At least 15 people, including five soldiers, have been injured in clashes between Yemeni security forces and separatists in the south.

Clashes erupted after police backed by army units tried to arrest a number of pro-independence activists in the southern Yemeni province of Dhala.

According to local accounts, security forces imposed a curfew and blocked the entrances to the city of Dhala, the provincial capital, to arrest activists.

On Thursday, a similar incident in the city of Lahj left three people dead, including two policemen.

Southern separatists have expanded their protests, complaining of discrimination following the unification of North Yemen and South Yemen in 1990.

Separatist groups claim that the central government discriminates against southerners, especially since a civil war in 1994 that ended with the defeat of the army of the formerly socialist south by northern forces led by President Ali Abdullah Saleh.

The Yemeni army has accused the Houthi fighters of breaking a ceasefire, only hours after it came into effect.

The Houthis have killed three soldiers in Iqab and a fourth in Al-Ain district while some others have suffered injuries in the country’s north on Friday, claimed the head of military operations in Sa’ada province, General Mohammed Abdullah al-Qussi.

He added that he personally escaped an assassination attempt after the Shia fighters opened fire on his car on Friday.

There was no immediate comment from the Houthi fighters.

Army commanders said the ceasefire came into effect at midnight (2100 GMT Thursday) after Yemen’s President Ali Abdullah Saleh agreed to halt assaults on Houthi positions in a bid to end six years of on and off fighting.

The truce came two weeks after the Hezbollah fighters offered a unilateral ceasefire with the government to protect civilian lives.

The United Nations says over 200,000 civilians have been displaced and hundreds have been killed since Sana’a started the war on the Houthis.

British Prime Minister Gordon Brown has ordered the suspension of direct flights from Yemen to the UK until stronger security measures are establish.

“We have agreed with Yemenia airlines — pending enhanced security — that they suspend their direct flights to the UK from Yemen with immediate effect,” Brown said in a statement on counter-terrorism to the House of Commons.

“We are working closely with the Yemeni government to agree what security measures need to be put in place before flights are resumed. Aviation security officials are in Sana’a at present looking at this,” he added.

The US and its Western allies allege that “a branch of al-Qaeda” is active in Yemen, pressing the government of Ali Abdullah Saleh to crack down on the militants.

Under such a pretext the United States has already deployed special forces in the country — a move that suggests another US military occupation in the region is in the offing.

This is while a senior Yemeni official has warned that any military intervention by the United States will not go as planned and quite to the contrary would make the terrorist network stronger.

“Any intervention or direct [military] action by the United States could strengthen the al-Qaeda network and not weaken it,” Rashed Al-Alimi, Yemen’s deputy prime minister for defense and security affairs, said earlier in January.

Yemen’s Houthi fighters have offered to hold talks with the government on the condition that it halts its attacks on the Shias.

A statement on the Houthis’ website publicized the intention for dialogue on Friday. A spokesman for the fighters said the proposal had come after President Ali Abdullah Saleh urged the Houthis to accept the government’s conditions for peace.

The central government has demonstrated five years of hostilities against the Houthis, which it accuses of violating the terms of earlier peace deals by taking foreign visitors hostage.

The government stepped up its offensives earlier in the year.

Saudi Arabia reinforced the armed campaign in November reportedly venturing beyond the Houthis positions into the areas resided by Shia civilians and using banned weaponry including flesh-eating phosphorus bombs.

Riyadh, for its part, blamed the fighters for a cross-border attack on the Saudi territory.

Yemen’s Shia minority, accuse Riyadh and Sana’a of waging a campaign of social, economic, and religious marginalization of Shia communities and of funding al-Qaeda and Wahhabi extremists to help quell the Shia resistance.

The offensives have claimed the lives of hundreds of people, causing the displacement of more than 200,000 civilians.

The Houthis, however, have also offered to hold peace talks with the Saudis, should the Kingdom abort the anti-Shia operations. Riyadh, the fighters say, is to prove that it is after peace and stability in Yemen, and that it respects the rights of the Yemeni nationals.

