Al-Qaida mufti says no links with Yemeni Shiite rebels

SANAA, Feb. 6 (Xinhua) -- An al-Qaida mufti said in a statement posted on the Internet Saturday that his group has no links with the Yemeni Shiite rebels.

Abu Yahya al-Libi, an Afghanistan-based mufti and field commander of al-Qaida, said in the statement that his group has no relations with the Yemeni Shiite rebels, also known as Houthis.

"We are neither Houthis, nor with them," said Libi, adding that "our religious belief, doctrines, approaches and thoughts are totally different from theirs."

Libi has been shown by the al-Qaida media al-Sihab in more than a dozen Internet videos since last year.

Libi was reportedly born in Libya in 1963 and went to Afghanistan in the early 1990s.

The Yemeni army launched an all-out offensive, dubbed " Operation Scorched Earth" on Aug. 11, 2009 against Houthi rebels who Sanaa said seek to re-establish the clerical rule overthrown by the 1962 Yemeni revolution that yielded the republic.