As the Yemeni government began a campaign against Al-Qaeda in the south of the country this week, peace talks with the Al-Houthi rebels started in the north, writes Nasser Arrabyee Even as Qatari-sponsored peace talks opened in Doha this week to try to bring an end to the six-year-old conflict between the Yemeni government and Al-Houthi Shia rebels in the north of the country, another conflict, this time against Al-Qaeda, opened in the country's south. This week the Yemeni government launched a campaign against Al-Qaeda operatives in the south of the country, with some 18 operatives being killed over the last three days, including three foreigners, most of them Saudi nationals. The campaign started when Al-Qaeda operatives killed some 15 government soldiers in an ambush in the Lawdar district of Abyan province in the south of Yemen on 13 August. Government forces had been surrounding the town of Lawdar, where some 60 Al-Qaeda operatives were barricaded in houses. On Tuesday, the government said in a statement that the campaign against Al-Qaeda in the country would continue until it had "broken the back" of terrorism. The mountainous district of Lawdar, about 350km south east of the capital Sanaa, is the home district of top leader of Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) Nasser Al-Wahaishi. This week's deaths came after three Yemeni security officials were assassinated by Al-Qaeda militants in less than a week in the province of Abyan. Earlier this month, four Al-Qaeda operatives surrendered after being surrounded by government forces. Of the three men, Hezam Mujali and Ali Hassan Al-Tais are the most important, Mujali having escaped from prison in Sanaa in February 2006 along with 23 other men and Al-Tais joining the AQAP after being released from the US detention centre in Guantanamo Bay in 2007. Lawdar is considered to be one of the most important strongholds not only for Al-Qaeda militants but also for southern separatists in Yemen. Both groups are accused of exploiting the mostly poor and unemployed young men of this remote district in order to gain recruits. According to the Yemeni government, the southern separatists have joined with the Al-Qaeda fighters, though the separatists say that the Al-Qaeda link is being used by the government as a justification to strike the southern movement. Southern opposition politicians outside Yemen condemned the government's strikes in the south of the country on Tuesday, as well as the siege imposed on Lawdar, saying that these were aimed at the southern separatist movement more than at the AQAP. "The strike on Lawdar is an attempt by the government to gain international support," said former southern president Ali Salem Al-Baidh, who calls for independence for the south of the country, on Tuesday in a statement from exile in Germany. Also on Tuesday, two other southern leaders said in a statement that the Yemeni government was concerned to target the southern movement rather than the AQAP. " What's happening in Lawdar has nothing to do with Al-Qaeda, but instead is part of a war on the south. It is a war on humanity, land and will," the statement said, which was issued by Ali Nasser Mohammed in Syria and Haidar Abu Bakr Al-Attas in Saudi Arabia. Both Mohammed and Al-Attas are in favour of solving the problems of the south within the framework of national unity, unlike Al-Baidh, who calls for the secession of the south. Southerners have been marginalised in Yemen since the 1994 civil war, during which Al-Baidh promoted efforts to secede. As violence continues in the south of Yemen, the situation in the north of the country is not much better, with at least 10 people being killed on Monday in clashes between Al-Houthi rebels and tribesmen loyal to the government in the Houth district of Amran province. These clashes come even as Qatari-sponsored peace talks began in Doha on Tuesday, with the aim of ending the six-year-old sporadic conflict between Al-Houthi Shia rebels and Yemeni government forces. Delegations at the talks, one representing the Yemeni government and the other the Al-Houthi rebels, hope to bring peace to the war-torn Saada area of Yemen. The Al-Houthi rebels claim that the community they represent is politically, socially, economically and religiously discriminated against in Yemen. The Yemeni government delegation at the Doha talks is headed by Ali Bin Ali Al-Qaisi, and it includes Mujahid Ghuthaim, chairman of Yemeni military intelligence, and Jalal Al-Ruwaishan, deputy chairman of the national security agency. Al-Qaisi is chairman of the committee charged with supervising the implementation of the six conditions set by the government and accepted by the rebels earlier this year with a view to ending the conflict. The Al-Houthi delegation is headed by Youssef Al-Faishi, and it includes Dhaif Allah Al-Shami and Yehia Al-Houthi, who is based in Germany. The Doha talks will focus on the details of implementing the six conditions for an end to the conflict, which include the rebels leaving their mountain strongholds, handing in their weapons and the release of detainees on both sides. None of these conditions has thus far been implemented, despite their agreement in February this year when the two sides announced a truce together with their desire to end the conflict.
