Houthi fighters in Yemen have released 100 government soldiers and announced that more will be freed in the coming days.

The latest batch of soldiers released had been held in the region of al-Amishiya in northern Amran province, Sheikh Hassan bin Abdullah al-Ahmar, a pro-government prominent tribal chief who helped mediate the prisoners’ release, said on Sunday.

Last Wednesday, the Houthis had released another 200 soldiers, the mediator told AFP, and added that another batch of prisoners, including civilian and military personnel, is also scheduled to be freed in the coming days.

He said the fighters have promised to free another 128 soldiers “tomorrow or the day after.”

The Houthis and Yemeni government forces fought a deadly war in July 2009.

The fighters say the offensive mainly killed civilians. Sana’a disputes the claim.

Northern Yemen is home to the Houthis, who accuse the central government of violating their civil rights.

Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh has accused the Houthis of violating a ceasefire in what appears to be a prelude to another military attack on the Muslim fighters.

“The state has abstained from all military action, while knowing that the rebels are pursuing other plans, as advocates of war who do not want peace,” President Saleh was quoted by AFP as saying on Saturday.

The fighters had earlier warned that government forces stationed in the Amshia Bsfian region were creating a new stronghold in Mount Guide, in preparation of another onslaught.

Authorities have been trying to “militarize” civilian life and amass servicemen in villages, homes and farms, the Houthis said earlier in the month.

The north-based fighters have been defending Yemen’s Shia minority against what they describe as efforts by the Yemeni leadership and neighboring Saudi Arabia to socially, economically, and religiously marginalize the community.

Nearly 350,000 people have been displaced and hundreds of others have been killed since 2004 when Sana’a began its crackdown on Shias.

The Yemeni government intensified its attacks in August 2009. Saudi forces joined Yemen in its campaign in November of that year, with Riyadh claiming that the fighters had been involved in cross-border attacks against the Kingdom.

In February, the Muslim fighters offered a unilateral ceasefire with the Yemeni government in an effort to protect civilian lives. The initiative led to a truce.

The Houthis recently released 200 captured army soldiers and their leader, Abdul-Malik al-Houthi, announced plans to release all prisoners ahead of the holy month of Ramadan as a goodwill gesture.

Yemen’s Houthi fighters have released 200 captured army soldiers while the Muslim group is expected to extricate more prisoners as a good will gesture.

A mediator between the Sana’a government and the Houthis reported the release of the forces that were captured on Monday, AFP reported on Wednesday.

The soldiers in question were handed over to officials in the Harf Sufyan district of the northern province of Amran, the mediator said on condition of anonymity.

The leader of the Hezbollah fighters, Abdul-Malik al-Houthi, has decided to release all prisoners ahead of the holy month of Ramadan in a good will gesture to further display his willingness for peace.

The report carried by al-Arabiya said that the soldiers belonging to regiment 72 of the army’s Republican Guards were captured after the Muslim fighters seized a strategic army post in Amran’s al-Zaala region on Monday.

The reported capturing came only a few days after the Muslim fighters and government-backed tribes announced a truce after a week of deadly clashes, which left up to 70 people dead.

Last year, the northern Yemeni province of Sa’ada and nearby areas were the scene of bloody clashes between Houthi fighters and Saudi-backed Yemeni forces.

The Houthis agreed to a truce in February after Saudi troops withdrew in early 2010.

Yemen Hezbollah Movement Houthi fighters captured an army base and several soldiers on Monday in clashes with the army which killed 10 people, Houthis and government officials said.

Houthis said that a number of soldiers had been taken hostage at the Zuala army base in the flashpoint north district of Harf Sufyan.

Among those killed in the clashes were fighters, soldiers, and tribesmen from the Ibn Aziz tribe which allied with the government against the Houthis in the northern war. Both sides declined to say how many men they lost.

Yemen agreed a truce with Houthis in February to halt a war that has raged on and off since 2004 and displaced 350,000 people. But instability still threatens Yemen.

