By Mohammed Ghobari
SANAA (Reuters) - Yemeni army engineers have entered a northern Shi'ite rebel stronghold to clear mines after insurgents quit the city of Saada as part of a cease-fire deal to end a war that has drawn in Saudi Arabia.
But tension flared in another corner of Yemen where authorities declared a state of emergency in a southern provincial capital to guard against attacks by separatists.
Yemen, the poorest Arab country, struck a truce on February 11 with rebels who have been fighting the state since 2004 over religious, economic and social grievances in the mountainous north.
The two-week-old northern truce has largely held, while a conflict with southern separatists has simmered.
Northern rebels left their Saada stronghold, some 240 km (150 miles) north of the capital Sanaa, on Thursday on condition they were masked, their routes unblocked and that they were not followed by security.
"After the evacuation, special military engineering teams moved to survey the city and a number of roads and buildings to remove any mines laid by the Houthis," the defence ministry said on Saturday in its online newspaper, referring to the rebels.
The engineers were also removing unexploded ordnance.
A number of displaced residents of the city had also begun to return to inspect their houses in Saada, the paper said. The conflict in north Yemen has displaced 250,000 people.
Yemen has shot to the forefront of Western security concerns after the Yemeni arm of al Qaeda claimed responsibility for a failed attempt to bomb a U.S.-bound plane in December.
Western governments and neighbouring Saudi Arabia, the world's biggest oil exporter, fear al Qaeda is exploiting instability on several fronts in Yemen to recruit and train militants to launch attacks in the region and beyond.
Saudi Arabia was drawn into the conflict with northern rebels in November after the insurgents seized Saudi border territory and accused Riyadh of letting Yemeni troops attack them from Saudi ground.
STATE OF EMERGENCY
In Riyadh, where Western and Arab donors were meeting to discuss economic aid for Yemen, a Yemeni official said Sanaa wanted "a faster march" to membership in the wealthier six-member Gulf Cooperation Council.
"Yemen is convinced that its integration within the GCC represents one of the most important means...to enable Yemen to contribute in consolidating regional and international security," said Abdulkareem al-Arhabi, Deputy Prime Minister for Economy, Planning and International Cooperation.
Yemen has previously said it wanted GCC membership by 2015.
In south Yemen on Saturday, authorities declared a state of emergency in the provincial capital of Dalea, citing the possibility of separatist violence two days after a policeman was shot dead in an ambush in a nearby province.
The policeman's death on Thursday brought to four the number of people killed in attacks on southern security men in a week as authorities also mounted arrest sweeps targeting separatists.
A government official said the state of emergency in Dalea was to guard against separatist violence.
Residents of the city had said a demonstration had been planned for Saturday to protest against recent arrests and to send a message to donors meeting in Saudi Arabia to remind them that the southern conflict had not been resolved.
People in south Yemen, home to most Yemeni oil facilities, complain that northerners have abused a 1990 agreement uniting the country to grab resources and discriminate against them.
Government officials said that a curfew would be imposed in Dalea from dusk, protests were banned, and roads to and from the city were closed. A Reuters witness said many Dalea phone lines appeared to be out of order on Saturday.
Tension has flared in recent weeks in the south after a separatist protester was killed on February 13 when police opened fire at a demonstration. Six others were wounded.
Police later clashed with demonstrators who came to claim the protester's body, igniting a week of unrest in which separatists burnt northern-owned shops and tried to block a road linking Lahj province to the main southern city of Aden.
Security officials have since launched sweeps that netted at least 130 arrests in four southern provinces including Dalea.
(Additional reporting by Mohammed Mukhashaff in Aden; Writing by Cynthia Johnston; Editing by Angus MacSwan)
