Yemen is close to reaching a deal with northern rebels, a government official said Wednesday, aiming to end a war that has raged on and off since 2004 and drawn in neighboring Saudi Arabia. The government and rebels have been exchanging proposals in recent days to settle the conflict, one of three that the government is fighting on its territory, and Sana'a was waiting for a final agreement from rebel leader Abdul Malik Al-Houthi. “A deal is expected to be finalized soon with the Houthis to end the war,” the official told Reuters. Yemen said last week it had handed the rebels from the Shi'ite minority a timetable for implementing the government's ceasefire terms, a week after rejecting their truce offer because it did not include a promise to end hostilities with Saudi Arabia. The Kingdom was drawn into the conflict in November when the rebels infiltratred some of the Kingdom's territory. Riyadh declared victory over the insurgents last month after they offered a separate truce, and said they had withdrawn from its territory. As part of the truce deal with Yemen, Sana'a will allow representatives of the rebels to sit on a committee overseeing the truce and the insurgents agreed to hand over weapons they seized from the Yemeni forces, Yemeni officials said. The deadline for the full implementation of the truce had been a point of contention, with the rebels asking for more time for their fighters to leave mountainous positions, they said. A mediator signaled Tuesday possible progress in efforts towards a truce between Yemeni government forces and the rebels, who complain of social, religious and economic discrimination. Qatar brokered a short-lived ceasefire between the government and rebels in 2007 and a peace deal in 2008, but clashes soon broke out again. Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh unilaterally declared war again in July 2008 and full-scale fighting resumed a year later. Yemen is also struggling with a southern secessionist movement and cracking down on al Qaeda, whose Yemen-based regional wing claimed a failed bomb attack on a US-bound plane in December. Yemen's foreign minister said Sana'a could protect its regional waters and would take threats seriously after Al-Qaeda's Yemen-based wing called for a blockade of the Red Sea and a regional jihad. “The Yemeni government takes Al-Qaeda threats seriously, and the security apparatus will deal with them,” the Defense Ministry's online “September 26” newspaper quoted Abu Bakr Al