Separately, security forces in southern Yemen killed three men believed to be al Qaeda members in continuing security sweeps following the militant group’s recent attacks on state security forces, a local security official said on Monday.

Ahmed al-Maqdisi, head of security in the southern province of Shabwa, said the three men were suspected of participating in an attack on Thursday on a security convoy in Shabwa that killed five soldiers and was blamed on al Qaeda.

At least 40 people have lost their lives in four days of clashes between Yemen Hezbollah Movement fighters and members of an army-backed tribe in northern Yemen.

“The confrontations between the Houthis and the supporters of the tribal chief Sheikh Sagheer Aziz have resulted in the death of 20 tribesmen and 10 Houthis,” AFP quoted a tribal source as saying on condition of anonymity.

But a member of the Houthi media office told Press TV that the latest clashes in Yemen came as a result of the army’s attacks against the Houthis and the tribes in the region of Souffian.

He said that Houthi fighters have surrounded the Yemeni military bases in the area. He also confirmed that both sides had suffered casualties but did not specify the number of killed or wounded from either side.

The Houthi source also said he did not rule out the possibility of Saudi and American involvement, saying the US was “intervening via Arab hands.”

Northern Yemen witnessed violent clashes following a massive offensive in August 2009 on Houthi fighters who took arms against the Sunni-dominated Sana’a government for its repression against the country’s Shia minority.

The offensive, soon joined by the Saudi military, took a heavy toll on civilians and drew repeated warnings of a humanitarian disaster before a ceasefire deal put an end to the conflict in February.

Yemen is reportedly preparing for another round of armed offensives against the Houthi fighters, despite the ongoing truce.

The Army is digging trenches, stretched from the capital of Sana’a to the Houthi stronghold of Sa’ada, the fighters said on their website on Saturday.

The fighters warned that government forces stationed in the Alamsheep Bsvian region had created a new stronghold in Mount Guide.

Authorities have been trying to “militarize” civilian life and amass servicemen in villages, homes and farms, the Houthis said.

Sana’a officials have been trying to pin the blame for a recent ethnic dispute, in which 11 people including two government soldiers died, on the Houthis, Reuters quoted Friday comments, posted on Arabic news website almenpar.com.

The Houthis also rejected as “false and incorrect,” the Interior Ministry’s accusations that their men had kidnapped two people in a market, before transferring them to an unknown location. The fighters claimed that the kidnappings were the work of the government.

The fighters defend Yemen’s Shias against, what they call, efforts by the Yemeni leadership and neighboring Saudi Arabia to socially, economically, and religiously marginalize the minority group.

Nearly 350,000 people have been displaced and hundreds others killed since 2004, when Sana’a launched the crackdown on Shias.

The government intensified the attacks in August 2009. It was joined by Saudi Arabia in November, with Riyadh claiming that the fighters had been involved in cross-border attacks on the Kingdom.

In February, the Shia fighters offered a unilateral ceasefire with the government to protect civilian lives. The initiative led to a truce.

The alleged plans to reignite the conflict come while Yemen has been experiencing relative calm since the agreement.

A spokesman for Yemen’s Hezbollahi Houthi fighters has called on the country’s government to release around 1,000 members of the Hezbollahi group.

“There are around 1,000 men still being detained by authorities,” Muhammed Abdul-Salam said on Friday.

“We urge the government to respect the ceasefire agreement and free all the detainees,” he added.

The spokesman explained that the dozens of people already freed had nothing to do with the group.

The conflict between Sana’a and Houthis began in 2004. It intensified in August 2009 when the Yemeni army launched Operation Scorched Earth in an attempt to crush the fighters in the northern province of Sa’ada.

However, the armed encounter ended after the government and the fighters agreed to a ceasefire in February.

According to the agreement, the Hezbollahi Houthis released 178 prisoners last month.

The group freed the prisoners after they received assurances from Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh that their prisoners would be released.

