Shi'ite rebels kill Yemen officer, official says

SANAA (Reuters) - A Yemeni army officer was killed by northern Shi'ite rebels days into a ceasefire in a war that has drawn in Saudi Arabia and has raged off and on since 2004, a government official said Tuesday.

The 51-year-old colonel was killed Monday while eating lunch at a checkpoint in the northern Jawf province after coming under rebel fire, a website of Yemen's ruling party said.

But the official told Reuters the shooting was linked to a dispute between the officer's tribe and the rebels and not to clashes between the army and the insurgents.

The northern rebels agreed Thursday to a truce with the government in Sanaa. The government has come under pressure to turn its focus to a crackdown on a resurgent al Qaeda after a failed December attack on a U.S.-bound plane claimed by al Qaeda's Yemen-based wing. The Shi'ite insurgents and the Yemeni government have sought in recent weeks to wind down fighting. The rebels complain of religious, social and economic discrimination in Yemen.

The rebels reported on their website that a main road to neighboring Saudi Arabia had been opened with their help, saying it was part of "measures affirming our desire to establish peace, security and stability."

Saudi Arabia, the world's top oil exporter, began fighting the Shi'ite rebels in November when insurgents seized some Saudi territory, accusing Riyadh of letting Yemeni troops use Saudi land to launch attacks against them.

Separately, the central bank said Tuesday that it injected $43 million into the foreign exchange market to support the Yemeni rial, bringing the value of its hard currency sales this year to $495 million, the state news agency Saba reported.

Currency traders in the southern port city of Aden said the rial edged up after the injection to 214 for each dollar from 214.5 Monday.

In January, when fighting still raged with rebels and amid government raids on al Qaeda militants, the rial fell to 215 for each dollar from 208 despite a $150 million injection by the central bank.

Yemen's foreign minister has been quoted as saying Sanaa assumes the rebels are serious about wanting to end the war, but that it was normal for any truce to see some violations.

Riyadh and Western powers fear impoverished Yemen may become a failed state and that al Qaeda could use the country as a base for attacks in the region and beyond.

Sanaa, which has escalated air strikes and targeted leaders of al Qaeda, is trying to boost security and an ailing economy but is overstretched from its fight with rebels, a crackdown on al Qaeda, and a bid to contain southern secessionist sentiment.

(Reporting by Mohamed Sudam and Cynthia Johnston; additional reporting by Mohammed Mukhashaf in Aden; writing by Cynthia Johnston and Firouz Sedarat; Editing by Michael Roddy)