Yemeni authorities are questioning a journalist over alleged links to Shiite Muslim rebels accused of planning attacks against strategic sites, the ruling party said Thursday.
Abdelkarim Al-Kiwani, editor of the Al-Shura weekly of the Union of Popular Forces Shiite party, "is currently being questioned ... about a link to the terrorist cell" led by Abdulmalik al-Huthi, it said on its website.
Tribal chief Huthi is the leader of Shiite rebels who have battled since 2004 to restore the Zaidi imamate which ruled in Sanaa until a 1962 coup by republican forces.
Kiwani is accused of having ties to 15 rebels being held in custody for allegedly plotting "terrorist" attacks around Sanaa and killing two police in a shootout.Another 10 members of the alleged "cell" are being sought by the authorities, the official SABA news agency reported.
The Zaidis and the government recently agreed to a ceasefire which took force Saturday, but Huthi has since accused government forces of failing to respect the truce.
An offshoot of Shiite Islam, the Zaidis are a minority in mainly Sunni Yemen but form the majority in the north.
The ancestral homeland of Osama bin Laden, Yemen also faces a separate Al-Qaeda-inspired insurgency among its Sunni majority.
Sanaa has received help in its battle against the Sunni militants from US special forces based across the Bab al-Mandab strait in Djibouti.
