Yemen Shi'ite rebels free scores of prisoners

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 drew in neighbouring oil exporter Saudi Arabia last year.

While a step forward, the release highlighted differences that remain between the sides, with a military official saying more government prisoners were still being held and the rebels demanding the state free imprisoned insurgents.

"The truce committee received 170 detainees, some military and others tribesmen who fought alongside the forces during the latest clashes," the military official told Reuters. "There are still many detainees being held by the rebels."

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

Western governments and neighbouring Saudi Arabia, the world's biggest oil exporter, fear al Qaeda is exploiting instability on many fronts in Yemen to recruit and train militants for attacks in the region and beyond.

Analysts say the truce deal between the government and rebels, who belong to the minority Zaydi sect of Shi'ite Islam, was unlikely to last as it does not address the insurgents' complaints of discrimination by Sanaa.

The prisoners were handed over in the northern province of Saada, the scene of most of the fighting, and would be moved to Sanaa on Thursday, 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 prisoners jailed since the first (phase of the) war," said rebel spokesman Mohamed Abdel-Salam, whose account of the number freed was higher than Sanaa's estimate.

Al Arabiya had reported civilians were among those freed. But the military official said all prisoners were combatants, either directly for the military or fighting alongside it.

FIGHTING, BLASTS IN SOUTH

Sanaa had accused the rebels on Tuesday of delaying implementing the cease-fire deal, saying the rebels had returned to some positions from which they had withdrawn and had established new checkpoints.

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. The truce itself has been largely holding, officials have said.

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

Residents in the southern city of Dalea, where forces have strengthened their presence including monitoring the city from nearby mountaintops, reported clashes overnight between gunmen and security forces near a telecommunications centre, the independent News Yemen website reported.

Residents reported hearing a blast, followed by heavy exchanges of automatic weapons fire, followed by more explosions and gunfire. 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.

Yemen, which stepped up security at oil and coastal facilities on Tuesday, said it was also continuing to fight al Qaeda and had isolated them in several southern provinces where the government also faces separate unrest from secessionists.

"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 on its web site.

"It (the security apparatus) managed to isolate terrorist elements in Abyan, Shabwa, Maarib and other provinces where these elements were not able to leave their hideouts," it added.

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 further hits on al Qaeda targets in south Yemen mountains a day later, also killed two other militants including Jamil al-Anbari, a local al Qaeda leader.

(Additional reporting by Raissa Kasolowsky in Dubai and Mohammed Mukhashaf in Aden; Writing by Cynthia Johnston; Editing by Robin Pomeroy)