Yemen Shi'ite rebels free scores of prisoners

SANAA (Reuters) - Yemeni Shi'ite rebels freed at least 170 government soldiers and tribal fighters on Wednesday after Sanaa accused them of dragging their feet on implementing a truce deal to end a northern war, both sides said.

The move came a day after a top Yemeni security body said the rebels were not fully complying with a deal struck in February to end a conflict that has raged on and off since 2004 and last year drew in neighboring oil exporter Saudi Arabia.

Wednesday's release of prisoners highlighted differences that remain between the two sides. A military official said many government prisoners were still being held and the rebels demanded the state free imprisoned insurgents.

"The truce committee received 170 detainees, some military and others tribesmen," the military official told Reuters."

Sanaa, struggling to stabilize a fractious country, came under heavy international pressure to end the northern war and focus on fighting al Qaeda, whose Yemen-based arm claimed responsibility for a December attack on a U.S.-bound plane.

Western countries and neighboring Saudi Arabia, the world's biggest oil exporter, fear al Qaeda is exploiting instability in Yemen to launch attacks in the region and beyond.

Analysts say the truce deal between the government and rebels, called Houthis after the clan name of their leaders, was unlikely to last as it does not address the insurgents' complaints of discrimination by Sanaa.

The prisoners were handed over in northern Saada province, scene of most of the fighting, Al Arabiya television reported.

"We closed the prisoner file by freeing 180 captive soldiers, and we hope the authorities will live up to their obligations and free (rebel) prisoners," said rebel spokesman Mohammed Abdel-Salam, whose account of the number freed was higher than Sanaa's figure.

Yemen's President Ali Abdullah Saleh accused regional countries of using the insurgency to destabilize Saudi Arabia, in an apparent reference to Iran. Tehran rejects the accusation.

"Foreign interference aims...to settle accounts and to send a message to Saudi Arabia through Houthi elements," he told Al Arabiya.

FIGHTING, BLASTS IN SOUTH

Sanaa had accused the rebels on Tuesday of delaying implementing the ceasefire deal, saying the rebels had returned to some positions from which they had withdrawn.

The rebels were also refusing to hand over landmines removed from the conflict zone, it said. A rebel spokesman has denied that the insurgents were using delay tactics.

Separately, violence broke out in the south, where clashes between separatist protesters, often armed, and security forces have killed and wounded people on both sides in recent weeks.

Residents in the city of Dalea, where forces have boosted their presence, reported clashes overnight between gunmen and security forces, the independent News Yemen website reported.

Residents reported hearing blasts and heavy exchanges of automatic weapons fire. But there was no word on casualties.

North and South Yemen united in 1990, but many in the south -- home to most of Yemen's oil industry -- complain northerners have seized resources and discriminate against them.

Al Arabiya and Al Jazeera television said last week that authorities had seized equipment from their Sanaa bureaux because of their coverage of the growing unrest in the south.

On Wednesday, President Saleh ordered the broadcasting equipment to be returned, a Yemeni official told Reuters.

Yemen, which stepped up security at oil and coastal facilities on Tuesday, said it had forced al Qaeda into isolation in the south, also the site of rising secessionist unrest.

"Harsh strikes on al Qaeda and its leadership forced the terrorist elements to hide in holes and find refuge in remote areas nearly empty of people," the Interior Ministry said.

Yemeni state media said that one of three militants killed in Sunday air strikes on al Qaeda targets was a Saudi militant, Samir al-Sanaani, who had been living in Abyan province.

The strikes, followed by hits a day later, also killed two other militants including a local al Qaeda leader, Yemen said.

(Additional reporting by Raissa Kasolowsky in Dubai, Mohamed Sudam in Sanaa and Mohammed Mukhashaf in Aden; Writing by Cynthia Johnston and Firouz Sedarat; Editing by Louise Ireland)