US Nobel Peace Prize laureate President Barack Obama has signed the order for a recent military strike on Yemen in which scores of civilians, including children, have been killed, a report says.

Upon the orders of Obama, the military warplanes on Thursday blanketed two camps in the North of the Yemeni capital, Sana’a, claiming there were “an imminent attack against a US asset was being planned,” ABC News quoted anonymous administration officials as saying on Friday.

The US air raids were then followed by a Yemeni ground forces attack.

The operation led to the death of around 120 people of whom many were civilians, including children, the report quoted Yemeni opposition as saying.

Obama also contacted Yemen’s President, Ali Abdullah Saleh, after the blitz in order to “congratulate” him on his efforts against ‘al-Qaeda,’ the US news outlet quoted White House officials as telling reporters earlier.

The latest development comes in the wake of recently intensified attacks on the country’s Shia Houthi fighters which has brought about a dire humanitarian situation in northern Yemen.

So far, the US officials have categorically denied any direct involvement in the air strikes on Houthi fighters, alleging they have only targeted growing al-Qaeda training camps, mostly located in southern parts of the Persian Gulf state. Yemen’s Houthi fighters however insist US fighter jets have been bombing their region, claiming the lives of civilians in their air raids.

The reports of the US military intervention in Yemen come as Saudi Arabia has also been lending full support to the Yemeni government’s crackdown on Yemen’s Houthi minority.

Yemen’s Shia minority have recently slammed foreign military intervention in Yemen and the United Nations’ apathy on the humanitarian situation and the “siege on civilians in northern Yemen.”

International aid agencies and some UN bodies including United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) and UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) have voiced concern over the dire condition of the Yemeni civilians who have become the main victims of the conflict in the country.

The United Nations, which according to its charter is set up “to take effective collective measures for the prevention and removal of threats to peace, and for the suppression of acts of aggression or other breaches of the peace,” has failed to adopt any concrete measures to help end the bloody war.

A meeting between the Yemeni president and a US delegation led by John McCain instigated the new round of fighting in northern Yemen, a report says.

At the time of the meeting, back in August, it was announced that the former US presidential candidate was meeting with Ali Abdullah Saleh to discuss the possibility of recruiting al-Qaeda forces for the Yemeni army, the Al-Minbar website reported.

According to the Arabic-language news outlet, the meeting focused on how al-Qaeda members could be persuaded to stand by the Yemeni army in the event of new clashes with the Muslim Houthi fighters in the north.

The report said that McCain had embarked on the trip to Yemen after several closed-door discussions were held about the Arab state at the US congress.

The outcome of the secret discussions was a series of suggestions that were floated to President Barack Obama, the most important of which centered on the importance of “saving Yemen” before it becomes necessary to engage in a military intervention.

However, now that Sana’a and the US-backed Saudi government seem unable to defeat the fighters, despite repeated attacks and air raids, the US and their British allies plan to deploy their forces to Yemen, the site predicts.

As a prelude to the military attack, Washington has already released “hundreds” of al-Qaeda members from prisons in Saudi Arabia, Yemen and Guantanamo and transferred them to Yemen with false nationalities, the report claimed.

The conflict between Sana’a and the Houthi fighters first began in 2004, but on August 11 the Yemeni army instigated a new wave of violence by launching a major offensive, dubbed Operation Scorched Earth, on the northern province of Sa’ada.

The government claimed that the fighters, who are named after their leader Abdul Malik al-Houthi, seek to restore the Muslim Zaidi imamate system, which was overthrown in a 1962 coup.

The Houthis, however, said that they are defending their people against government marginalization policies which they say have been adopted under pressure from Saudi-backed Wahhabi extremists, who consider Muslims heretics.

The Saudi Arabian government has aggravated the situation by launching an offensive against northern Yemen based on an allegation that the Houthi fighters had killed two of its soldiers on the border.

