الصحافة لهذا اليوم 20/12/2010

[سفيان]

Armed separatists take army officer hostage in south Yemen



08:39, December 20, 2010


Armed separatists take army officer hostage in south Yemen



08:39, December 20, 2010



Armed wing of the Yemeni separatist Southern Movement took an army officer as hostage in the southern province of Lahj to press for the release of a number of their activists, a security official of the Interior Ministry said on Sunday.

Captain Mohammed Ali Abdullah Hadween, who is also a prominent chieftain of a pro-government northern influential tribe, was held late on Saturday in a checkpoint set up by the armed separatists while he was among passengers travelling from Aden to the capital Sanaa, the official told Xinhua on condition of anonymity.

"It is a dangerous development that the armed separatists began to establish their own checkpoints for terrorizing passengers along the safest highway in Lahj that links major southern provinces to the north," the Sanaa-based official said.

"Hadween's tribe has dispatched high-level tribal mediators to visit the chieftains and dignitaries of Lahj to seek his release," he added.

Last week, the same armed wing of Southern Movement in Lahj kidnapped four soldiers and freed them two days later unconditionally, according to a security official in the province.

Northern and southern parts of Yemen unified in 1990 under a deal between the People's General Congress and the Yemeni Socialist Party. However, the deal fell apart which led to a crisis between the two allies and turned into a civil war in 1994.

Sanaa has come under mounting pressure from Washington and the international community which asked the Yemeni government to solve its internal conflicts and focus on fighting Yemen-based resurgent al-Qaida regional wing.

Source: Xinhua