Yemen’s Hezbollah fighters have denied allegations that they had broken a ceasefire by opening fire on a government military airplane.

“We are not responsible for any shot fired at a military airplane on Thursday morning, and we have not fired at any airplane since the beginning of the truce on February 12,” the Houthis said in a statement on their website on Saturday.

“We are prepared to cooperate with every inquiry aimed at determining the source of this fire and those responsible for it,” the statement added.

The Houthis issued the statement one day after the official Saba news agency reported that the fighters had opened fire on a government Antonov aircraft flying above the city of Sa’ada on Thursday morning while a number of top army officers and officials were on board.

“The alleged event took place at 9:30 a.m. local time Thursday while the plane was doing a routine trip to transfer some military officers to the province,” the news agency said.

“The plane was not damaged or hit,” the agency quoted an official of the Higher Security Committee as saying.

The conflict between Sana’a and Houthi fighters in northern Yemen began in 2004. It intensified in August 2009 when the Yemeni army launched Operation Scorched Earth in an attempt to crush the fighters in the northern province of Sa’ada.

The armed encounter, however, ended after the government and the fighters agreed to a ceasefire Earlier in the year.

The UN High Commissioner for Refugees estimates that since 2004, up to 175,000 people have been forced to leave their homes in Sa’ada and take refuge at overcrowded camps set up by the United Nations.

Yemen’s President Ali Abdullah Saleh has called on the country’s Houthi fighters to enter into the county’s political arena by forming a party.

Hailing an early February ceasefire reached with the Hezbollah fighters based in the beleaguered north, Saleh said the group could play a role in the country’s politics as a political party.

The remarks come almost a month after the Houthis accepted the central government’s conditions in a bid to put an end to a massive onslaught in the north, backed by the Saudi and US military forces and logistics.

The joint offensive drove some 150,000 people out of their homes in battlefields in northern Yemen, Sa’ada province in particular.

Hundreds of people, including a large number of civilians, were killed since Yemen’s stepped up offensive was launched in August.

Last week, Houthi fighters complained that Sana’a had kept its siege over the capital of the northern Shia-dominated province of Sa’ada in contrast to the terms of the ceasefire.

“The army continues to this moment to refuse to lift the siege on the city of Sa’ada,” the Houthis said on their website, adding that the Yemeni soldiers were re-establishing military checkpoints on the newly-opened roads, Reuters reported.

The fighters said that the army was preventing citizens from entering their homes and was also preventing food supplies from reaching the war-stricken regions.

Some 187 children were killed as the result of the government and Saudi attacks during the war, said a recent report issued by UNICEF (the United Nations Children’s Fund) and the Yemen children’s rights organization.

Yemen’s Hezbollah Movement Houthi fighters say the central government has kept its siege over the capital of the northern province of Sa’ada.

“The army continues to this moment to refuse to lift the siege on the city of Sa’ada,” the Houthis said on their website on Thursday, adding that the Yemeni soldiers were re-establishing military checkpoints on the newly-opened roads, Reuters reported.

“They are preventing citizens from entering their homes,” They said. The Houthis added that the government is also preventing food supplies from reaching the war-hit regions.

The Yemeni government intensified its armed campaign against the Hezbollahs in August, accusing the Houthis of taking foreign visitors hostage.

Some 187 children were killed as a result of the government and Saudi attacks during the war, said a recent report issued by UNICEF (the United Nations Children’s Fund) and the Yemen children’s rights organization.

The Houthi grievance on Thursday comes only two weeks after the parties reached a truce agreement.

Yemeni Hezbollah Movement Houthi fighters have begun handing over the remaining Saudi soldiers they are holding to the committee in the northern town of Saada overseeing a fledgling ceasefire, a spokesman said on Thursday.

“We have started to hand over the rest of the Saudi soldiers to the ceasefire committee in Saada,” Mohammed Abdul Salam said.

Four committees in north Yemen are charged with implementing the ceasefire between the fighters and the government, which went into effect on Friday.

