Sanaa: Yemen Houthi rebels said on Tuesday they had withdrawn completely from Saudi territory as part of truce offer extended to the world’s top oil exporter, with whom they have clashed along the Yemen-Saudi border.
“There has been a complete withdrawal from all Saudi positions and territory,” the office of rebel leader Abdul-Malik al-Houthi said in a statement posted on a rebel web site.
The leader of Yemen’s rebels offered a ceasefire to Saudi Arabia on Monday, and said his fighters would withdraw from the kingdom’s territory to avoid more civilian casualties.
The offer by Abdul-Malik al-Houthi followed three months of border fighting between Shiite rebels and Saudi forces which have used aircraft to bomb rebel targets.
“To avoid more bloodshed and to stop aggression on civilians … we offer this initiative,” Houthi said in an audio recording posted on the Internet.
Yemen’s central government has been fighting the rebels on and off since 2004, but the conflict intensified last summer when Sanaa launched Operation Scorched Earth to quash the latest upsurge in violence.
Saudi Arabia stepped into the fray in November when rebels seized some Saudi territory, prompting Riyadh to wage a major military offensive against them. The conflict in northern Yemen has displaced around 200,000 people, according to the United Nations.
source: Reuters