Special to WorldTribune.com

ABU DHABI — Yemen, in a move meant to promote reconciliation, has
reinstated hundreds of military and police officers dismissed under the
regime of then-President Ali Abdullah Saleh.

Yemeni President Abbed Rabbo Mansour Hadi ordered the reinstatement of
some 700 military and police officers dismissed by the Saleh regime after
the civil war in 1994.

The president said the decision was meant to encourage reconciliation amid calls for another secession by the south.

“It also included the reinstatement of 57 retired officers to the service in the armed forces and promoted them to colonel,” the presidential statement said.

The presidential decree, issued on Sept. 11, directed the return of the officers to the Defense Ministry and Interior Ministry. The decree promoted several of the retired police officers to the rank of brigadier general and colonel.

Officials said the presidential decision marked the implementation of
recommendations by a government panel to resolve the plight of the dismissed
military and security personnel. They said some of the dismissed could
return to the Political Security Organization, responsible for domestic
intelligence.

Sanaa has faced the revival of Al Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula in
southern and eastern Yemen. Officials said AQAP was receiving help from
tribes as well as southern secessionists.

The Hadi regime has also tried to contain renewed fighting between Sunni
tribes and Iranian-backed Shi’ite militias in the north. More than 70 people
were said to have been killed in clashes between the Hamid Al Ahmar tribe
and the Shi’ite rebels, known as Houthis, in the northern province of Saada.

  Abbed Rabbo Mansour Hadi, Al Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula, Ali Abdullah Saleh, Houthis, Yemen president reinstates police officers in reconciliation bid