The fighters on Monday freed the first of five Saudi soldiers captured during the conflict as part of the six-point truce agreement with Sanaa.

As well as freeing all prisoners and opening roads in the north, the truce requires the Houthis to withdraw from government buildings, return arms seized from security forces, hand over captured army posts and pledge not to attack Saudi Arabia.

Last month, the fighters offered to accept the five conditions originally set by the government for a ceasefire and withdrew from all of the Saudi territory.

Saudi Arabia, however, continued its offensives alongside with the Yemeni Army. Sana’a rejected the Houthis’ peace offer, saying it would stop the war only if they complied with the government’s sixth condition.

Riyadh joined Yemen’s offensive against the Houthis after accusing the fighters of killing a Saudi border guard and occupying two border villages on November 3.

Sana’a on Friday said the situation was back to normal in northern Yemen following a truce deal between the military and Yemen Hezbollah Movement Houthi fighters.

The ceasefire, which came in force on Thursday night (2100 GMT), put an end to a massive military offensive launched by the Yemeni army in August, which was later joint by the Saudi army.

Human rights organizations had expressed worry about the deteriorating humanitarian situation in the war-stricken region, where hundreds of people were killed and tens of thousands more were displaced.

“Calm reigns on all fronts from Sa’ada and Malahidh (in the far north near the Saudi border) to Harf Sufian,” further south, AFP quoted one field commander as saying. Other army commanders also said the Yemen Hezbollah Movement Houthi fighters had started removing the roadblocks they had put up on some of the key routes through the northern mountains blocking government traffic.

Riyadh stepped into the fierce fighting against the Houthis in November after accusing the rebels of clashing with its border guards and, according to Yemen Hezbollah Movement Houthi fighters, went as far as targeting residential areas of villages lying miles into the Yemeni soil.

The truce is expected to halt the conflicts in northern Yemen and on the border with neighboring Saudi Arabia.

Iran has welcomed the truce as a step toward Yemen’s development and stabilizing peace in the region.

“The Islamic Republic of Iran has always called for a halt to military conflicts and the settlement of differences through peaceful means,” Foreign Ministry Spokesman Ramin Mehmanparast said Friday.

“We see [the truce deal] as a step toward the reinforcement of national unity in Yemen, and a contribution to stability and social and economic development of the country, and therefore we support the move.”

Yemen says it is close to a deal to end the six-month war with Yemen Hezbollah Movement Houthi fighters eventually after having refused previous peace offers.

Citing a Yemeni official, AFP reported on Wednesday that the development comes “in the light of (Yemen Hezbollah Movement leader Abdul Malak) al-Houthi’s acceptance of the six conditions,” put forward by the Sana’a, including a commitment not to attack neighboring Saudi Arabia.

“An agreement between the government and the Yemen Hezbollah Movement Houthi to end the war is imminent,” the official added.

According to the report, a mediator close to the fighters said a committee including government and Houthi representatives would be formed with the task of “establishing peace, and collecting heavy weapons from the Houthis.”

It would also “follow up the issue of prisoners and compensation for those affected by the war,” he added.

The mediator said the Yemen Hezbollah Movement fighters had agreed to “withdraw from the borders (with Saudi Arabia) and hand the area over to the Yemeni army.”

He said they have also agreed to “remove roadblocks … vacate government buildings and hand Saudi prisoners over to the Yemeni government.”

Last month, the fighters offered to accept the five conditions originally set by the government for a ceasefire and withdrew from all of the Saudi territory.

Saudi Arabia, however, continued its offensives alongside with the Yemeni Army. Sana’a rejected the Houthis’ peace offer, saying it would stop the war only if they complied with the government’s sixth condition.

Meanwhile, Ali Al-Ahmad, the founder and director of an independent think-tank in Washington told Press TV that Yemen is under international pressure to end the war on the Houthis.

