Global General

Yemeni troops retreat from cease-fire area

(Xinhua)
Updated: 2011-06-06 07:38

SANAA - Yemeni Vice-President Abdu Rabu Mansour Hadi on Sunday removed troops and security checkpoints from downtown Sanaa on Sunday, where government forces and chieftain-led tribesmen had fought with each other for two weeks.

The fresh act is based on a Saudi-mediated cease-fire.

"The vice-president ordered to remove government troops and new- established security checkpoints in Hassaba district," official sources told Xinhua.

Meanwhile, an aide at the office of opposition tribal leader Sadiq al-Ahmar, told Xinhua that "al-Ahmar welcomed the directions of Vice-President Hadi and regarded it a positive step to restore stability in the region."

Government officials said Hadi formed on Sunday a committee headed by Brigadier Ghalib al-Gamish, chief of Yemen's intelligence body, to supervise the implementation of his directions in order to cement the Saudi-brokered truce.

The truce took effect on Friday, according to Hussein al-Ahmar in northern Amran province, a brother of the opposition leader Sadiq al-Ahmar.

However, residents in Hassaba district said they still heard a series of huge explosions and sporadic heavy shootings on Sunday evening.

The terms of agreed cease-fire deal have not been revealed to media yet. The new development in the Yemeni political arena came a day after President Ali Abdullah Saleh left for the Saudi capital of Riyadh to treat injures he sustained in a shell attack on his palace on Friday.