Government forces reported renewed clashes with rebels in northern Yemen Monday, two days after the embattled insurgents said they were ready for a truce if Sana'a halted its attacks. “Army forces were able to destroy a number of rebel hideouts in the Saada district,” military sources said, adding that “a number of rebels” were killed and their weapons destroyed. Security forces and rebels also fought Monday in the Malahiz border region and in Sufyan in the northern Omran province, the sources said. A provincial opposition politician thought to be active in the separatist movement was gunned down in south Yemen, his party and local residents said. The Yemeni Socialist Party said Saeed Ahmed Abdullah Bin Daoud was shot dead Friday in the southern town of Zanjibar in Abyan province. Arms dealer held Authorities arrested a man said to be the country's second-largest arms dealer in the insurgency-hit northern Saada province, a local security source said on Monday. Hussein Hussein was arrested “without confrontation” and taken along with his son to Sana'a by helicopter Sunday, the source in Saada said. Meanwhile, police were searching for a man suspected of trying to blow up an oil pipeline that carries crude to a Red Sea port. A police patrol tasked with protecting the pipeline found a man installing a fuse cable “usually used in explosives” near the main road in Jihanah, around 30 km east of the capital Sana'a, the ministry said on its website.