“There is international push especially from the United States to end the war with the Houthis because the United States feels that it is time to focus on al-Qaeda in Yemen,” said Ahmad.

According to the expert, Washington is also trying to convince Riyadh to stop the offensive against Shia fighters.

Saudis have not stopped the attacks on Houthis, he said.

Riyadh joined Yemen’s offensive against the Houthis after accusing the Yemen Hezbollah Movement fighters of killing a Saudi border guard and occupying two border villages on November 3. Saudi jets began bombing Yemen’s northern villages the following day.

Iran’s Foreign Ministry on Sunday rejected Saudi claims of Tehran’s interference in Yemen, urging Riyadh to revise its own policies regarding Sana’a rather than pointing fingers at others.

The goings-on inside Yemen are its internal affairs and Iran calls on other countries to avoid interfering in the impoverished country, said Foreign Ministry spokesman Ramin Mehman-Parast.

“Tehran has repeatedly called for dialogue and a peaceful solution to the problem,” he said.

The spokesman said that Saudi Arabia’s claim came as “a surprise” to Iran, adding that, “We expected our Saudi brothers to move toward reforming their policies regarding Yemen, instead of accusing others.”

Saudi Foreign Minister Saud al-Faisal has accused Iran of interfering in Yemen’s internal affairs. The accusation comes after Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad denounced the Saudi military intervention in the war against Houthis in northern Yemen.

“My perception was that Saudi Arabia would mediate in Yemen’s domestic conflict like a father, or an elder brother, and make peace; not to get involved in the war and use bombs and guns against Muslims,” President Ahmadinejad said on January 13.

The Yemeni Hezbollahi Movement Houthi fighters say they’ve broken an advance by Yemeni forces in the Harf Sufyan district in the country’s north.

According to the fighters, two Yemeni military tanks were destroyed in the heavy clashes in the district.

Yemeni ground forces bombarded the area with massive artillery and rocket fire, while Yemeni warplanes targeted northeastern districts.

The conflict between the central government in Sana’a and the Houthis of northern Yemen began in 2004 and grew increasingly tense in August, 2009 when the Yemeni army launched Operation Scorched Earth.

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

Yemeni Hezbollahi Movement Houthi fighters have accused the Sana’a government of violating their people’s civil rights and undermining them under pressure from Saudi-backed Wahhabi extremists. Shias make up approximately half of the overall Yemeni population.

Saudi Arabia also launched its ground and aerial attacks against Houthi fighters after accusing them of killing a Saudi border guard and occupying two border villages on November 3.

The Saudi military says more than 130 of their soldiers have been killed in Yemen, with an unspecified number listed as missing in action.

The violence has left hundreds of dead and thousands more homeless.

The Swiss-based International Committee of the Red Cross says humanitarian conditions in Yemen are at their worst after five months of fighting between Saudi forces and the Houthi fighters.

Pakistan has reportedly sent an army combat unit to Yemen to join the war against the Hezbollahi fighters in the country’s north.

An informed source with the Pakistani daily Jang has said that a 300-strong unit of Special Forces has been deployed in Yemen.

US media reports say the US military and intelligence agencies are involved in joint operations with Yemeni troops.

Yemen launched a military offensive against the Houthi fighters in the northern Sa’ada Province last August. Saudi Arabia joined forces with the Yemeni government in November.

Sana’a accuses the Hezbollahi fighters of violating terms of a ceasefire in 2009 by taking foreign visitors hostage.

The Houthis accuse the Yemeni government of violating their civil rights and marginalizing them politically, economically, and religiously.

The Hezbollahi fighters say the offensives launched against the northern regions mostly target residential areas and result in civilian casualties.

Islamabad’s controversial decision is expected to cause public outrage in a country, which is similarly targeted by indiscriminate missile attacks.

The Pakistani public holds regular demonstrations to condemn Washington’s drone attacks on remote tribal areas bordering Afghanistan.

The US claims that the attacks are aimed at eliminating militant positions. However, they usually result in civilian casualties.

