claimed on Saturday they received "governmental threats of next genocide and all-around war by the government army against them."

Yousif al-Faishy, representative of the Shiite rebels in the joint government-rebels committee that overseeing the post-war truce, said that "the threats came from top governmental officials of the Sanaa-based Presidency Palace."

"These threats do not have any justification at all, especially after we signed the truce agreement in February with the government to end long-running war in the north," al-Faishy said in a statement posted on the group's on-line website.

"The cease-fire deal of Feb. 11 guarantees all parties of ending of the conflict and returning of normal life to the battle- scarred northern areas," read the statement.

The statement also called on all Yemeni opposition parties to stand against "a new round of war before it breaks."

On Friday, Yemen's Interior Ministry said Shiite rebels kidnapped five governmental oil engineers in the troubled northern province of al-Jouf.

Earlier last week, the Yemeni government accused the Shiite rebels of failing to fulfill the ceasefire deal agreed in February.

An official overseeing the ceasefire deal called on the rebels to commit themselves to the agreed truce and to stop impeding efforts to bring peace to Saada province and the Harf Sufian district of Amran province.

Yemen has witnessed sporadic battles since 2004 between government troops and the Shiite rebels, also known as Houthis, whom the government accused of seeking to re-establish the clerical rule overthrown by the 1962 Yemeni revolution which created the Yemeni republic.

On Feb. 11, the government and Shiite rebels struck a ceasefire agreement to end the conflict in the northern part of the country. However, both sides repeatedly trade accusations over breaching truce, which so far still holds.

Source:Xinhua