[05/November/2009]

SANA'A, Nov. 05 (Saba) - Yemen on Thursday rejected claims by the Houthi rebels that Saudi forces had conducted air raids targeting Yemeni villages on common border.

A military source said the propagation of such move by Saudis was baseless, adding the insurgents used to post lies in apparent attempts to bring the two countries into conflict.

The Yemen-Saudi Arabia ties are above all this, the source affirmed.

The announcement by the rebel information office was also an attempt to draw attention as the insurgents have started to lose their strength amid intensive military operations against them in Saada and Amran, the source said.

The army is continuing battling the rebels since August taking their strongholds and killing and arresting hundreds of the Houthi fighters.

This year's confrontations come within the year-long war against the north-based insurgency that started in 2004 when the then-Houthi leader, Hussein Badr al-Din al-Houthi who was killed in the same year in battles with the troops, ordered his followers to take weapons and fight the authorities.

The rebellion was aimed at reinstalling imamate rule and seeking the autonomy of Saada province on the border with Saudi Arabia.

Yemen accuses Iranian religious authorities of supporting the rebels, saying much evidence over Iranian involvement in its affairs was collected and submitted to Iran.

FR

Saba