Houthi fighters in Yemen claim to have parried incursions by the army into their strongholds in the north, forcing government troops to retreat with their tanks ablaze.

The Houthis said they repelled the Yemeni soldiers who stormed their position on Thursday in the border village of al-Jabiri, 966 kilometers (600 miles) from the Saudi capital, Riyadh.

Four army tanks were destroyed in fierce clashes, the Houthis said, adding that they repelled another government advance in the northern Kataf district.

Yemen has maintained the bombardment of the northern city of Sa’ada, prompting a response from Houthi fighters who in retaliation attacked the city’s military command center.

Officials in Sana’a had no comment on the latest clashes.

Meanwhile, Saudi attacks in the north continued with more than a dozen airstrikes conducted by the Royal Saudi Air Force targeting civilian areas, the Houthis said.

Saudi Arabia has been pounding northern Yemen for months as part of a joint campaign with Sana’a against the Houthi fighters. The fighting has been costly for Riyadh, Houthis said.

Saudi Maj. Gen. Ali Zaid Al-Khawalji said the army has tasked units with retrieving the bodies of slain Saudi soldiers.

He said a number of Saudi troops — a lieutenant colonel who was a veteran of the first war in the Persian Gulf — had been killed in clashes with Houthi fighters in the area last week.

Saudi intervention, which began in November, has left at least 113 troops killed and hundreds of others wounded.

Houthis accuse Riyadh of targeting civilian areas far from the Saudi-Yemeni border. They say the attacks have so far left scores of civilians killed and thousands of others displaced.

Yemen’s Houthi fighters say the Saudi Arabian army has launched a new incursion into the north of the war-wracked country, followed by massive missile fire.

Tuesday’s Saudi advance led to a major battle that is still underway in the al-Dukhan region near the Saudi border, said Shia Houthi fighters in northern Yemen.

The move came a few days after the Saudi army failed to take a key military position in the region, which the Houthi fighters managed to retake form the kingdom two months ago.

Unable to crush the resistance from the Houthis since the beginning of their joint offensive with the Yemeni military in August, infuriated officials in Riyadh have vowed not to stop attacks until they cleanse the area of the local fighters.

Meanwhile, Saudi warplanes launched at least a dozen air raids targeting Maran and al-Razih districts, reported the Houthis, saying that nearly 1,000 missiles had been fired into border town areas.

On another front, the Houthis said, Yemeni forces launched further attacks in the northern city of Sa’ada — the Shia fighters’ main stronghold — destroying several homes and part of the city’s infrastructure.

Saudi airstrikes have claimed the lives of at least 13 people in the north of Yemen, Yemen’s Houthi fighters have said.

According to the Houthis, Saudi warplanes carried out 12 attacks the details of which are yet to be released.

The raids come only a day after the Houthis said some four civilians were killed by Saudi forces.

Saudi Arabia launched its military attacks in Yemen in November after accusing the fighters of killing two of its border guards.

The fighters rejected the accusations saying that Riyadh launched the operations to help the Yemeni government in its crackdown on the country’s Shias which began in August.

There are also reports that Saudi Arabia has used phosphorus bombs in Yemen.

The conflict in North Yemen began in 2004 between Sana’a and Houthi fighters. Relative peace had returned to the region until August 11, when the Yemeni army launched a major offensive, dubbed ‘Operation Scorched Earth’, against Sa’ada Province.

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

The Houthis, however, say they are defending their people’s civil rights, which the government has undermined under pressure from Saudi-backed Wahhabi extremists.

Civilians have been the main victims of the all-out war which has been fueled by foreign military intervention in the poorest Arab country in the region.

The United States has recently launched air raids against several targets in southern Yemen as part of what Washington claims are efforts to wipe out hundreds of al-Qaeda fighters operating in the country.

News and eye-witness reports, however, indicate that civilians, including women and children, have been the main victims of recent US air raids in Yemen.