While Riyadh insists that it is targeting Houthi positions on ‘Saudi territory’, the fighters say Yemeni villages are being targeted with deadly phosphorous bombs, which cause massive injuries among the Muslim civilian population.

As Sana’a does not allow independent media into the conflict zone, there are no clear estimates available as to how many people have been killed in the Muslim province of Sa’ada since the beginning of the unrest in 2004 and in the recent violence.

The UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), however, estimates that since 2004 up to 175,000 people have been displaced by the fighting.

As Yemen continues its military campaign against the Houthi fighters in the north, US President Barack Obama offers assistance to battle Shia Muslims.

On Sunday, President Ali Abdullah Saleh received a letter from Obama, which pledged economic aid and assistance in fighting terrorism, the Yemeni SABA news agency reported.

“The security of Yemen is vital for the security of the United States,” said Obama in the letter, which was delivered to Saleh by the assistant for homeland security and counterterrorism John Brennan.

In the letter, Obama hailed what he called the partnership between the two countries in fighting terrorism and said that the Shia Muslims organization poses a common threat to everyone.

The US president also said that Washington would adopt a new initiative to help Yemen confront “development challenges and supporting reform efforts,” along with the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, donor states and the Gulf Cooperation Council.

Obama’s letter came as the Yemeni government forces once again breached a temporary truce with the Zaidi Shia fighters they are fighting with in the north.

Since 2004, the Yemini army and the Zaidi Shia fighters have been engaged in violent periodic clashes, in a war which has claimed the lives of thousands and displaced up to 15,000 civilians- based on UN High Commission for Refugees estimates.

After just over a year of relative peace, a fifth round of fighting erupted on August 11, as the Yemeni government decided to launch a new wave of attacks against the northern provinces of Sa’dah and Amran.

Since then, several attempts have been made to restore truce between the two sides, but the government has renewed the fighting.

The Yemeni government accuses the Houthis of trying to restore a Zaidi imamate system, which was overthrown in a 1962 coup.

The rebels, however, say they are defending their people, which make up around 40 of Yemen’s population, against religious oppression and fighting for their civil rights.

The conflict has also affected other regional states, as San’a has accused Iran, Libya and Iraq of providing the fighters with weapons- allegations that have been denied by all three countries.

The rebels have also claimed that Saudi Arabia is “directly supporting” the government’s military offensive by providing it with different types of weapons, military vehicles and financial aid.

A website for Houthi fighters recently released new footage of what they say proves that the Yemeni army is using Saudi Arabian weapons.

Meanwhile in Iraq, Independent MP Izzat Shabandar lashed out at San’a on Monday, calling its accusations “ridiculous” and charging that Yemen has created a sanctuary for Saddam Hossein loyalists and al-Qaeda leaders.

After Pakistan, Yemen is seen as the primary haven for al-Qaeda militants, who are using the country to organize and train more recruits.

Although there was no mention in the SABA report of Obama making any specific reference to the conflict with Houthi fighters, it did point out that the US president had touched upon the need to fight al-Qaeda.

Last month, Yemeni forces launched anti-terrorist operations in a tribal area known as an al-Qaeda safe haven.

However, after a short while and without reaching any significant results, they ended the operation claiming that it was more imperative to address the situation in the north.

Obama’s offer to help fight Al-Qaeda to Sana’a – which has not demonstrated a strong detrmination to eradicate the terorist group -comes as the latest opinion polls indicate that most Americans are opposed to US “war on terrror” in Afghanistan.

A recent national poll published by the CNN showed that 57 percent of Americans are opposed to the Afghan war, while only 42 percent of respondents approve of Washington’s alleged military campaign against the Taliban and their al-Qaeda allies.

US-led forces invaded Afghanistan in 2001 to allegedly eradicate militancy and arrest militan leaders .More than 8 years after the invasion, top Taliban and Al-Qaeda leaders arre still at large.